Flat-rate mobile operator MetroPCS, addressing future spectrum concerns, is planning to launch carrier VoIP services in the first quarter of 2012. The company will start to roll out the service over its LTE network.

"We are planning to begin introducing VoLTE-capable handsets early next year to move voice as well as data traffic to our LTE network," CEO Roger Linquist said during the company's earnings call this week.

MetroPCS runs a CDMA and LTE network in 14 major markets; its CDMA covers 146 million POPs, and its LTE should overlay that footprint by early next year using spectrum it owns in the advanced wireless service band PCS spectrum.

MetroPCS has seen rapid growth in smartphone use, which now makes up 25 percent of its customer base. The growth has put additional strain on its network, prompting it to increase its move of voice traffic to LTE.

For more:
- see this ConnectedPlanet report

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Although carrier router and switch revenue was down sequentially in Q1 (as it usually is in the first quarter), the market is up year-over-year, and the last three quarters represent the three all-time highest-revenue quarters ever, a good sign that the market is back on track, according to the analysts from Infonetics Research.

The total service provider VoIP equipment market, including trunk media gateways, SBCs, media servers, softswitches, and voice application servers, decreased 9% from 2Q10 to 3Q10, to $511 million, according to Infonetics Research. While revenue is down for the quarter, shipments for almost all segments in the market are up sequentially.

Sure it's easy to just focus on Nortel CVAS' slow absorption by GENBAND, but then you'd be glossing over just what kind of impact the Carrier VoIP equipment supplier has on the market. This time the division has made top marks once again in Infonetics' and Dell'Oro's latest market reports.

First Infonetics Research's report, "Service Provider VoIP Equipment and Subscribers Market Share, Size, and Forecasts - 4Q09" has Nortel CVAS' share of every sector of the VoIP market in 2009 growing. They found that Nortel grew its global softswitch share to 28 points by adding 4 points. It added over 8 points to its share in the North American softswitch market, reaching 70 percent revenue share of the market during Q4 2009.

In Dell'Oro's report, "Carrier IP Telephony Report, 4Q09," Nortel CVAS was named the number one supplier in the global Carrier VoIP and softswitch markets for the fourth quarter of 2009 and for the entire year. Nortel CVAS has achieved this for 8 years running. Seems like GENBAND is making a wise investment.

For more:
- read the release

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Nortel CVAS (Carrier VoIP and Application Solutions) unveiled new wireless and 4G mobile VoIP solution enhancements. According to Nortel, the enhancements equip carriers to deliver “a superior user experience, reduce network deployment costs and speed time to market.”

Synergy Research Group released their newest report „Carrier VoIP Q4 2009 and YE 2009 market shares” that shows that the worldwide market for Carrier VoIP totaled just over $10 billion for the full year 2009.

Year over year, the market fell 18 percent; significantly less than drops measured in other Telecom and IT equipment markets.

Metaswitch Networks, a provider of carrier systems and communications software solutions, reported Wednesday in its annual earnings results release for the 2008/2009 financial year that the company's revenue grew 4.2% despite the rough economy. Revenue increased from $94.5 million to $113.7 million. In an interview with FierceVoip, Andrew Randall, senior vice president for marketing and business development, explained that "in what was a very tough year from a market perspective, [Metaswitch] actually grew revenue and [was] very solidly profitable."

The key takeaway from this one data point is really all about positioning. "Looking forward to the coming year--when you compare what we've been doing: investing in the company, the people and the product--the position that we are in coming out of this recession [is that] we are better placed among all our competitors to really grow and ride the wave as carriers really start migrating more toward structured VoIP and taking on more IP based services," stated Randall on the call.

The company also announced that it was combining the Carrier Systems and Network Protocol Divisions under the single brand Metaswitch Networks. By merging the carrier systems and network protocol businesses, the company hopes increase brand awareness about all of its capabilites to both carrier and vendor customers.

For more:
- read the release

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IntelePeer, a hosted "Communications-as-a-Service" provider, announced it is expanding its Sonus Networks-based network to handle rapidly increasing IP traffic. IntelePeer said it first deployed Sonus gear in 2006, when the bulk of its peering traffic was still TDM.

Phillip Bronsdon, senior vice president of engineering for IntelePeer, said 60 percent of the traffic it handles is now IP voice communications and Sonus was the perfect fit to help IntelePeer grow to meet the increased traffic.

Bronsdon said Sonus is "a platinum player in VoIP" and the company's clear vision to be a serious player in the industry was a major factor in selecting Sonus as a partner. He also said that Sonus had introduced IntelePeer to several future carrier customers and maintained a strong technology roadmap with SIP, video and IMS.

