DL - 4G Americas

Since around 2005, some research firms have been forecasting strong growth for the IMS market, and
have predicted that it will continue to show robust adoption of the technology until at least 2015 or 2016.
The global IMS equipment market, including IMS core equipment and IMS application servers, increased
almost 33.6 percent between the first and second quarters of 2010. Infonetics Research noted that
Huawei Technologies, L.M. Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks are all seeing increased IMS sales in
2010, while Alcatel-Lucent posted the largest revenue growths from the first quarter to the second of
2010. 14 ABI Research says that just over $8.37 billion was spent on IMS equipment in 2009, and expects
that number to grow to about $17.3 billion by 2013.
AT&T has probably been one of the most aggressive in the IMS segment of the market, having deployed
the technology for its U-Verse offering that allows customers to integrate mobile services via a broadband
connection powering in-home Internet, TV and wired phone services. AT&T also just started to further
integrate its wireless service into the mix, most recently through apps for select smartphones that enable
subscribers to control their TV digital video recorder or watch programs on their MIDs (Mobile Internet
Devices).
In general, wireless carriers have been very slowly moving towards IMS deployments for a variety of
reasons. Beyond some small and incomplete IMS deployments by carriers such as AT&T, Verizon and
France's Orange Internet, wireless industry analysts have noted that the slow adoption rate has been
mostly due to a lack of need for IMS to this point. Brian Partridge, Vice President at Yankee Group, said,
“IMS technology has been less of a success so far. The business case for IMS has not been compelling,
at least not until today, and we don't really see that changing until at least March or April of 2011. VoIP
simply isn't viable for mobile today. You need IMS to enable rich communication services, but at this point
it's a set of services in search of a business case. But we are still hopeful that this could change soon.” 15
Some wireless industry analysts have underscored that the lack of action on behalf of the mobile industry
has been due to a lack of network capacity to handle the services IMS desperately needs. “In terms of
infrastructure, the largest drawback for IMS in the mobile segment has been the small size of the network
pipe,” said Joe McGarvey, Principal Analyst for IP Services Infrastructure at Current Analysis Inc. “That
might sound a bit rudimentary, but that has been the case in some cases we've seen.” 16
McGarvey also noted that on the wired side, IMS has been used mostly as a way to overlay a VoIP
(Voice over Internet Protocol) application, allowing enterprises to offer voice services over their data
networks. However, for mobile that has not yet been needed as 2G and 3G networks are based on voicefocused
technologies and, thus, there has been no need to turn to VoIP. That is expected to change once
4G networks start coming online. Infonetics Research and others expect LTE-based wireless networks to
be a boon for the IMS market. 17
Mobile TV services have been launched by several carriers worldwide, particularly in Japan and South
Korea. According to ABI Research analysis, several factors have hindered the widespread deployment
and adoption of mobile cellular and broadcast TV services up to 2010. However, the market inhibitors are
being addressed and worldwide adoption will accelerate starting in 2012 through 2015 when total market
revenues are forecast to exceed $20 billion. 18
14
Wireless carriers moving very slowly towards IMS deployments, WirelessIndustryNews.com, 14 October 2010.
15
Ibid.
16
Ibid.
17
Ibid.
18
Mobile TV Services Set for Accelerated Adoption After 2012; Forecast to Top $20 Billion in 2015. ABI Research, 16 June 2010.
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