Voice: The Biggest Slice of the Triple Play -- Increasingly service providers are pursuing a larger share of consumers' wallets and are doing so by selling a bundle of services. Rather than selling their traditional services, voice or cable, providers are crossing over to sell a full set of services including voice, video, and data. This triple play of services is also becoming increasingly attractive to consumers who are interested in the convenience and cost savings that are available through such offerings. According to In-Stat, total consumer spending on communication services, including local voice, long distance, cable TV, dial-up, and broadband was $114.8 billion in 2004. The largest revenue opportunity of this total wallet was voice services, with local and long distance combined accounting for more than 50 percent of revenues. Over time, service revenues are expected to deteriorate, falling to $106.7 billion in 2009. This decline in revenues is a factor of decreasing revenues for the voice services as well as dial-up, while both cable TV and broadband services are expected to continue to rise.
What was once a simple, unidirectional flow of electricity from centralized power plants to passive consumers is evolving into a complex, intelligent network where millions of distributed resources actively participate in grid operations. This transformation, powered by smart grid technologies, represents one of the most significant infrastructure shifts of our time. It promises to reshape how we generate, distribute, and consume energy. At its core, the smart grid represents far more than mere digitization of existing infrastructure. This bi-directional capability is fundamental to understanding why smart grids are becoming the backbone of modern energy systems, facilitating everything from real-time demand response to the integration of renewable energy sources. Smart Grid Market Development By 2030, smart grid technologies are projected to cover nearly half of the global electrical grid, up dramatically from just 24 percent in 2025. This expansion is underpinned by explosive gr...