Shailin Sehgal, vice president of product management for Sonus, said his company's flexibility in handling both TDM and IP traffic made it a good fit for firms such as IntelePeer. Sehgal said IntelePeer's deployment, which uses several Sonus products, is a good demonstration of Sonus's ability to deploy an end-to-end solution to ensure high-quality IP communications for its partners.

For more:
- see the press release here 

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VoIP solutions provider MetaSwitch has announced a strategic alliance with one of Argentina's leading systems integrators as part of its on-going expansion into the South American market.
The link-up with Technology Bureau will enable it to offer advanced IP voice services to residential and business subscribers.

Now that Nortel Networks has announced it will seek to sell all of its assets, speculation is heating up about which companies could poach Nortel's lucrative VoIP and switching unit. Analyst Catherine Trebnick told Light Reading that Sonus Networks is a likely candidate to buy Nortel's VoIP and switching assets, which Trebnick said could fetch around $350 million at their currently distressed price. With 320 carriers using Nortel VoIP gear, the assets would give a buyer serious market share.

Nokia Siemens Networks, which purchased Nortel's CDMA and LTE business for $650 million, is also said to have requested financial details on the unit from Nortel, along with VoIP equipment vendor GENBAND. 

For more:
- see the Cable Digital News article here 

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MetaSwitch led the global Class 5 softswitch category for the first time in the first quarter with 18.4 percent market share, according to a recently released Infonetics research report on the service provider VoIP equipment market. MetaSwitch also came in first in North America with 60.1 percent market share, according to the report, entitled "Service Provider VoIP equipment and Subscribers Q1 2009."

Diane Meyers, author of the report and a directing analyst at Infonetics, said MetaSwitch is in a strong market position, given its financial stability and market leadership. She said the company plays a significant role in the VoIP industry, due to its success in the carrier-class softswitch market. 

For more:
- see the press release here 

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GlowPoint, a video communications company based in New Jersey, announced it will support cross-carrier telepresence and video calling applications for Polycom customers. GlowPoint CEO Joe Laezza said the company's Telepresence interExchange Network (TEN) allows users to connect to customers, partners and vendors using Polycom videoconferencing equipment regardless of carrier while maintaining security, quality and interoperability.

"Channels and service providers, as well as enterprise customers, recognize the value of broad B2B collaboration, which is resulting in significant interest and adoption of TEN," Laezza said in a prepared statement. "We are proud to have Polycom join us in bringing this unique B2B capability to the Polycom user market and partner base."

GlowPoint said that allowing customers to call across networks and connect to other standards-based telepresence systems allows for more secure and useful collaboration between organizations.

Polycom began a push last November to improve its videoconferencing offering to meet additional demand from companies looking to replace expensive travel budgets with virtual meetings.

For more:
- see the press release here 

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In a prediction destined to cause heartburn at mobile carriers around the globe, Gartner says that more than 50 percent of mobile voice traffic will be end-to-end VoIP by 2019. Third-party app-based providers pose a "huge and direct" challenge to the $692.6 billion global voice market.

Gartner predicts that network-based mobile carriers face the "real prospect" of losing a major slice of voice traffic and revenue to new non-infrastructure players that use VoIP. 

However, Gartner also says that conditions for the rapid expansion of mobile VoIP aren't yet right, and it may take anywhere between five to eight years for conditions to become right. (No, it doesn't have to do with Microsoft banning VoIP apps from its mobile store).  

The long pole for mass adoption of mobile VoIP is 4G, says Gartner, and the firm doesn't see that fully happening until 2017. Once that happens, moving to mobile VoIP portals should be fairly rapid because of convenience and cost savings. Gartner thinks 30 percent of mobile voice traffic will be done through third-part mobile portals such as Google, Facebook, MySpace and Yahoo, which will leverage VoIP through WiFi.

Ironically, the biggest competitor to mobile VoIP may be text messaging and email, as people choose to use those mediums to communicate because they are non-intrusive, less emotional and less time-consuming.

For more:
- Read the Gartner summary. Release

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By Kevin Breault, Vice President Sales and Business Development, Dash Carrier Services

In today's marketplace, buying of wholesale services are more often than not, acquired as a 'bundled' offering.  For example, one such bundle could include the DID, E911, UC features, and actual minutes. 

When VoIP first hit the scene, all of the aforementioned services were purchased separately, as the technologies did not exist in an available format to provision all the services from the same vendor.  SIP dramatically changed the landscape and enables service providers to deliver what I referred to earlier as a "bundle". 

The benefit of the bundle is obvious: simplicity of product delivery through a single provider.  Until now, that method has been an effective model driving VoIP growth. But as competition grows increasingly fierce, buying habits change, and new services become more readily available. As such, the pricing model must change in parallel with the changes in the market.

"Because of the ubiquity of VoIP and the Internet, enterprises are able to save money by buying from a larger array of service providers directly rather than through ‘bundling' intermediaries, said Micah Singer, CEO, VoIP Logic.  "Several of the over 100 service providers who use VoIP Logic for Managed Services are beginning to sell ‘wholesale' services directly to the enterprise."

