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IP vendors and carriers report 2008
29/07/08
A new study by
Infonetics Research that provides a broad view of service provider
thinking and plans for voice over IP, including service provider
perceptions of leading VoIP vendors, names Acme Packet, Alcatel-Lucent,
Cisco, and Sonus as the "top VoIP equipment manufacturers," with
Cisco emerging as the most familiar manufacturer.
According to
the study, Service Provider Plans for VoIP, which surveyed service
providers in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin
America-Caribbean, the top 3 technical challenges these carriers
face are competition, migration to IMS, and capex reduction.
"Service
providers are operating in a capped capex environment now --
meaning, generally they purchase equipment only when they need it.
There are some areas in which most carriers are increasing their
capex, though: growth areas tied to additional revenue, such as VoIP,"
said Stephane Teral, principal analyst at Infonetics for service
provider VoIP, IMS, and mobile infrastructure.
The study is
based on formal interviews conducted by Infonetics' senior analysts
with incumbents, IXCs, competitive operators, vertically integrated
service providers, and specialists. The 85-page study examines the
trends, drivers, barriers, and implementation plans of VoIP service
providers, and features VoIP network architecture plans, a VoIP
vendor scorecard, and service provider feature wish-lists for VoIP
products, including trunk media gateways, softswitches, voice
application servers, media servers, and session border controllers.
Other
highlights from the study:
- 40% of
respondent service providers don't plan to complete their migration
to Class 4/tandem switching until after 2009, suggesting they have
enough capacity to handle international voice traffic growth
- The top
retail VoIP service offered by service providers to their
residential and business customers is voice over broadband
- In a series
of questions asking service providers to rate Alcatel- Lucent,
Cisco, Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia Siemens, Nortel, and Sonus, those
familiar with the vendors rated Sonus highest for technology,
product roadmap, security, management, and price-to-performance
ratio
- 55% of
respondents have already installed Acme Packet's session border
controllers
Nick Gibson, editor
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