Market Booms Thanks to VoIP
AVM at CeBIT 2006
Market Booms Thanks to VoIP-Growth Continuing Strong in 2006
Berlin/Hanover (ots)
- VoIP a decisive factor in robust broadband growth - Experts: VoIP telephony share to reach 40 percent in two years - AVM notes strong growth in ADSL and VoIP CPEs - SIP protocol established as Internet phone standard
Phone calls over the Internet are gaining popularity at an increasing rate, and have evolved into a key market factor. This is the conclusion reached by Johannes Nill, Managing Director of the FRITZ!Box manufacturer AVM. "VoIP has completed a transition: it's no longer a fad, it's in widespread use," Nill said at the AVM press conference on the opening day of CeBIT 2006. "Internet telephony is cheaper and more versatile than fixed lines," Nill continued. No wonder then that over 10 percent of Germans are already calling over the Internet, hardly two years after the market launch of VoIP. Experts anticipate further strong growth in Europe in the years to come. The rapid growth is also fueled by SIP, the Session Initiation Protocol. SIP has evolved into a VoIP standard that is recognized internationally and supported by many major suppliers. The positive market trend has boosted AVM to a record year in 2005 with over 3 million hardware products sold.
VoIP Market Continues to Boom
Not only are over 50 percent of business calls carried over the Internet, but Internet telephony has also rapidly increased its share of personal voice communications as well. Growth is expected to continue strong in 2006 thanks to attractive service offerings, new products and greater convenience. According to a current study by the Forschungs-gruppe Wahlen, over 10 percent of Germany's population already use Internet telephony. This figure is expected to climb to some 40 percent by 2008. The primary reasons cited are the low connection charges and easy, convenient operation. All the major Internet providers now have VoIP offerings, including T-Online, 1&1, AOL and Freenet. At 1&1 alone, the number of call minutes carried over the Internet jumped within a year from 25 million to over 300 million minutes per month. The market research institute IDC expects voice over broadband in Germany to grow by 106 percent in 2006. In Europe, the market experts predict growth of 58 percent every year through 2010. This implies an increase in terminal equipment from over 10 million units in 2006 to more than 38 million in four years. These figures are counting only VoIP connections that do not require a PC-that is, calls made with hardware such as FRITZ!Box, or with an IP phone connected to a broadband modem. This is because the researchers at IDC consider that only VoIP providers who offer standardized calls without switching on a PC have a chance in the market.
AVM Sets Record with VoIP Terminal Equipment
The heady growth in broadband and Voice over IP is also reflected in the sales figures for AVM's FRITZ!Box: AVM sold over two million FRITZ!Box products in 2005. And over 65 percent of these are equipped for Internet telephony. FRITZ!Box is praised by all the leading VoIP providers in their new subscriber marketing as "better than ISDN". The Berlin communications specialist has been able to increase sales in 2005 from EUR150 million to EUR200 million.
SIP Prevails as Standard for VoIP Calls
An important building block in the technical foundation of Voice over IP is the internationally adopted standard SIP, the Session Initiation Protocol. This standard was developed with attention to open implementation, scalability, and flexibility. Another advantage of SIP is the interoperability of equipment from different manufacturers. In addition to many hardware vendors and VoIP providers, the SIP standard also has the support of ETSI (the European Telecommunications Standards Institute), the ITU (International Telecommunication Union), and 3GPP (the Third Generation Partnership Project).
Contact:
Urban Bastert
Public Relations Office
AVM GmbH
Alt-Moabit 95, 10559 Berlin
http://www.avm.de
Fon +49 (0) 30 / 3 99 76 -214
Fax +49 (0) 30 / 3 99 76 -640
Mail u.bastert@avm.de
Original-Content von: AVM GmbH, übermittelt durch news aktuell