7/27/2004 -- Analysts have been predicting a large-scale migration among service providers to voice-over-IP (VOIP) for several years -- but now it looks like it may actually be happening. Or on the verge of happening, at the very least.

According to new market research data from market research specialist Infonetics Research, 2005 could be the year in which service providers embrace VoIP technologies.

Each year, Infonetics publishes a report (“Service Provider Plans for Next Gen Voice”) based on a survey of global service providers. In previous years, Infonetics researchers say, carriers expressed little enthusiasm for VoIP; things have changed in 2004, however, and of the 32 North-American, European, and Asia-Pacific service providers interviewed by Infonetics, a majority confirmed that migrating their existing circuit-switched voice networks to packet networks is a “serious strategic element” in their long-term network planning.

“Due to many factors, including equipment maturity, service providers are finally moving to adopt the packet communication paradigm,” said Infonetics analyst Kevin Mitchell in a statement.

Mitchell says that VoIP is starting to see uptake beyond bleeding-edge adopters: “It’s no longer just specialists or VoIP pioneers, but all types of carriers in all regions of the world that are adopting VoIP technology and using it to build a new set of service offerings.

Just how much next-gen VoIP uptake are we talking about? Worldwide, service providers invested $1.2 billion in next-gen voice equipment in 2003, says Infonetics. What’s more, Mitchell predicts, carrier investments in next-gen voice equipment will grow to $4.8 billion by 2007.

So what’s driving VoIP uptake among carriers? The availability of new VoIP-ready applications and services, for starters, which was rated highly by 72 percent of respondents. Elsewhere, Infonetics found that MPLS is the most popular means of providing QoS/CoS for next-gen voice networks, and that SIP support has grown by nearly 30 percent over the last year alone -- from 54 percent to 84 percent in 2005. The upshot, Infonetics researchers say, is that SIP “is becoming more pervasive and will be essential for enabling the popular IP multimedia services.” Finally, 94 percent of carriers will offer hosted IP voice solutions for residential and business markets by 2005 – a jump of nearly 40 percent from 2004 (56 percent). -Stephen Swoyer