On the ISP Planet website has been posted a piece of the sort everyone in the factoid-riddled 21st century loves: a list. It's not just any list, mind you, but a genuinely handy reference to the top 15 VoIP service providers, as of the end of the second quarter of 2006. . On the ISP Planet website has been posted a piece of the sort everyone in the factoid-riddled 21st century loves: a list. It' is not just any list, mind you, but a genuinely handy reference to the top 15 VoIP service providers, as of the end of the second quarter of 2006.

All results are based on reportage from the companies themselves. To their credit, most all the subscriber figures have been updated to the at least the end of second quarter 2006. An interesting exception is Skype, who surely boasts more than the 1.8 million they reported in July 2005.

The list looks something like this:

1. Skype. To no ones surprise, this subscriber is virtually synonymous with the term "Voiceover Internet Protocol" and is widely responsible for the spread of VoIP in the past year.

T2. Vonage. As of June 2006, Vonage had listed 1.8 million customers, but at that time also gave a figure of 2 million subscriber lines hooked into their product. Not bad for a product available only in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom.

T2. ISP Planet also gives Cox Digital Phone (a subsidiary of cable giant Comcast) a silver medal with 1.8 million subscribers, though the 2nd place showing carries an asterisk, for Cox provides - as the name would have you believe - digital phones rather than "true VoIP."

4. The same qualification goes for Time Warner Digital Phone with 1.6 million subscribers on its digital phone services.

5. Optimum Voice, a product of Cable Vision, claimed nearly one million customers as of last month. Since The Chump hasn't caught what would have to be a "one millionth customer"-theme press release, we can assume they're still in the neighborhood of the reported 988,000 subscribers.

6. CallWave figured they had some 780,000 subscribers as of May. However, the firm's brain trust had to inform investors of a slight drop in profits for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2006 and a one-third fall off in revenue due to "the expected churn in the dial-up subscriber base."

7. Untrue VoIP provider Comcast Digital Phone has run up 729,000 subscribers, but ISP Planet gives another asterisk here because the cable monster also has "978,000 circuit-switched customers not counted.

8. Charter, providers of cable VoIP, recorded 258,000 subscribers.

9. 8 x 8 really should have been one place higher, but hey, they've reported losses two quarters in a row now. 8 x 8 have over 100,000 lines to its credit.

10. SunRocket reported 128,000 subscribers to crack the top 10.

Smaller firms Insight Communications, Mediacom and business VoIP specialists Covad rounded out the top thirteen. Spots no. 14 and 15 were GCI and CBeyond, firms recording 27,000 and 23,000 subscribers respectively but serving Alaska only. The Chump twice spent summers in Alaska, and thus has no problems imagining that so many remotely-located folks with lots of nighttime hours to spare have created quite a VoIP culture.

And in his madder moments, the Chump misses the land of the Northern Lights