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Wireless IP Phone Research RoundupBy Greg Galitzine Widespread adoption of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) depends on the availability of wireless VoIP handsets. This is the key finding of an In-Stat report titled Wireless IP Phones Drive Future VoIP Markets. The report finds that dual-mode cellular/WiFi handsets will be the key driver to mass consumer adoption of VoIP and estimates that by 2009, over 66 million cellular/WiFi handsets will be in operation. “Wireless high-speed broadband access, unified messaging, video, and dual-network cellular/WiFi services are making the mobile triple play a consumer market reality,” says Keith Nissen, In-Stat analyst. “The key to successfully capturing the market for these next-generation personalized services is control of the end-point device.” The research revealed the following: • Worldwide, consumer VoIP subscribers using wireless IP phones will grow from two percent currently to 73 percent in 2009. • Europe will be the largest initial market for dual-mode smartphones. • A market survey found that over 80% of businesses have an interest in the technology. In other wireless IP Phone news, Broadcom Corporation announced that upcoming market research from IDC shows that Broadcom is the fastest growing enterprise IP phone chip supplier. According to IDC's Worldwide VoIP Semiconductor 2004 Vendor Market Shares, Broadcom captured 38 percent of the IP phone chip market and was the only company that gained market share in 2004. IDC reports that the growth and increase in market share is attributable to the ramp of Broadcom's design wins and the production availability of enterprise IP phones from many enterprise IP phone manufacturers. According to Geoffrey Baird, Vice President and General Manager of Avaya's Communications Appliances Division, "Broadcom's field-proven chipsets, technical expertise, and high-quality VoIP software suite helped Avaya bring high-performance and cost-effective phones to market quickly and efficiently.” "Next generation, cost-optimized, single-chip solutions with high-performance processing features, integrated Ethernet capabilities, and hardware-based security will become increasingly adopted in Ethernet IP phone designs," said Allen Leibovitch, Manager of semiconductor research for IDC. "Broadcom's IP phone product lineup, including its most-recent Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) VoIP chip, should continue the company's momentum in this growing market segment in 2005." |