The most common questions people seem to have about telecommunications (and the high tech industries in general) are the "how big" ones -- questions about the size of markets, the number of installed units, the projected growth of one sector or another.

There are dozens of research groups and analysts who produce answers to these questions all the time. But not all answers are as useful as we would like. For one thing, research methodologies vary; often, when a consulting group releases a study, they offer up the most interesting statistic without providing a way to compare it to similar stats from other groups. Without knowing things like the size of the study or the qualities of the respondents, you can end up comparing apples to oranges.

Also, with stats that project market size into the future, there's no way to know whether predictions are based on hard data, wishful thinking, or the desire of a vendor to push a market one way or another. Sometimes studies are sponsored by vendors in a field; while this makes sense (no one, after all, needs to know more about market direction than the vendors that commit millions to product development and marketing), it's also dangerous in that it carries with it the perception of bias, even if it's not really there.

The trouble comes when companies use stats in a vacuum to make a point or justify a position -- the technology consumer doesn't necessarily have a context within which to make sense of the information. In short, data is only as good as the universe of knowledge you bring to it.

With that in mind, we set out to collect as much reported statistical information as we could find, and present it in a format that allows you to compare and juxtapose similar sets of data. In the pages here, you will find no interpretation -- just the facts as reported to us by analysts, consultants, market researchers, and occasionally tech vendors.

We have edited them to remove loaded words: "skyrocket", "amazing", "boom", etc. And we have, where possible, included information that explains the methodology that the researcher used. In some cases you will see stats that flat out contradict each other; that has a lot to do with the different methodologies that are used to gather information, as well as sometimes deliberate vaguenesses used in describing research results.

We do not vouch for the accuracy of any of the information here. We have sourced information back to its originator; in some cases, we have only been able to trace it to the person or group that we heard it from.

If you read all these sections straight through, you'll notice that we've repeated some of the stats we've uncovered into several sections. That's because they sometimes relate to more than one subject, and because they look interesting juxtaposed against different, alternative data. Enjoy.

See the actual Statistics:

VoIP / IP Telephony Statistics

Wireless Industry Statistics

Datacom / IT Statistics

Call Center & CRM Statistics

General Telecom Statistics