FMC subscribers to reach 18m in 2011

Fixed mobile convergence (FMC) is growing at an incredible pace, according to new research released today.

Pyramid Research claims that the current figure of 400,000 FMC users is set to rise to 18 million by 2011.

This level of growth will lead, Pyramid projects, to an almost 70-fold increase in value of the FMC sector, up to $9 billion annually.

Svetlana Issaeva, the report's author, foresees that "there will be a large number of launches in the next two to three years" for new FMC services.

"We expect to see more teething problems with FMC services in the short term, and only a few of the commercial offers will become immediate commercial successes," she predicted.

"European markets - and after 2007, Japan and Korea - will lead the adoption of consumer FMC services."

FMC is an area garnering increasing levels of attention as the VoIP revolution continues apace and traditional telephony providers lose ground to new emerging rivals.

Next month's Las Vegas Interop conference on computer technology will see a day of events devoted entirely to the FMC sector and the future of convergent telephony solutions.