“There’s never been such a time of uncertainty”, warned Informa’s Chief Research Officer Mark Newman as he laid bare the threats and opportunities communication service providers are now facing.
This warning set the scene for a series of Mach Insights 2010 first-day presentations all examining the current state of the mobile market.
As highlighted by Newman, the steep decline in Voice ARPU is a matter of concern for all network operators and should drive the latter to revisit their data services strategies. This is supported by the stat that data traffic over the networks is now doubling every six months.
Google is all set to launch Google Voice, Telefonica has bought Jajah for a whopping $120 mn and LTE is about to accelerate the migration to IP-based services. This speaks volumes of the power of ‘voice’. It’s no surprise then, that the mobile operators are paranoid about mobile VoIP.
Operators are now partnering with Internet brands to offer new services, in a bid to differentiate themselves and increase their market shares. Operators have a crucial role to play as access providers but the “free” Internet model will force them to become more efficient. They want to launch their own platform to compete with the handset OS and the Wholesale Applications Community is an attempt to go global. Emerging market operators will see a much slower evolution and a greater opportunity to partner with Internet companies.
Eli Katz, CEO of XConnect, gave a Keynote presentation that covered topics such as global trends, IP opportunities and challenges, federations, services and an overview of XConnect. Talking about today’s interconnecting environment and the IPX/HUB Federation Solution, he emphasized the fact that multi-lateral IPX hub-based Services is the only scalable solution.
Katz further added that XConnect scalable IPX Hub federation services are required to enable the mass-market adoption of new services including Hi-Def Voice, Video, RCS (IM and Presence). With the industry asking for IP interconnection, core networks, and IP based services and increasing demand for connectivity, IPX is the need of the hour.
The MACH blog 