CES 2008: Comcast Now the Fourth Largest Phone Company in the U.S.

In addition to unveiling Fancast, a new TV-and-movie search site, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts dropped another zinger during his CES keynote on Tuesday. According to Roberts, his company recently jumped ahead of Embarq -- a Sprint spinoff-- to become the fourth-largest residential phone service provider in the United States.

Comcast has now signed on 4 million new VoIP customers in just over two years, according to Roberts, and has brought onboard nearly 12,000 employees to help manage this service. To keep things Comcastic, the company says it will invest a total of $450 million in its digital voice service in 2008. So far, Comcast is planning to roll out:

* Universal Caller ID to the TV and PC – customers can view caller information while watching TV or using their computer.
* SmartZone Communications Center – a central online location where Comcast customers can use "viewable voicemail" to listen to calls or forward them like email, send and receive email and, in the future, remotely program their DVRs.
* Enhanced Cordless Telephone – that will enable home phone users to check email and voicemail, send instant messages and access a “universal” personal address book as well as a yellow pages directory.

As DSLreports notes, at the end of the third quarter of last year, there were approximately 13.5 million VoIP subscribers in the United States. By and large, the 71 percent surge in subscriptions that's happened over the past year is mostly thanks to cable operators like Comcast. But don't expect Comcast to usurp the Bells anytime soon. As of the end of Q3, the industry-leader AT&T had 35.8 million lines in service. Comcast had 4.1 million.

For more on Roberts' keynote, Wired's Gadget Lab has full coverage from Las Vegas.

Brief Aside - Dan Hesse, the former CEO of Embarq -- the company Comcast beat out for the number four position -- is now the master and commander of Sprint. Embarq used to be the local telephone division (LTD) of Sprint Nextel.

Photo: Flickr/* Gerry D *