IP telephony solutions penetrate telecoms market

The telecommunications sector itself is being redefined by the broad uptake of IP telephony solutions.

Figures from Infonetics show that small cell backhaul deployments are now seeing no barriers to adopting IP telephony solutions such as the old concerns relating to synchronisation and packet timing.

About 150 different operators around the world are deploying all-IP backhaul at some stage in their network this year, up by half on 2010 and six times as many as in 2009.

Meanwhile, mobile operators are also moving to all-IP backhaul in their core networks, a separate Infonetics report notes.

In 2010, for instance, 89 per cent of equipment spending by major mobile operators was on IP and Ethernet equipment.

"The radio access network is changing," observes Infonetics' directing analyst for microwave Richard Webb.

He adds: "There is a perceivable transition to IP-centric base stations, collocated 2G, 3G and 4G base stations, and smaller, more densely deployed base stations."