By: Jesse Cryderman
Global Telecom Market Grows 4%
Independent telecoms analyst Ovum released a report this month that reviewed the 2010 financial performance of global telecoms. The results look promising for those operating in the space—4 percent growth in revenue to hit $1.85 trillion. The most significant finding was a modest year-on-year capex rise in the fourth quarter, which represented the first such growth since 4Q 2008.
Matt Walker, principal analyst for Ovum and report author commented: “This late pick-up of capex in 2010 drove the full-year results. There is usually a fourth quarter budget flush, but 2010 was stronger than 2009, when most carriers remained jittery. Vendors who have faced several quarters of lean times are certainly happy to see the capex tap turned on again.”
“Most of the big vendors enjoyed healthy top-line YoY growth for the fourth quarter of 2010. The best performing of the larger vendors included ZTE and Juniper, with 40 per cent and 26 per cent YoY revenue growth respectively. Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson also did well with YoY growth of 13 per cent and 11 per cent respectively. Meanwhile, Nokia Siemens Networks’ (NSN) revenues in the fourth quarter of 2010 grew by 0.5 per cent to hit $5.4 billion, NSN’s first positive YoY revenue growth since the third quarter of 2008.”
Did the Royal Wedding Break the Internet?
Last month we mentioned the possible impact the royal wedding might have on global networks, or more precisely, whether the networks were capable of handling the enormous demand for simultaneous real-time video streams of the pageantry. Sandvine was actively monitoring global networks, and recently released an answer to our questions in “Global Internet Phenomena Spotlight: The Royal Wedding.”
As expected, clear markers of increased traffic emerged: real-time messaging doubled and global video traffic surged 26 percent. Levels of Octoshape, a streaming media platform used for large global events, surged 60 times above normal levels. However, overall internet traffic for the day was actually 10 percent below baseline levels. And this from an event that was supposed to break Internet history—what gives?
As the report concluded, “Quite simply, the billions of people tuning into television coverage meant that a huge number of subscribers who would normally be active online were, instead, glued to their televisions.” In this scenario, television won, and cord-cutters are clearly a minority. The Sandvine report noted this as well: “However, this should not cover up the fact that there was a significant increase in video traffic worldwide, which is evidence that many users are turning to the Internet to experience events that are typically the exclusive domain of television broadcasts.”
Huawei Makes Aggressive Moves in B/OSS
To anyone attending TM Forum’s Management World 2011 in Dublin (which the Chinese mega-company heavily sponsored), it was clear that Huawei has an aggressive, and so far successful, plan for its OSS/BSS line of business. After spinning off OSS/BSS unit Huawei Software Technologies Co. and bursting on the scene just three years ago, Huawei is boasting impressive numbers: a client base of more than 400 CSPs in 138 countries; a consumer user base of 700 Million; and 200 OSS/BSS enterprise contracts in 38 countries.
How far Huawei’s winning streak will go remains to be seen. Many analysts have raised doubts that the Chinese company will ever make in-roads in mature markets, particularly the U.S., where security concerns are prevalent.
In other words, who wants to hand over the keys to the data kingdom to China?
These concerns are hardly enough to overshadow Huawei’s apparent success however. The company received a Leadership Award at Management World 2011, and there’s constant speculation regarding which U.S.-based company Huawei might attempt to acquire in order to gain a foothold in the U.S. market.
