IDC 2006 top 10 predictions for Australian telecoms

Stan Beer
Tuesday, 13 December 2005 17:15

IT Industry - Market

The Australian telecom industry again finds itself at a crossroad and service providers are forced to transform and adapt to a morphing landscape filled with growing numbers of innovative competitors and unconventional business models, according to research group IDC.

IDC Australia's latest study, "What Lies Ahead? Top 10 Predictions for the Australian Telecommunications Market 2006," provides the collective views of the group's telecom and consumer analysts of the top 10 developments expected to dominate industry headlines and represent large opportunities for industry players.

IDCs 2006 telecom and consumer predictions are:

·Execution will hold the key to success for carriers rolling out NGNs and introducing NGN services.

·Riding on the popularity of DSL, IPTV momentum will continue to build despite the small subscriber base.

·Home gateways, the common battleground of service providers, consumer electronics and IT/networking vendors, will play a critical role in facilitating convergence in the home.

·"Video on-the-go" activity will ramp up – thanks to offerings like video iPod, which are paving the way towards broadcast TV on mobile handsets.

·Concerns around rapid PSTN revenue decline, accelerated by landline substitution efforts by mobile operators, will intensify.

·Multimode mobile devices for roaming between various wireless networks will become the first stepping stone towards fixed-mobile convergence.

·Cellular and wireless broadband technologies will take turn to deliver punches in a bid to conquer the wireless Internet market.

·Municipality broadband initiatives will rise in importance, especially among greenfield government councils aiming to offer broadband as a public service.

·Open source IP PBX will become a compelling alternative to SMB business users.

·Shipments of IP telephony lines will surpass those of TDM lines in the business market for the first time.

“With NGN migration strategies now become stock-standard, the execution will be the key to success, migrating to an all-IP NGN platform has shifted from a matter of if and when to that of how. True service innovation will come when service providers are setting firm revenue targets of true convergent offers derived from NGN, while committing to research and development in order to boost innovation. It is realistic for major players to set their R&D budget to the range of 2-3% of revenue,” said Landry Fevre research director,telecommunications and consumer markets.