Sure, we've given Comcast some grief over the years, but one thing that can't be denied is the speed at which the company absolutely dominated of the VoIP (sorry, Digital Voice) market. Today Comcast reached out to us to note that they're now the third largest residential phone company in the United States, only behind AT&T and Verizon. As of the fourth quarter of last year, the cable giant had leap-frogged over Qwest with 6.47 million VoIP customers, compared to 5.961 million (and dropping) lines for Qwest.

"Customers are choosing Comcast phone services because of the cost savings," Comcast Spokesman Charlie Douglas insists, claiming that Comcast service is 20 - 30% less than traditional phone service. The speed at which Comcast got VoIP deployed means they're grabbing the lion's share of the landline defectors coming from the baby bells. The fact that Comcast service is substantially more costly than independent VoIP carriers didn't seem to phase consumers, who are increasingly drawn to triple play promotional deals.

Comcast of course would argue that the higher price reflects the fact that Comcast's Digital Voice is a completely different service from their broadband service, and untouched by Comcast's new traffic management scheme. That ruffled the FCC's feathers recently, but isn't likely to see FCC action, given we've seen no evidence the throttling system deteriorates indie VoIP quality (they worked with Vonage to ensure as much). Most reasonable network neutrality advocates also aren't interested in preventing a carrier from prioritizing their own phone services.

The result is that Comcast's Digital Voice service quality gets higher marks than independent operators when it comes to audio quality. Meanwhile, outfits like Vonage continue to struggle with customer defections. One telecom analyst firm consultant tells us that independent operators hold less than 10% of the market now -- a number that continues to drop. The recent Sunrocket kerfuffle did little to help the impression that independent VoIP is going the way of the dodo -- at least among mainstream consumers wary of unfamiliar brands.

The next phase of the game involves AT&T and Verizon finally taking VoIP seriously. Traditionally terrified of expediting eroding landline revenues, both carriers have been tinkering in the residential VoIP market only half-heartedly. That should finally change this year, with both AT&T and Verizon planning major assaults on the sector. Verizon's re-branded Voicewing service officially dies March 31, to be replaced by their new Digital Voice service. After killing CallVantage, AT&T is also cooking up a more serious VoIP product.