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While the third quarter isn't often regarded as much of anything but the start to the slow buildup toward the holiday shopping season and the beginning of the end for summer, there was a clear high point this third quarter, particularly for IP multimedia systems. According to a new report from the Dell (News - Alert)'Oro Group, there were some major gains throughout the sector, and milestones approached besides, making the third quarter of 2014 surprisingly active for some firms.

The Dell'Oro Group report—titled the 3Q14 Carrier IP Telephony Quarterly Report—spelled out some very noteworthy advancements for the sector in the often quiet third quarter. For instance, the report noted that the Carrier IP Telephony market saw three percent revenue growth over the same time in 2013. Some of the larger growth segments—ranging from IMS Core, session border controllers and voice applications servers—were within just $50 million of reaching a full $1 billion per quarter in revenue. As for the overall Carrier IP Telephony market—including circuit switched, voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) and voice over LTE (News - Alert) (VoLTE)--came within striking distance of $1.7 billion for the third quarter.

Dell'Oro Group's vice president of Carrier IP Telephony research, Chris DePuy, offered up some further explanation on the study's results, nothing that operators were engaged in a marked expansion, which in turn was set to “...deliver multiple services on shared infrastructures.” This combination of more overall offerings when added to the use of shared infrastructure meant a huge gain in interoperability—a necessity when shared infrastructure is involved—as well as a greater push on network investment. Platforms like VoLTE were making major inroads, and so too were voice over Wi-Fi (VoWiFi) services that could step in where VoLTE found itself short of a connection, like indoors in some cases. Plus, DePuy notes that several other technologies are likely to come out at a fairly rapid clip, including things like rich communications services (RCS), which will offer up a valuable proposition to potential users thanks to its ability to offer both video calling and advanced messaging services all in one.

Indeed, the market is one that's in a great deal of flux, particularly lately. New developments are emerging that will change the market still further and likely fundamentally alter the amount of revenue coming into the system. As other competitors emerge, it may put pressure on the firms involved, but it's also likely to drive up the further totals thanks to different competitors being able to reach somewhat different markets. There's overlap in the field, of course, but by like token, most businesses have regions where operations are largely uncontested; some by geography, others by certain businesses that will only deal with that business, and so on.

While the market for services like these is clearly on an upward trend, it still will bear watching over the months and even years to come to see if it can hold that upward momentum. The volatile nature of the field suggests that new technological advancements could come out at virtually any time to either wildly expand or completely supplant the business; developments like Web-based real time communications, for example, may fundamentally alter VoIP and VoLTE's ability to compete in the field. Only time will tell just how this all works out, but it's clear that right now, things are looking good in the Carrier IP Telephony sector and beyond.