News
12/10/10
World Business VoIP Services Market Set to Double in Size by 2015
The latest global business VoIP services forecasts from ABI Research shows that the value of the overall market, which includes VoIP integrated access, SIP trunking, hosted IP-PBX/IP Centrex and managed IP-PBX services, is set to double over the next five years, to exceed $20 billion by 2015.
In 2009, the market displayed growth trends counter-cyclical to the direction the wider economy was taking, to register high growths in terms of both volume and value. The new research forecasts and market analysis are part of ABI Research’s ongoing analysis of the service provider market for business VoIP services.
“The trend of companies outsourcing their communications infrastructure has taken off in earnest, as enterprise decision-makers look for cost savings without having to compromise on features and functionality,” comments senior analyst Subha Rama. “Among VoIP access technologies, SIP trunking, with its promise of trunk consolidation, centralized management and administration, and application federation across enterprises, has seen considerable growth in terms of installed base and revenues in the last 12 – 18 months.”
Much of the market growth is attributed to companies replacing their legacy phone systems with hosted VoIP technologies. Traditionally, hosted VoIP services were targeted at SMBs, especially companies with between twenty and fifty employees, but sweet-spots are emerging among larger enterprises as well. Today, hosted IP PBX services are being deployed on massively scalable cloud architectures and adopted by an increasing number of organizations, including large enterprises looking for legacy replacements. Businesses have started routinely evaluating the merits of premises-based IP PBX systems versus hosted IP PBX services when contemplating new telephony investments.
Rama adds, “Overall, the growth momentum seen in 2009 was sustained in the first half of 2010 as companies continued to shy away from capital investments, opting, instead, for the OPEX model of hosted VoIP services.” The forecasts suggest a 13% CAGR in terms of revenues and 19.6% CAGR in terms of lines between 2010 and 2015, despite growing competition from low-cost providers and price pressures in the market.
11/10/10
Orange and T-Mobile join UK networks
Orange and T-Mobile join UK networks
Everything Everywhere, the UK’s biggest communications company, today announced that mobile customers of its two mobile brands, Orange and T-Mobile, can now access its two mobile networks as the first customer benefit of the merged company.
Orange customers are now able to make calls and send texts on the T-Mobile network and T-Mobile customers are able to do the same using the Orange network. It means that 27 million UK customers, the combined customer base of both brands, can use their mobiles in more places than ever before.
Customers who want to sign up for access to both networks will benefit free of charge, with no changes to their existing tariff or call or text charges. Customers simply register online at either mobile operator’s websites to receive an update to their SIM card. From that point on, if a customer loses signal on their existing network, they will automatically pick up the signal from the other network where it’s available. To let customers know they can benefit from the UK’s biggest ever network coverage improvement, a £4 million joint Orange and T-Mobile advertising campaign will launch today, 11 October. In an industry first, the company’s two famous brands will appear ‘head to head’ and speaking to one another in the marketing campaign.
Tom Alexander, CEO of Everything Everywhere, the company that runs Orange and T-Mobile, said: “Today’s switch on is the culmination of a unique and hugely complex technical project. But the result is simple; our customers now get two networks for the price of one.
“That means 27 million consumers can now keep close to the people, places and things that matter to them in more places than ever before. This is the first step in our vision of giving our customers instant access to whatever they want, wherever they are, instant access to everything, everywhere.”
Everything Every where’s ambition is to provide all Orange and T-Mobile customers with the best network experience in the UK, by offering a multi-network strategy to combine 2G, 3G, 4G, fixed broadband and WiFi in a unique customer offer. Significant network investment is taking place to ensure the network is enhanced for the 21st century customer.
Next year customers can expect benefits such as automatically switching to whichever of the two networks has the strongest signal while they’re mid-call, and enhanced data and internet coverage.
08/10/10
Vodafone acquires two telecom expense management firms
Vodafone Global Enterprise - the business within Vodafone which manages the communications needs of its largest multinational customers - has acquired two telecom expense management (TEM) companies, Quickcomm and TnT Expense Management.
Quickcomm, a developer of TEM software, is headquartered in Sydney, Australia and has offices in the US, UK and Singapore. Quickcomm will continue to sell and provide ongoing support for its products, as well as becoming a fully integrated part of the Vodafone Telecoms Management solution.
TnT Expense Management is a services provider of TEM. It is headquartered in Sandy Hook, Connecticut and has offices in New York, the UK, Germany and France. Its managed telecoms expense service, based on expert analysis as well as automated bill processing, will be a strong addition to Vodafone Global Enterprise's existing services team.
The value of the gross assets being acquired are US$6.9m for Quickcomm and US$2.8m for TnT Expense Management. "Our 570 multinational corporate customers tell us that they want Vodafone Global Enterprise to help them reduce cost, increase visibility and improve management control across their global footprint," said Nick Jeffery, CEO of Vodafone Global Enterprise.
"These acquisitions will benefit our customers by providing even greater visibility and control of their fixed and mobile spend and this, in turn, will further the business case for multinationals to adopt unified communications solutions."
07/10/10
Supporting the UK’s super-fast broadband future
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Ofcom has set out decisions designed to promote competition and investment in super-fast broadband services across the UK. |
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1. Providing competing services over BT’s fibre lines: Ofcom’s decisions will allow competitors to have access to a dedicated virtual link over new fibre lines laid by BT (known as virtual unbundling). This will give other companies control of the lines to provide super-fast broadband services to their own customers.
BT will be able to set prices for these new wholesale products which should promote investment by enabling them to make a fair rate of return reflecting commercial risk. These prices, say Ofcom, will be constrained by the highly competitive wider broadband market and will be subject to rules to prevent anti-competitive pricing.
BT has already started offering its “Generic Ethernet Access” product to wholesale customers and will develop it further in line with the requirements Ofcom has confirmed today.
2. Giving access to underground ducts and telegraph poles: Ofcom has concluded that BT should be required to offer access to its underground ducts and to its telegraph poles. This would allow its competitors to roll-out super-fast broadband to areas where BT does not plan to deploy its fibre network and to target specific areas earlier than BT’s roll-out. The economic case for duct and pole access should improve as the market for super-fast broadband develops.
BT is required to share detailed information with other communications providers about, for example, the available capacity and quality of ducts and poles. Ofcom has confirmed that it will require BT to make available a draft reference offer describing its duct and pole product by mid January 2011.
These measures, say Ofcom, build upon competition in the UK’s current generation of broadband services which reached a significant milestone last month when the number of unbundled lines passed the 7 million mark. This has enabled rival communications providers such as Sky and TalkTalk to offer services over BT’s copper telephone network, delivering choice and competition for UK consumers.
Ofcom will continue to require BT to provide local loop unbundled services (LLU) to competitors, building on this success to date.
Ofcom says their decisions are designed to benefit all UK consumers by recognising that different areas require different solutions. In areas where BT invests in fibre, the remedies will enable other providers to offer competing services, based on BT’s facilities.
Elsewhere, access to BT’s ducts and poles should encourage investment by other providers, enabling the provision of super-fast services and increasing competition.
The decisions are consistent with the Government’s potential role in encouraging super-fast broadband roll-out. For example, duct and pole access could extend the reach of services to more remote areas, potentially in combination with public funding at a UK or EU level. Duct and pole access could also complement Government measures to encourage fibre roll-out by sharing telecoms and other infrastructure.
Ofcom’s Chief Executive, Ed Richards said: “The development of the UK’s super-fast broadband future is well underway with the roll-out of services in large parts of the country. Today Ofcom has finalised a clear regulatory framework to promote investment, competition and innovation to enable as many consumers as possible to benefit from these exciting new services.”