Major players in the routers market have finally realized the inherent benefits of using fixed-mobile convergence strategies in their networks.

 

The direct result of this awareness will be on carrier switch and router market. In its “Service Provider Routers and Switches” forecast report, research firm Infonetics Research focused on various aspects of this market.

 

Fixed-mobile convergence provides seamless connectivity between fixed and wireless telecommunications networks. FMC can also signify any physical network that allows cellular telephone sets to function smoothly with the fixed network infrastructure. A good FMC makes the transmission of data easier.

 

According to the report, because of the strong IP edge router sales, revenue from service provider IP edge routers, IP core routers, carrier Ethernet switches and multiservice ATM switches jumped 17 percent in Q409. But the overall market was brought down 12 percent from 2008 to 2009, to $11.1 billion. But Asia Pacific was the only region to post year-over-year growth in IP edge and core router revenue, up 19 percent in 2009 from 2008, claims the report.

 

“The top two vendors in the service provider router space, Cisco (News - Alert) and Juniper, together went from owning 69 percent of the worldwide router market in 2008 to 59 percent in 2009. Huawei is gaining fast on number-three player Alcatel-Lucent, and Tellabs pushed past Ericsson (News - Alert) in 2009, putting them in the top five for the first time.” notes Michael Howard, principal analyst for carrier and data center networks at Infonetics Research (News - Alert).

 

In its report, Infonetics Research throws light on the vendor market share for Alcatel-Lucent, Avici, Brocade (Foundry), Ciena, Cisco, Ericsson, Extreme, Fujitsu, Hitachi Cable, Huawei, Juniper, NEC, Nokia Siemens, Nortel, Tellabs, ZTE (News - Alert), and others.

 

The company recently launched its “Rich Communication Suite (News - Alert) (RCS), Services, Devices and Subscribers,” a market forecast and analysis report. By 2011, the second full year of commercial RCS availability, Infonetics forecasts there will be 7.3 million RCS subscribers, mostly in Western Europe and Asia Pacific, with a small but growing number in North America.