According to a report released today by The Yankee Group, cable operators are still the leaders of the pack when it comes to VoIP deployments.

The Yankee Group report said that cable’s 167 percent growth rate for 2006 was the largest in the VoIP sector.

The study also forecast that the majority of residential subscribers will get their service bundles from cable companies by 2011. While single service VoIP providers, such as SunRocket and Vonage, have struggled, there is the potential that cable could face stiff competition in the VoIP arena from AT&T and Verizon with their respective fiber solutions, according to the Yankee Group.

Overall, VoIP adoption grew more than 125 percent last year with more than 9 million customers in the fold. The substantial growth rate was led by cable operators, who have utilized their triple play bundles as a means for signing up more subscribers to their telephony services.

“The U.S. consumer VoIP market continues to evolve and propagate,” said Patrick Monaghan, Yankee Group Consumer Research senior analyst, in a prepared statement. “The disruptive impact of global connectivity will continue to change the VoIP market – making it even more difficult to measure. Despite some growing pains we’ve seen in the VoIP market recently, the market continues to grow and has significant potential as ILECS begin to migrate and create increased competition for both cable MSOs and broadband VoIP providers.”

The report also said VoIP is evolving beyond residential phones by being embedded into Web-based ads, Web site assistance and other click-to-call solutions. The Yankee Group predicts that the number of VoIP dual-mode mobile phones will increase from 913,000 last year to 22 million in 2011.