New Infonetics Research has forecasted that the worldwide fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) market, including UMA network controllers, multi-access convergence gateways and dual mode cellular/WiFi (News - Alert) phones will soar to $4.6 billion in 2010.

The report, FMC Equipment, Phones and Subscriber Market Outlook indicates that all of the current seamless and non-seamless variations of FMC implementations, UMA (unlicensed mobile access) has seen the most significant push, brought on by intense competition.

Incumbents are trying to protect their own turf in areas such as Denmark, France, Italy, The Netherlands and the UK, where the fiercest battles are coming from attackers in these markets. UMA is also seen as the quickest fix prior to any migration to IMS, according to the report.

"UMA, which was believed to have short legs just a year ago, is the predominant technology deployed today to implement seamless FMC between wireless LAN and 2G cellular networks,” said Stéphane Téral, principal analyst at Infonetics Research, in a Thursday statement.

“For those who still believe UMA will be short lived, it can now support 3G, is backed by the 3GPP, has a clear migration roadmap to IMS, and is becoming the default case for femtocells."

The report also highlights that large European incumbents such as BT, France Télécom, and TeliaSonera have been taking the lead on the charge to offer UMA-based seamless dual mode WiFi/cellular services.

Nokia (News - Alert) has been found to be the worldwide dual mode cellular/WiFi phone market share leader, by far. The telecommunications giant is followed then by Sony Ericsson (News - Alert) and Motorola.

The report also found that all UMA network controllers (UNCs) today are sold with dual mode handsets in mind, but are likely to be soon sold for femtocell-only applications. In addition, the number of worldwide seamless FMC subscribers is expected to skyrocket from 188,000 in 2006 to 38.2 million in 2010.

This research also indicated that VCC applications servers are not going anywhere as the standard has been delayed and VCC is now fully tied to IMS.

Finally, multi-access convergence gateways (MACGs) have the potential to become the largest FMC equipment market worldwide as they collapse several network elements into one platform and address the need for network consolidation, provide intelligent interaction with subscribers, services and transport mechanisms.

Infonetics' FMC report provides worldwide and regional market size, select market share, and forecasts from 2006 to 2010 for UNCs, MACGs, dual service phones, UMA and IMS seamless FMC phones, and FMC subscribers. Regions studied include North America, EMEA, Asia Pacific, CALA, and worldwide.

This report clearly indicates that not only has UMA proven to be a steadfast application that has surpassed original expectations, it will continue to be supported into the future. These forecasts indicate significant opportunity attached to the technology and those still assuming that UMA has no future are likely to miss out on the potential.

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Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMC (News - Alert) and has also written for eastbiz.com. To see more of her articles, please visit Susan J. Campbell’s columnist page.

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