I believe that it is safe to say LTE (News - Alert) services are something everybody wants. Around the world, LTE deployment is beginning to achieve substantial coverage, and the next big step will be Voice over LTE (VoLTE). According to ABI Research (News - Alert), this is a market that will become widespread and could reach a total of over $30 billion over the next five years.
Sabir Rafiq, who is an ABI research analyst, said “4G LTE and VoLTE are the primary drivers for IMS on mobile broadband. ABI Research expects robust growth of VoLTE and IMS services over the next few years. IMS mobile core revenue corresponds directly with the popularity of VoLTE.”
IMS or IP Multimedia Subsystem (News - Alert) is an architectural framework for delivering IP multimedia services. The figures from ABI Research’s report titled “Telco Big Data Analytics and CEM Market Research” shows that North American operators lead the way with VoLTE driven IMS deployments. Western Europe comes in at a close second. IMS deployments will continue to spread and reach more regions, as this happens we can also expect to see an increase in VoLTE.
Infrastructure vendors such as Ericsson and Nokia have not let this go unnoticed. Both companies have made major commitments to VoLTE and the IMS space. They are ready to supply their customers with equipment designed to take advantage of this growing market or mobile broadband. Companies such as Cisco (News - Alert), Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei are also aware of the impact and growth that VoLTE will have. They are active in the VoLTE space by offering credible solutions in order to attract and retain customers.
I believe that the deployment of LTE networks in the U.S. has reached about a 98 percent coverage rate. The U.K. has spent a little over $8 billion to extend its LTE network and last year the three major carriers in China were awarded licenses to deploy LTE networks. As the ABI report shows, deployment of LTE is on the fast track and is now considered to be the fastest growing mobile technology ever.
Due to the fact that mobile operators can lower their cost of operation and increase revenue from mobile broadband, they are all focused on making LTE part of their business strategy right now. Another factor is the fact that Apple seems to have embraced VoLTE with the release of the iPhone (News - Alert) 6. This has had the effect of raising the bar; almost forcing other device manufacturers to follow suit with high end Android smartphones.
This is leading to an increase in VoLTE services in smartphones. VoLTE will become extremely important in the future and ABI believes competitive positioning will lead operators to VoLTE/IMS. ABI believes that VoLTE subscriptions will significantly increase year-on-year as subscribers appreciate the voice quality and demand the additional services of the all-IP 4G LTE.
Edited by Alisen Downey