VoIP News: April 2007

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.

Posted on: 2007-04-30, in: General VoIP

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VoIP and tripleplay uptake soaring in Europe

The EU has released a survey showing significant increases in use of phone calls over the internet and mobile networks, as the Commission looks to investigate the telecom giants.

The survey was conducted across all EU member states on a sample of 27,000 representative households.

It showed an increasing uptake of mobile and internet solutions over the traditional fixed line services.

The poll found that a substantial 17 per cent of European households use the internet to make telephone calls.

The combination of internet access and telephone line continues to be the most popular product offered by providers, although there has been an increasing switch to mobile telephony.

Households with at least one mobile phone remained stable at 81 per cent, but those with at least one fixed land line dipped by five per cent from last year to 72 per cent.

And the proportion of "mobile only" households in the EU increased by four per cent to 22 per cent, with the popularity of broadband rising by six per cent to 28 per cent of all households.

The results of the survey come as the European Union's Commission is set to increase its investigations into the largest providers of mobile telephony because of worries of lack of competition in the market.

The EC has already investigated France's Wanadoo, owned by France Telecom, and there have been growing rumours it might also target Spain's Telefonica.

Posted on: 2007-04-30, in: General VoIP

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IP and Ethernet spending to overtake that of legacy systems

Business spending on legacy services will be overtaken by IP and Ethernet in 2010 as firms move towards next generation networks, In-Stat reports.

"Carriers continue to expand the capabilities of IP VPN and Ethernet services, making them an increasingly attractive alternative to legacy services such as Frame Relay and Private Line," said Steve Hansen, In-Stat analyst.

"Looking forward to 2010, these services will be the leading revenue generators in the enterprise segment."

In-Stat found that enterprises will spend $24.3 billion on wireline data services in the US in 2007.

It also said that legacy services (frame relay, private line, and ATM) currently account for majority of revenue but this will change over the next three years.

Posted on: 2007-04-27, in: Networking hardware, Telephony technology

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VoIP network to link UK academics

The country's academic institutions could be linked via VoIP as part of plans to encourage more remote telephony and conferencing.

Ukerna (the UK Education and Research Networking Association) which currently oversees the successful Janet academic network is planning to introduce VoIP to around 750 institutions across the country and reach around 18 million potential users, reports Computing.

It is hoped that the Janet Talk initiative will help academics to reduce call costs as well as encouraging greater cooperation by utilising the facilities already in place.

John Robinson, head of services management at the Joint Information Systems Committee, explained: "A central voice service will allow communication and collaboration across the joint network and will be a valuable research tool."

He added: "We have invested in the £29 million SuperJanet5 network and this is a good use of technology to exploit that investment."

The new VoIP system is expected to be functioning in time for the start of the forthcoming academic year.

Posted on: 2007-04-26, in: General VoIP

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Small business attracted to VoIP as a service

The concept of voice communications as a service is becoming very appealing to the small businesses sector, and the market for such services will reach $416 million this year - up from about $165 million in 2005, AMI Partners reports.

The research firm said that between 2005 and 2010, the cumulative growth rate will cross 56.9 per cent in the United States.

"In particular, the small business segment is forecasted to grow at a spectacular 69 per cent on a cumulative basis for the next five years," said Sanjeev Aggarwal, AMI-Partners' vice president for SMB Infrastructure Solutions.

"The concept of hosted VoIP is analogous to software-as-a-service (SaaS) where upstarts like Salesforce.com and NetSuite are gaining rapid adoption. Similarly, the concept of voice communications as a service is becoming very appealing as these small businesses have almost no IT/voice communications expertise and resources."

Predictable monthly voice communications expenses with no up-front capital expense, toll savings for intra- and inter-company long-distance and local calling are all features attracting SMBs to VoIP said AMI.

"Simple, secure, very reliable, easy-to-use solutions supporting unified messaging and mobility are key for small businesses that never want to miss a customer call," Mr Aggarwal said.

"Helping small businesses appear more professional and larger, especially small businesses that have a store presence and web presence."

Posted on: 2007-04-25, in: General VoIP

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