Carrier IP voice market down 10 pc in 3Q11

REDWOOD CITY, USA: Overall carrier IP telephony market revenues experienced a 10 per cent annual decline in the third quarter of 2011 as quarter-over-quarter growth in the voice application server (VAS) segment failed to offset declines in the media gateway, softswitch and session border controller (SBC) segments, finds Dell’Oro Group.

Two areas of strengths in the market were evident: Voice Over Long Term Evolution (VoLTE) infrastructure spending and, similar to last quarter, business-focused VAS services.

“Based on recent interviews with vendors and service providers, we found that 3Q11 was the first quarter of significant revenue recognition for IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) equipment for LTE voice services,” said Chris DePuy, analyst, Dell’Oro Group. “It is exciting to see early signs that VoLTE infrastructure spending is underway."

Genband maintained its revenue share lead in the wireline voice core market, while Ericsson remained number one in wireless voice core.

"While the services will initially focus on voice, we expect service providers to offer new messaging and entertainment offerings to customers that will compete with Over The Top services such as Skype. We will be watching for handset availability over the next year to confirm that VoLTE services are rolling out as planned,” continued DePuy.