ABI: IP Multimedia Subsystems Present $300B Opportunity
March 27, 2008 // Published as a news service by IHS
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Internet protocol multimedia subsystem (IMS) is expected to provide mobile telephone operators with a forecasted $300 billion in extra revenue over the next five years, according to a new study from ABI Research.
Major operators such as Sprint, Verizon and British Telecom (BT) will increasingly deploy IMS across their networks in a quickening tempo starting in 2008.
"Until recently, IMS was mainly the province of fixed-line operators," said ABI Research senior analyst Nadine Manjaro.
"But now it is essential to the success of mobile and fixed operators who are losing revenue from traditional sources. IMS enables rapid development and deployment of new services."
Some firms - notably Verizon and BT - are facilitating this process by offering an open IMS interface allowing third-party developers easy access, as a way of ensuring a flow of new applications.
Analysts said this means faster testing and deployment of services, which will be critical to their success.
"Operators are forced to look at IMS and similar solutions because they need to start generating more revenue," said Manjaro. "With recent moves by Sprint, Verizon and AT&T to offer less profitable flat rate services as a way to fight subscriber churn, that need becomes more acute."
One barrier to IMS's success in the past has been the difficulty of proving the business case for it. Manjaro said that planners were incorrectly considering IMS as a service, rather than a platform. In fact, IMS supports multiple services, and it takes several of them to make a valid business case.
The major challenge remaining for operators is to integrate IMS without seriously disrupting existing services. Analysts said that need is being met by the major infrastructure vendors, such as Ericsson, Alcatel and Nokia-Siemens, which have been packaging IMS (at additional cost) with the network upgrades they provide to operators.
"It's easier to quantify the opportunity for operators because you can look at it in terms of potential revenue," said Manjaro. "It's more difficult with regard to vendors, because they've been bundling it with the air interface, the base station [and] the architecture upgrade."
Source: ABI Research.