The downside of the bundle is the profit lost before the end-subscriber makes his or her first call.  This margin ranges from as low as 10 percent to as much as 50 percent. For providers to remain competitive, this lost margin must be recouped to ensure continued market penetration. In addition, as all providers make the move to converged IP communications, per minute rates continue to fall, reating more opportunities to recoup costs.

Unbundling the bundle for wholesale services is a clear necessity: better margins, more pricing flexibility, and better positioning from which to offer other high-margin applications.  In addition, service providers will need to place more emphasis on back office applications and accurate billing - an area most have avoided in the past. 

As it continues to work through an ugly bankruptcy process, Nortel took time to tout the addition of four more regional carriers as carrier VoIP customers. The company reports it has a total of 135 Communications Server (CS) 1500 customers globally.

The customers - Arkwest Communications, Dakota Central Telecommunications, Hancock Telephone and Venture Communications Cooperative - aren't exactly what we'd call the largest carriers of note these days. Arkwest is providing service within Yell County, Ark., for example, and offers both phone and IPTV services. Dakota and Venture are both Nortel DMS-10 switch customers and have added the CS 1500 to enable new services such as click-to-call, PC access to voice messages, and end-user web portals.

Hancock may be the biggest customer win out of the bunch. Nortel is providing both the CS 1500 softswitch along with "all" the products and professional services required to design, build, and manage the entire IP network.

If Nortel survives as an independent, albeit shrunken, entity, it is likely carrier VoIP and unified communications would be at the heart of the company that emerges from bankruptcy.

For more:
- Nortel touts carrier wins. Article

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LG-Nortel has responded to an expected doubling of IP phone penetration in businesses this year by launching a new line of desktop IP Phones.
Geared towards business users and carrier-hosted VoIP services, JD An, vice president, Enterprise Solutions at LG-Nortel, said the IP Phone 8800 series had been designed to meet rising demand for IP phone solutions from enterprises.

The European Union (EU) is preparing legislation to force carriers to allow VoIP to run on their cellular networks.
EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding has said that "action" should be taken against carriers that use their market power to block "innovative services".

Deploying HD voice services on both landline and mobile systems would provide carriers with a service differentiator and a product with a price premium people are willing to pay for.
That's the opinion of VoIP industry expert Jeff Pulver, who says HD voice has the potential to reverse the trend of declining landline sales.

International voice traffic continues to rise - despite the availability of an ever-broader range of substitutes for standard telephone calls.
Cross-border telephone traffic grew 14 per cent in 2007 and is estimated to have grown 12 per cent in 2008, to 384 billion minutes, according to data from TeleGeography.

The worldwide market for carrier VoIP equipment has stalled after a pro-longed period of double-digit annual revenue growth that began in 2002.
This led to the market contracting for the first time ever in 2008, with a drop in revenue of 6 per cent, according to Infonetics Research.

O2 and Orange are reportedly quite unhappy about Nokia's plans to bundle Skype onto its flagship N97 device.  The two mobile carriers may not stock the N97 or any future N-series phone loaded with Skype, so either Skype goes, or the phone goes.

The report from Mobile Today says the fight is around ownership of the customer, as well as the potential lost revenue from calls routed through Skype rather than through the carrier. One operator is quoted as saying "‘This is another example of [Nokia] trying to build an ecosystem that is all about Nokia and reduces the operator to a dumb pipe...Nokia has tried several ways to own the customer over the years and operators have had to say no."

Other UK operators seem to be content to work with Skype, with T-Mobile offering its support for a Skype-loaded N97 and mobile carrier 3 already having a handset with a Skype client. An unnamed source defined Nokia's position and noted that 3 has done well by its Skype-loaded phone.

Mobile carriers are no doubt more than a little nervous at Skype's continued proliferation into what used to be a pristine space to make money before all this fancy data/client stuff appeared to cut into roaming and international calling profits. Not to mention all the high-profile lobbying Skype is doing to promote open networks and network neutrality.

On the other side of the coin, mobile VoIP players have to be unnerved that Skype continues to crunch into their space with a bigger brand and landing deals with Nokia and Sony Ericsson. Carriers and the mobile VoIP firms are likely to be conducting some backroom "The enemy-of-my-enemy" discussions if they can work out terms without cutting each other's throats in the process.

For more:
- MobileToday UK calls it. Post.

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Christopher Libertelli, Skype's senior director of government and regulatory affairs for North America, has written a strongly-worded letter complaining that the major US wireless carriers are all talk when it comes to "open" networks.
Writing to the FCC chairman, Kevin Martin, he said that if the Commission wanted to live up to its stated goal of making open networks more accessible, it would affirm that this policy covered wireless networks.