FMC market a sure bet, says Infonetics survey

Channel onlookers have urged resellers to move into fixed mobile convergence (FMC) after a survey revealed impressive growth in the market last year and predicted similar success for the next three years.

The FMC equipment, phones and subscribers report from market research firm Infonetics Research indicates that the worldwide dual-mode phone market was worth $26.8bn (£13.6bn) in 2007. It claims that this figure will almost triple by 2011 and the number of seamless FMC subscribers is predicted to reach 63.7 million in that time.

Revenues from UMA network controllers are expected to grow more than ten-fold in the next three years, while Infonetics predicted that deployments of multi-access convergence gateways will pick up speed this year before experiencing rapid growth over the next two or three years. Nokia is ahead of other vendors in the global dual-mode phone market with HTC and Sony Ericsson in second and third positions.

Scott Dobson, managing director of voice over IP distributor Vcomm, told CRN that now is an ideal time for resellers to move into the FMC market. “Even if the PBX cannot be refreshed, FMC can be plugged into a traditional PBX environment so it allows resellers to attack an existing install base,” he said.

Richard Bligh, marketing director for vendor Gamma Telecom, said: “Everywhere you look, the lines between fixed and mobile are starting to blur. People are buying into FMC because it is a bit more tangible and logical than something like unified communications.”

Stéphane Téral, principal analyst at Infonetics, said: “The fixed mobile convergence market, which was just emerging last year with strong UMA deployments that started in Europe, has now reached a significance point in North America.”