VOIP, 10GbE Markets Show Growth, Dell Oro Group Says

The IP telephony space grew almost 10 percent in the third quarter, driven in part by investments service providers have made in their infrastructure, according to market research firm Dell’Oro Group.

The market grew to $782 million in the quarter as the service providers invested in such offerings as VOIP (voice-over IP) for businesses, Dell’Oro said in a report Dec. 8.

“Business VOIP remains a hot area,” Dell’Oro Vice President Greg Collins said in a statement. “Enterprises as well as small and medium [sized] businesses increasingly embrace IP Centrex, unified communications and IP business trunks (or SIP trunks), and investment in equipment to support these services offers service providers attractive near-term returns.”

In particular, Acme Packet and Huawei both benefitted, with each posting double-digit revenue gains.

Dell’Oro’s VOIP report came a day after the research firm said that high-speed server network connectivity also is growing strongly.

In particular, combined 10 Gigabit Ethernet network adapter and LAN-on-motherboard port shipments doubled in the third quarter over the second.

Meanwhile, 8GB Fibre Channel HBA (host bus adapter) port shipments saw a similar increase.

Driving this increase were blade servers, according to Seamus Crehan, a Dell’Oro vice president.

“This class of server, which generally has been growing faster than the overall server market, has seen quicker adoption of high-speed network connectivity,” Crehan said in a statement. “This is, in part, due to 10GB Ethernet and 8GB Fibre Channel having much lower prices for blade servers than for standalone servers.”

 The primary beneficiaries of the 10GbE growth were Intel and Broadcom, while Emulex and QLogic benefitted from the 8GB Fibre Channel growth.