Digital Lifescapes

The global voice over IP (VoIP) service market totaled $73 billion in 2015 -- that's a 5 percent increase over the prior year, according to the latest worldwide market study by IHS . The growth was fueled by more companies shifting to cloud-based services and the adoption of Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). VoIP communication services, including residential and business offerings, have become viable alternatives to legacy landline telephone services in most developed countries around the globe. Although residential VoIP service remains a significant portion of VoIP services revenue, business services and the dynamic supplier landscape are driving new growth in the market. VoIP Market Development Trends The competitive landscape has become highly fragmented for VoIP business services, with an increasing number of PBX and Unified Communications (UC) vendors, enterprise agents and resellers expanding into the market along with traditional telecom service providers. Additio...

Applications of Mobile Voice over IP are an extension of VoIP technology that allows for IP-based phone calls to be made from a mobile handset. Voice traffic travels over the available wireless broadband connection -- whether that connection is 3G, EDGE, Wi-Fi, or GPRS. Similar to landline VoIP, mobile VoIP service is being adopted in both the consumer and business segments, but has only recently begun to be implemented within the typical business communication environment. Even though it's an emerging application, mobile VoIP growth rates are strong and by the end of the forecast period in 2015, users will have grown to nearly 83 million lines, according to the latest market study by In-Stat . "There are several reasons that adoption of mobile VoIP makes sense," says Amy Cravens, Senior Analyst at In-Stat. Some of these reasons include the ability to take the desktop telephone experience with you while mobile, the ability to utilize the benefits of IP-based commu...

Voice-over-IP (VoIP) has revolutionized voice communication services over the past several years and has reduced long-distance calling costs for both residential and business broadband subscribers. It's now spreading from the traditional landline applications to the mobile phone user. Usage is on the rise, creating significant opportunity for mobile VoIP gateway equipment suppliers -- as expenditures in this space are expected to soar beyond the $6 billion mark in 2015, according to the latest market study by In-Stat. "Mobile VoIP has only recently begun being implemented in the business environment," says Amy Cravens, Market Analyst at In-Stat . One of the key benefits of mobile VoIP for enterprises is extending desk phone functionality to mobile devices. Business-oriented solutions will essentially enable the user's  mobile phones to become an extension of their desk phones and will deliver, in addition to voice, a unified communications experience -- includi...

According to Infonetics Research, the IP contact center (IPCC) market will finish 2008 up 37 percent over 2007, with many vendors reporting robust sales, particularly in Asia Pacific. The Infonetics' report shows sales of unified communications (UC) products will end mixed in 2008, with unified messaging platform sales up and communicator software sales flat. Because of the deterioration in economic activity worldwide, enterprise spending on telephony products is expected to slow in 2009, which will also pull down the overall UC and IPCC markets, although the IPCC and communicator segments will weather the economic downturn better than others. "The communicator market continues to be fluid, with growth not yet following established patterns and market share positions shifting one period to the next as PBX vendors battle each other and Microsoft," said Matthias Machowinski, Infonetics Research's directing analyst for enterprise voice and data. It's an exciting mark...