vendredi, février 10, 2006

Wi-Fi Phone Market to Hit $1.9 billion in 2009

[DEBUT]
The global market for Wi-Fi phones rose 76 percent in 2005 to $102.5 million, and will reach $1.9 billion in 2009, according to a report by Infonetics Research. The number of units shipped rose 112 percent last year, and will increase by 158 percent this year, the report adds.

Single-mode Wi-Fi-only phones accounted for two-thirds of last year's revenue, and dual-mode Wi-Fi-cellular handsets one-third, says Infonetics' Wi-Fi Phones Biannual Worldwide Market Share and Forecast. By 2009, that ratio will better than reverse, with dual-mode handsets accounting for approximately three-fourths of the total.

The original driver of Wi-Fi phone growth will be enterprises, according to Richard Webb, the report's author. That's mainly because such organizations already have large data networks with the capability to double as voice networks. The addition of mobility to the mix only makes such VoIP applications more valuable, he notes.

In time, however, voice over Wi-Fi, also knowns as VoWLAN, will become popular among consumers, Infonetics predicts, particularly when they can buy it as part of VoIP service bundled with broadband Internet access.

Such bundles become all the more attractive when they also include cellular services as part of the package.

One key to making cellular-Wi-Fi bundles work is dual-mode handsets that are almost as cheap as single-mode ones.

Equally important are network equipment and services that allow seamless handoffs between the two modes, so that phone calls begun on a cellular network can roam to Wi-Fi when the handset is near a hotspot, or vice versa, with no interruption.

At least one startup has begun building equipment specifically aimed at making that, and various other mixes of services, possible.

Such cellular-Wi-Fi convergence will also require service providers, especially mobile operators, to figure out a business model that will make roaming an opportunity to increase their voice revenues, rather than a threat to cannibalize them.
[FIN]

[SOURCE]
Written by Robert Poe
http://www.wireless-beat.com/content/view/144/

[SAM]
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