Do the Math

This article originally appeared in the Feb. 2012 issue of Next Gen Mobility

 What’s Up with Mobile VoIP

Mobile VoIP is seeing significant uptake by consumers, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into significant new revenues for anyone. That’s the word from Infonetics (News - Alert) Research, which recently issued a study on the topic. "The adoption of over-the-top mobile VoIP services is growing rapidly but it is not without challenges. With free applications and extremely low revenue from users, it is tricky for application providers without the deep pockets of larger companies like Google (News - Alert), Microsoft, and Telefónica to have a sustainable long-term business model. Despite the fact that we expect mobile VoIP subscribers to grow nearly 10-fold from 2010 to 2015, there is relatively little money to be made from it in the near term," says Diane Myers, directing analyst for VoIP and IMS at Infonetics Research.Stéphane Téral, Infonetics Research's principal analyst for mobile infrastructure, adds: "As LTE becomes the universal mobile infrastructure, TDM voice – which is a $500 billion a year business – will migrate to VoLTE (native mobile VoIP). In the near term, though, two key challenges need to be addressed: the world needs widely available LTE handsets that support VoLTE – and we're nowhere near that stage – and single radio voice call continuity needs to be finalized so that voice calls work seamlessly between LTE and legacy networks. Make no mistake: VoLTE is the future; it will just take many years to get there."

Business are Shifting Rapidly to Mobile Only

The BroadSoft 2011 Mobile Enterprise of the Future Survey finds that global enterprises are shifting to mobile-only communications more rapidly than expected, and 25 percent of enterprise IT decision makers believe desk phones will be replaced by mobile phones within two years.

The survey goes on to report that 44 percent of enterprises approached have at least a quarter of their workforce operating solely using a mobile phone, and 82 percent of enterprises have employees using mobile apps for communications and collaboration. About 30 percent of enterprises support tablets; 51 percent support BlackBerry devices, 40 percent support iPhones, and 31 percent support Android (News - Alert) phones.

Conducted by Cohen Research Group, the survey gathered data from 200 U.S. and 200 U.K. IT decision makers at enterprises of all sizes.

 

Mobile Boom is Creating Many New Markets

In 2016, mobile network operators will spend more than $1.8 billion on web/video optimization, more than $1.2 billion on policy management, more than $1.5 billion on deep packet inspection, and billions more on other test equipment, network probes, and other optimization solutions. That’s according to ABI Research (News - Alert), which notes that 10 years ago, most of these products did not exist.

While some mobile network optimization revenue will go to the big network equipment vendors like Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson (News - Alert), Huawei, Nokia Siemens Networks, and ZTE, most of it will go to smaller companies specializing in technologies like DPI and video streaming, according to ABI. 

“With so much money on the table, some of these smaller companies will be attractive targets for M&A activity,” adds Aditya Kaul, ABI Research practice director of mobile networks.


Edited by Stefania Viscusi