Interesting Infonetics report saying carrier voice equipment purchases are growing very rapidly with VoIP being a primary driver in carriers replacing antiquated equipment. If you didn't realize it already, it looks more and more like VoIP will be the "shot" in the arm for the telecom market. Could the good ole' days (mid-to-late 90's) of double-digit revenue growth for the carriers be far behind? Nah... Too much competition and margins are slimmer these days, but the carriers do need to optimize their networks and offer more integrated services to compete. IMS anyone? :D This is great for the consumer, not so great for the carriers that have to lay out more cash. Great for the manufactuers of all this equipment as well. Here's the Infonetics report summary...

Worldwide next gen voice equipment revenue hit a new high in 2005, topping $2.5 billion, a 50% jump over 2004, and is projected to increase 145%, reaching $6.2 billion in 2009, according to Infonetics Research's latest Service Provider Next Gen Voice and IMS Equipment report.

All equipment categories in the next gen voice market are up year over year, and all but media servers and Class 5 softswitches are up for the quarter.

The number of residential and SOHO VoIP subscribers continues to skyrocket around the world as well; in 2005, there were:
- 14.2 million subscribers in Asia Pacific, growing 251% to 49.9 million in 2009
- 5.4 million subscribers in EMEA, growing 683% to 42.5 million in 2009
- 4.3 million subscribers in North America, growing 800% to almost 39.0 million in 2009

"2005 was a watershed year for next gen voice, with VoIP subscriber uptake moving at a torrid pace, and numerous incumbents around the world committing to long-term migration projects that will lead to increased legacy switch removal and more next gen voice equipment deployments," said Stéphane Téral, directing analyst at Infonetics Research.

"We're keeping a close eye on the emerging IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) architecture, which moved from hype to trial stage in 2005," Téral continued. "We track several IMS products now, and as the haze around IMS clears and new products begin shipping, we will track more equipment in this important new segment."

More Highlights
- A total of $21 billion will be spent on next gen voice equipment worldwide during the five-year period between 2005 and 2009
- Worldwide next gen voice equipment revenue was up 21% for the quarter, growing to $785.3 million in 4Q05
- Between 3Q05 and 4Q05, trunk media gateway revenue was up 39% to $375.2 million and softswitch revenue was up 6% to $321.1 million
- For 2005, Nortel continued its lead in the combination media gateway/softswitch market, Siemens takes second place, and Huawei emerges in third
- Huawei's softswitch license shipments rank first for the quarter and calendar year with 26% market share worldwide in 2005

Infonetics' report tracks VoIP subscribers and carrier packet voice equipment, including media gateways, softswitches, session border controllers, voice application servers, media servers, and home subscriber servers. The report provides analysis and rankings for Alcatel, Brooktrout, Cirpack, Cisco, Convedia, Ericsson, General Bandwidth, Huawei, Italtel, Lucent, Metaswitch, NetCentrex, Nortel, Siemens, Sonus, Tekelec, UTStarcom, Veraz, Xener, and others.