With respect to innovation and implementation, Ericsson, Sweden's largest company and a provider of telecommunications equipment and data communication systems, was declared the overall leader by ABI Research, leaving Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Siemens behind in the recent IMS / VoLTE Competitive Assessment.
Ericsson’s industry leadership in interoperability testing, a large cache of IMS and VoLTE patents and market share, firmly places it in the top position.
Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia both with strong portfolios and in some ways superior to Ericsson are closely at its heels. Both Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Siemens Networks have a dominant position and sizable market share in the most demanding, leading wave LTE IMS deployments.
Nokia Siemens is striding ahead with virtualization technology. Huawei and ZTE cannot be ignored either, with both forging ahead with their noteworthy unique propositions.
For ranking, innovation in these companies was assessed by weighing patents, E2E VoLTE, HW/SW implementation and small network support. The results thus put Ericsson in the lead with Alcatel-Lucent tailing it, and then in third place is Nokia Siemens Network.
Impressive patent portfolios of Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent indicate an emphasis of innovation in their culture, products and processes. With their Liquid Net and Liquid Core portfolio, Nokia Siemens Networks is taking an early lead in virtualization technology.
Assessment of implementation also takes into consideration the market share, global and regional deployment, LTE/EPC footprint and VoLTE trial activity. In the rankings based on implementation assessment, Ericsson leads with Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Siemens Networks following it in that order.
Implementation assessment especially brought the diversity factor into play, showing much more diversity among vendors. And different customers value different things at different times. Market share and geographical diversity remain the two big discriminators.
Joe Hoffman, principal analyst for mobile networks, says Ericsson has been the IMS leader from the starting gate, and this assessment affirms that position. However, their competitors are charging hard as the field makes the turn into the IMS / VoLTE backstretch.
Every vendor in this race, he added, has a proposition that operators will value according to their needs, and there is still much ground to cover before the finish line.
This independent Competitive assessment by ABI Research helps IMS Add-On companies consider their roadmaps and plan and strategize for future. It also helps network operators understand their options for providing IMS and the Evolved Voice Core Services. It raises vendor and investor awareness.
ABI Research’s has worldwide team of experts, located in offices in North America, Europe and Asia and advise and consult thousands of decision makers through 70+ research and advisory services. Through its evolved tools, methodologies and processes, ABI Research is able to thus provide in-depth analysis and quantitative forecasting of trends in global connectivity and other emerging technologies that help the industry.
The findings of ABI Research are a part of its new Competitive Assessment, "IMS and Evolved Voice Core."
Edited by
Braden Becker 
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