Worldwide next gen voice product revenue totaled US$493 million in Q105, down 8% from Q404 but up 40% between Q104 and Q105, and is forecast to grow to US$5.8 billion in 2008, according to Infonetics Research's quarterly market share and forecast service, Service Provider Next Gen Voice Equipment.

All segments of the next gen voice market are up year-over-year, though the softswitch segment is the only one that saw sequential growth over 4Q04.

"The market continues to move further mainstream, and last month's announcement from BT is further indicative of the maturation of the market," said Infonetics Research's Kevin Mitchell, directing analyst and author of the report. "BT's selection of preferred suppliers for its 21st Century Network program to create a converged MPLS network for voice and data services--a five-year, £10 billion investment cycle--is a major deal that will affect router, optical, access, and VoIP equipment markets in Europe for years, in part as many European operators are looking to learn from BT's experience. Alcatel, Cisco, and Siemens were chosen for the metro nodes, which include media gateway, session border controller, BRAS, and edge router functions. Ericsson was chosen to provide the i-node elements, which include softswitches, bandwidth shaping, and network intelligence. These vendors, and their partners, will benefit in sales and prestige associated with this deal."

Q105 Market Highlights
  -  Worldwide softswitch revenue is up 4% from 4Q04 and 63% from Q104
  -  Nortel is the worldwide revenue market share leader in the softswitch market
  -  Siemens is number two for worldwide softswitch revenue
  -  Italtel is third worldwide but first in EMEA after nearly doubling softswitch revenue share in EMEA in 1Q05
  -  Trunk media gateways topped US$200 million and high-density media gateways represent 78% of all trunk media gateway revenue
  -  The geographic breakdown for total service provider next gen voice equipment: 45% North America, 27% EMEA, 21% Asia Pacific, and 7% CALA