Telecom Service Provider Revenue to Hit $2.17 Trillion in 2015

Global Telecom Service Provider Revenue Forecast

In the 10 years from 2005 to 2015, telecom service provider revenue has shown and will continue to show year-over-year growth every year except in 2009, according to Infonetics.

Following a 4.1 percent increase in 2010 over 2009, telecom service provider revenue will grow 7.6 percent in 2011, to $1.86 trillion. Infonetics revenue forecast


Telecom carrier revenue is forecast by Infonetics to grow to $2.17 trillion in 2015, driven by mobile broadband. Keep in mind that those are global figures and that growth will vary from region to region.


Is it possible that U.S. service provider revenue could double in just the next five years? Insight Research Corp. thinks so. The firm reports that predicts that, between 2011 and 2016,, North American carrier revenue will  rise from $287 billion to $662 billion, representing 11 percent compound annual revenue growth.

That rapid growth, on a compound basis, would lead to a doubling of industry revenue in five years. That doesn't mean providers in every segment will benefit equally. But a forecast that large would have to assume that most of the growth would have to occur at the largest firms, which represent 80 percent of total industry revenue.

The smaller providers cannot reasonably contribute enough aggregate revenue to tip the needle at such a large scale, even with even-higher rates of growth than 11 percent, compounded.

Global carrier revenue is expected to achieve a nine percent compound annual growth rate  from 2011 to 2016, growing to a total of $5.13 trillion, according to Insight Research Corp.

The forecast explicitly assumes that North American service providers successfully will grow new revenues at a rate fast enough to compensate for weakening voice revenues, for example.
See Insight Research findings here 

Ethernet Keeps Growing

Ethernet continues to gain a more prominent role in networking capabilities being deployed by service providers in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific, with most carriers reporting 90 to 100 percent increases in Ethernet traffic for the past two years, according to analysts at Infonetics Research. IP and MPLS traffic has grown 70 to 80 percent over the same period, Infonetics says.

A new optical transport layer also will emerge, Infonetics believes. This new layer will be a fused Ethernet-WDM packet transport with circuit-like capabilities via Ethernet transport tunnels, also known as COE, or connection oriented Ethernet. That means more adoption of T-MPLS and PBT, Infonetics believes.

There was a time when some argued that "connectionless" protocols such as IP would replace "connection oriented" protocols such as time division multiplex, SONET and asynchronous transfer mode. As it turns out, there's a reason why connection-oriented protocols, or at least protocols that emulate connections, are important. Some traffic types, especially video and voice, are susceptible to impairments that can arise when connectionless protocols are used.

Whither WiMAX?

It might seem odd to question just how big the WiMAX infrastructure market might be, given strong support from the likes of Intel and others who see a data device optimized broadband network as a huge opportunity. And maybe WiMAX ultimately will create a large enough global base of infrastructure that handset and device manufacturers will have a large opportunity.

But potential end user volumes matter, and matter a lot, in today's world. The issue isn't whether WiMAX will work. CDMA works. But global volumes for GSM networks are so large that device innovation is higher on the GSM than the CDMA sides of the ledger. Volume also is a factor for software developers, who prefer larger markets to smaller markets.

Sprint got people excited with plans to build a $5-billion, nation-wide network in the U.S. but that strategy is now in question. Sure, there's the rest of the world, but if you have followed mobile technology trends for any time, you are more careful about the installed base, and the potential installed base.

In the third-quarter, Infonetics Research says, worldwide WiMax equipment sales climbed a mere six percent to $206-million. Meanwhile, worldwide unit shipments of fixed and mobile WiMAX equipment rose 16 percent in the third quarter of 2007.

Still, Infonetics is looking for Wi-Max to see annual growth of 87 percent between 2006 and 2010 as more carriers embrace the fourth-generation technology.

The number of worldwide WiMAX subscribers (fixed and mobile) is expected to skyrocket to close to 60 million in 2010, led by the Asian region, Infonetics says.

Still, there is the historic example of iDEN and CDMA to consider. Devices are more important than networks these days. And one has to contend with the issue of sheer mass, in that regard. There's no question that WiMAX will work. But that's not the crucial question. The issue is how large the market for WiMAX devices might be, compared to GSM and its derivatives.