2.7 trillion VoIP minutes traversed telecom networks in 2009

Estimated 2,660 billion minutes of VoIP traffic was carried by service providers worldwide during the year 2009. Of these minutes, 842 billion was local call volume, 1,727 billion was national long distance (NLD) call volume, and 90.7 billion was the international long distance (ILD) call volume. If double counted traffic is included, we are looking at an overall traffic of 2,870 billion minutes during 2009. The estimates are based on a survey of 200 carriers worldwide.

ZTE platform carried the most number of VoIP minutes in 2009. Its platform carried an overall share of 17.4 percent VoIP traffic worldwide across both wireline and wireless networks. ZTE leads because of the fact that the vendor has the largest VoIP equipment footprint in high population countries China and India.

Softswitches have been widely deployed across both wireless and wireline networks worldwide. According to iLocus, an estimated 41% of the voice gateway ports in wireless networks are NGN/softswitch now, compared to around 58% in the wireline. However, the number of NGN voice ports shipped in wireless is almost double the volume shipped for wireline networks. These findings dispel the notion that softswitch deployments are still in infancy and that there are limitless opportunities for vendors to ship softswitches for the foreseeable future.

 iLocus has been following VoIP minutes data since March 1999. iLocus is the only research group that has been able to consistently track such data and attribute the share of these minutes to vendors. In particular, iLocus pioneered the concept of attributing market share in traffic/minutes to equipment providers back in 1999. The report covers the calendar year 2009, reporting on VoIP minutes in local, NLD, and ILD segments worldwide. Market shares are mainly attributed to softswitch/gateway vendors.

 Minute is an important market indicator. By analysing the volume of VoIP traffic handled by different vendor platforms, carriers get a better overview of vendors’ leadership in the Softswitch market, and the level of utilization of their Softswitch equipment. Millions of lines of Softswitch equipment shipments are reported by the vendors each quarter. This analysis provides an insight into the actual progress made  by the industry, which should not be gauged by only the volume of Softswitch/VoIP equipment shipments, but its utilization, which is what the analysis highlights.