Research Puts Session Controller Market at $1.2 Billion by 2008

Carriers and service providers are increasingly using voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) for peering purposes to deliver new and enhanced services to consumers and enterprises. Session controllers are devices deployed at the network’s edge and are designed to facilitate carrier-to-carrier peering, carrier-to-enterprise peering, and carrier to consumer peering. In a new report entitled VoIP Is Heating Up The Need For Native IP Peering, Yankee Group explores the session controller market and the VoIP applications driving the need for these devices.

Many incumbent carriers have publicly announced their consumer VoIP plans. AT&T launched its CallVantage service and plans to offer it to 100 markets by the end of 2004; Verizon announced it will have a voice-over-DSL offering in the first half of 2004; and Qwest has a trial voice-over-DSL service in Minnesota and is evaluating its expansion into other markets.

“The features and functionalities introduced by session controllers are valuable to the VoIP market and deployment will continue,” says Danny Klein, Communications Network Infrastructure senior analyst at Yankee Group. “As operators pursue their architectural vision, networks will evolve and vary. Some operators prefer to have a centralized softswitch, while others prefer many localized devices. The same will hold true for session controllers in the future. Some operators would prefer to leverage their existing infrastructure and have the functionalities embedded into existing devices, and others may prefer to keep the two networks separate.”

“Today’s Yankee Group report further demonstrates the viability and necessity of session controllers in today's growing Voice over IP market,” said Bruce Hill, CEO of Netrake. “We hear feedback similar to what Yankee reported from carriers and are meeting those demands head-on - a recent example is the addition of key features to our nCite session controllers so carriers can securely offer residential VoIP services.”

“We are delighted to see the analyst community embracing the Session Border Controller (SBC) VoIP category,” said Jim Greenway, VP of Marketing for Kagoor Networks. “SBCs are being recognized by carriers, VoIP service providers and leading telecom vendors as a critical, standalone element in their VoIP infrastructure designs and implementations. We believe that between now and 2008 this category will see explosive growth as the incumbent and new telecom carriers start to scale and new players like cable and wireless begin to enter the VoIP market.”