208 million IMS-based subscriber lines deployed in carrier networks worldwide

A publication by iLocus reports that on a cumulative basis, a total of 208 million IMS subscriber lines had been deployed across both wireline and wireless networks as of end 1H10. More than half the deployments have taken place in wireline networks.

The report says that an estimated 25 percent of the total subscriber capacity in wireline networks has migrated to VoIP. Of the 25 percent, around 14 percent is comprised of softswitch based subscriber lines and remaining 11 percent is comprised of IMS based subscriber lines.

Obviously most of the IMS action surrounds the wireline market where the packetization has been pushed to the edge through broadband deployment. For convergent operators, IMS solves time to market issue. For mobile operators, the short term driver is to launch the enhanced communications services like RCS. But that is a major market driver. It is not a sufficiently large enough motivation to go for IMS deployment. But since the industry chose IMS to carry VoIP within mobile networks the mid term driver for IMS is VoLTE.

Majority of the 75 percent of the subscriber lines in wireline segment that remain TDM based are likely to be migrated direct to IMS according to the iLocus report. By the year 2014 the ratio of IMS-to-softswitch based subscriber lines deployed in the wireline networks is forecast to be around 2:1.

Among the vendors, Ericsson ranks at number one position in the report, followed by ZTE at number two, and Huawei at number three.

See link to the report below.

Contact Information

Jahangir Raina

Analyst

iLocus

Contact via E-mail