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Tag: carrier-voip

  • Demand Up, Prices Down for Carrier VoIP and IMS Equipment

    The total service provider VoIP equipment market, including trunk media gateways, SBCs, media servers, softswitches, and voice application servers, decreased 9% from 2Q10 to 3Q10, to $511 million, according to Infonetics Research. While revenue is down for the quarter, shipments for almost all segments in the market are up sequentially.

    The research firm has just released its third quarter (3Q10) Service Provider VoIP Equipment and Subscribers and IMS Equipment and Subscribers market share and forecast reports.

    The raport finds that Asia Pacific is the only region expected to post year-over-year revenue growth in 2010 for service provider VoIP equipment and that in 3Q10, GENBAND leads the combined carrier VoIP and IMS equipment market for worldwide revenue.

    “The number-one story that will come out of 2010 for the IMS and carrier VoIP equipment markets is China, where conditions are driving volumes up and pushing prices down. There are large network transformation projects underway in China, so demand for equipment is very strong, but at the same time, vendors are willing to push the pricing limits to get into strategic accounts,"noted Diane Myers, directing analyst for VoIP and IMS at Infonetics Research.

    "In the third quarter of 2010, every product category except media servers was impacted by pricing pressures, so while shipments were up for most segments, total worldwide revenue took a hit. Looking at the long-term prospects, the network elements that are best poised for solid growth are those that facilitate the migration to all-IP networks, such as session border controllers (SBCs),” she added.

    According to the report, the worldwide IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) equipment market, including IMS core equipment and application servers, grew 4% in 3Q10, on the heels of a 34% jump in the previous quarter.

    In 3Q10, the 4 top vendors, Alcatel Lucent, Ericsson, Huawei, and Nokia Siemens Networks, continue to fight it out for new deals and replacement RFPs. Ericsson and Nokia Siemens saw revenue growth with CSCF in a relatively flat quarter.

    Overall, the IMS equipment market is experiencing strong and healthy growth, driven in the near-term by the continued adoption of VoIP services and service provider migration of VoIP services to IMS networks.

    Longer-term, the IMS market will get a boost from the push for enhanced mobile services, with LTE being the most significant driver, as the analysts claim.

  • Nortel CVAS Enhances Its 4G Mobile VoIP Solution

    Nortel CVAS (Carrier VoIP and Application Solutions) unveiled new wireless and 4G mobile VoIP solution enhancements. According to Nortel, the enhancements equip carriers to deliver “a superior user experience, reduce network deployment costs and speed time to market.”

    It equips operators to integrate seamlessly with all cellular technologies, including 2G, 3G and the latest 4G LTE and WiMAX networks. The solution delivers a set of voice, messaging and multimedia services to all of the subscriber’s devices, with seamless hand-off across WiFi, GSM 2G/3G, CDMA 2G/3G, HSPA/+, WiMAX and LTE networks.

    Nortel CVAS says its new enhancements in 4G Mobile VoIP also equip carriers with “advanced routing capabilities for querying a Home Location Register“ to optimize call routing into the cellular network, billing enhancements to facilitate billing correlation between legacy cellular and SIP networks, and roaming support on a foreign cellular operator’s network.

    “The solution offers integrated wireless signaling gateway capability that allows operators to leverage their existing OAM systems for fault management, performance management, provisioning and billing. Subscribers can enjoy a better communication experience because the solution enables seamless hand-off between mobile and broadband networks, as well as advanced features like single identity, presence, web-based call screening, visual voicemail, and SMS to IM interworking,” the company says.

    Nortel is implementing large scale 4G VoIP network that offers voice continuity between 4G mobile VoIP, existing 2G/3G cellular voice and WiFi. In addition, they have deployed VoIP solutions that leverage the subscriber’s laptop and mobile device in parallel for call control and multimedia service enrichment.

    Nortel CVAS 4G Mobile VoIP solution enhancements are expected to be available in the second half of 2010. The solution can be deployed as a stand-alone SIP Application Server, as a 3GPP IMS-compliant application server or as an upgrade for carrier customers who have already deployed Nortel’s Communication Server (CS) 2000 IP Multimedia softswitch .

    Samih Elhage, president, CVAS, Nortel said, "Our 4G Mobile VoIP solution simplifies operator deployments and eliminates the need for costly upgrades to existing Mobile Service Control Points and back-office systems, which results in lower costs and faster time to market for carriers. In addition, Nortel CVAS mobile VoIP and FMC innovations have been deployed by several leading service providers across the globe."

  • Carrier VoIP Continues to Transform Mobile/Fixed Networks

    Synergy Research Group released their newest report „Carrier VoIP Q4 2009 and YE 2009 market shares” that shows that the worldwide market for Carrier VoIP totaled just over $10 billion for the full year 2009.

    Year over year, the market fell 18 percent; significantly less than drops measured in other Telecom and IT equipment markets.

    The biggest drivers for Carrier VoIP traditionally have been migrating aging TDM PSTN switches to VoIP platforms. In the last 24 months further growth has been added with Mobile Operators pursuing the Capex and OpEx advantages of IP as did the Wireline networks before it.

    According to Synergy, mobile deployments for Carrier VoIP have made a serious impact on market sizes and market players for the VoIP Media

    “Gateway market. Over the last 2 years the changes have been dramatic and change continues with GENBAND’s impending acquisition of Nortel’s CVAS group. The move by GENBAND will garner a market share position twice that of their nearest competitor,” say analysts.

    Synergy believes that IMS will have a strong impact on the Carrier VoIP market over the coming years. In 2009, it was clear that IMS made its mark as a highly viable and transformational service delivery platform for both fixed line and mobile carriers. One such marquee IMS example is AT&T’s U-Verse network where they have added over 1 Million IMS VoIP subscribers in the last 12 months.

    "Although IMS has been around for a number of years, it clearly showed its potential in 2009," said Jeremy Duke, Principal Analyst and Founder, Synergy Research Group.

    "Synergy believes 2010 will show more IMS market development with increased deployments and continued industry cooperation such as that seen with the One Voice Initiative."

    Another growing area being tracked by Synergy includes the GGSN/SGSN and PDN equipment markets. Synergy says that with Smart Phone usage increasing, a tidal wave of data and video traffic is building that will force mobile operators to make large investments to contend with the change in traffic.

    “We anticipate seeing more vendor activity here as vendors jockey to position themselves to take advantage of this network investment — as seen with Cisco acquiring Starent in late 2009,” says Synergy.