Okay, you can stop with the “mobile video calling is the new voice” talk. It’s not. At least not yet.

According to officials of ABI Research, video telephony, sharing, and messaging services over mobile networks were used by fewer than 47 million consumers at the end of 2011.

That’s not exactly voice, no. Oh it’ll grow in coming years, ABI thinks it’ll grow “substantially,” throwing out a number of 390 million users by 2016 as kind of a best case scenario.

Mobile operators will be disappointed. They had visions of video as a source of revenue potentially equaling voice, but as ABI officials say, their goals are now more “realistic.”

Considering that free alternatives will always be available, the industry's pricing power is limited. "Only a small minority of consumers are willing to pay a premium price for video calls," says senior analyst Aapo Markkanen, who thinks that video will be monetized “by their bundling with other communication media, promoting premium features to enterprises, and delivering advertisements."

The real problem, as ABI sees it, is the lack of interoperability of separate video ecosystems. “What's the point of being able to make video calls if none of your close contacts can receive your calls?” says practice director Dan Shey. “Allowing the different ecosystems such as Tango, fring, and Apple's FaceTime (News - Alert), as well as all the carrier services, to interconnect with each other is a big challenge."

Towards the end of 2011 TMC’s Stefanie Mosca wrote that officials of Dialogic (News - Alert) told her that in 2012, the mobile video market “will continue to grow and evolve and consumers will have higher expectations for video quality. Content providers will need to find ways to measure the perceptual quality of video on their networks.”

Better measurement of perceptual quality will enable video content providers to quickly identify, isolate and correct issues so that they can deliver the quality video that consumers expect, they said, adding that at the same time, by offering a variety of high quality video services, “content providers can charge higher subscription fees and enhanced advertising rates while still adhering to Service Level Agreements. Perceptual quality measurement may just be the key to success when it comes to mobile video monetization.”

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO East 2012, taking place Jan. 31-Feb. 3 2012, in Miami, FL. ITEXPO (News - Alert) offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. For more information on registering for ITEXPO registration click here.

Stay in touch with everything happening at ITEXPO. Follow us on Twitter.