Market research firm Infonetics (News - Alert) Research has prepared a report on third quarter 2011 (3Q 2011) Service Provider VoIP Equipment and Subscribers market share and forecast.

The findings included some non-surprising facts -- the third quarter tends to be a weak one for the overall carrier VoIP equipment market.

“3Q11 was no exception," noted Diane Myers, directing analyst for VoIP and IMS at Infonetics Research (News - Alert). "No vendor is immune to the challenges of delayed orders and shifts in technology choices, although there were some standout performances by vendors in 3Q11 in specific segments.”

And it’s not like there was a whole lot of good news in any one sector. As the research found, sequentially, all market segments are down in 3Q 2011. If you want to find a bright spot somewhere, compared to the year-ago quarter, session border controllers are up, with global revenue up 13 percent.

However, the standout region of the quarter is Central and Latin America, which posted a 14 percent increase in carrier VoIP equipment revenue in 3Q 2011 over 2Q 2011, driven by strong VoIP adoption, particularly in Brazil and Mexico.

Here are other report highlightsL

The global service provider VoIP equipment market (trunk media gateways, SBCs, media servers, softswitches, voice application servers), lost the 12 percent it gained in 2Q 2011 with a 12 percent decline, to $441 million.

Year-over-year (from 3Q 2010 to 3Q 2011), the overall market is down 15 percent.

In 3Q 2011, Huawei gained on GENBAND (News - Alert) to take the lead in the overall service provider VoIP equipment market.

The growth of VoIP subscribers in fixed and mobile networks, SIP trunking, and IP interconnectivity will continue to be important drivers for VoIP equipment.