Broadband Voice Services Continue to Fuel VoIP and IMS Equipment Revenue

Voice over broadband remains the top application driving service providers to invest in VoIP and IMS networking equipment, according to a recent report by Infonetics Research.

Service providers spent more than $3.9 billion on VoIP and IMS equipment in 2007, Infonetics reports, representing growth of 19% over 2006. The firm expects worldwide service provider spending on such technology to reach $8.4 billion in 2011.

"The overall next gen voice equipment market is maturing, as evidenced by single-digit annual sales growth in traditional equipment such as media gateways and softswitches, but other types of equipment, namely session border controllers, media servers, and voice application servers, will generally grow faster for the next five years,” predicted Stéphane Téral, Infonetics’ principal analyst for VoIP and IMS. “As we are starting the fourth year of a global telecom investment cycle and leaning toward a plateau, the overall next gen voice equipment will likely weather a slowdown starting in 2010 or 2011, buoyed by strong IMS core equipment sales."