Small businesses (5 to 99 employees) within the United States contribute close to half the GDP and provide employment opportunities for nearly half of the working population. The small business sector, which covers various industry segments, has a relatively high spending ratio as well. Recent findings in a new In-Stat research indicate that by 2015 small business spending on wireline voice services will hit the $16 billion mark.

In a release, Greg Potter said that "Wireline voice, although not growing in any significant way, is holding steady across all sizes of business. One service segment we see that could be vulnerable due to alternative technologies like VoIP is international long distance services. Even though the total dollar spend remains high, we see negative growth over the forecast period."

Additional data on Small Business Spending within the research indicate that within small businesses, the hospitality and food sector will spend $2 billion by 2012 on wireline voice services while the total toll-free service expenditures in the coming 5 years will see an increase of $134 million. Businesses in the government segment will see an increase of $4.7 billion by 2015 in spending with SOHO spending reaching $267 million on other services in 2015. These include audio-conferencing services, outbound calling services, and pre-paid calling.

Detail for US business wireline voice services spending for the 2010-2015 period has been categorized under local services, domestic long distance, international long distance, toll-free services, and other services.

Forecasts have been divided into size-of-business segments and sub-segments which include, Home office (1 to 4 employees), Small office (1 to 4 employees), Small business (5 to 9 employees, 10 to 19 employees, and 20 to 99 employees), Mid-sized business (100 to 499 employees and 500 to 999 employees), Enterprise (1,000 to 4,999 employees, 5,000 to 9,999 employees, and 10,000 or more employees).

Forecasts in the In-Sat research have been further sub-divided into vertical markets which comprise of Administrative and support services, waste management, Arts and entertainment, Construction, Education, Finance and insurance, Forestry, fishing, and agricultural services, Government, Healthcare and social services, Hospitality and food, Information and communication, Management of companies and enterprises, Manufacturing, Mining, Other services, Professional services, Real estate, Retail trade, Transportation, Utilities and Wholesale trade businesses.

For more information on In-Sat, please visit www.instat.com/.