Survey Sez 11/20/12

Mobile-data roaming revenues will grow by 21 percent per year between 2012 and 2017, topping $35 billion in 2017 and driven by an increasing number of active data roamers using data services while abroad. Juniper Research notes that data roaming provides operators with the opportunity to convert “non-data” roamers to active data roamers by introducing data bundles and roaming plans”…With solid third-quarter results, the carrier VoIP and IMS market is on track for positive year-over-year growth due to a handful of variables that are coming together," finds Diane Myers, principal analyst/VoIP, UC and IMS at Infonetics Research. "First, we’re entering the long-tail of the legacy softswitch and trunking gateway market, with opportunities for early equipment replacement and new deals that will help slow declines and provide stabilization. Second, IMS deployments continue to grow, and there are pockets of VoLTE and wireless spending. We’re anticipating that 2012 will provide the first annual growth in the carrier VoIP and IMS market in over four years." More stats: The global service provider VoIP and IMS market was down 4 percent sequentially in 3Q12, but up 8 percent from the year-ago quarter; and Huawei strengthened its lead in the overall VoIP and IMS market, now at around 25-percent market share, through solid sales across its IMS and NGN VoIP product lines…Earlier today, the GSMA and Deloitte released the report “What Is the Impact of Mobile Telephony on Economic Growth?,” providing the first estimates of the impact of mobile data usage on GDP growth in developed and developing markets. The report draws from research of data usage and economic growth across 14 countries provided by Cisco Systems based on their Visual Networking Index (VNI) as well as Deloitte studies on the productivity impact of mobile in 79 countries and the impact of 3G penetration across 96 countries. Key findings: A doubling of mobile data use leads to an increase of 0.5 percentage points in the GDP per capita growth rate across the 14 countries; countries characterized by a higher level of data usage per 3G connection have seen an increase in their GDP per capita growth of as much as 1.4 percentage points; a 10-percent rise from 2G to 3G penetration increases GDP per capita growth by 0.15 percentage points; and in developing markets, a 10-percent expansion in mobile penetration increases productivity by 4.2 percentage points. "This study is an important addition to the growing body of empirical evidence demonstrating the impact of broadband on economic growth," says Dr. Robert Pepper, vice president/Global Technology Policy at Cisco. "The fact that increasing high-speed mobile broadband data usage leads to greater average per capita income underscores the need for increased investment in wireless networks as well as for government policies to foster that investment, including the allocation of additional spectrum."