Thanks to the commercial arrival of both the voice over LTE (VoLTE) and voice over HSPA (VoHSPA) standards, voice over mobile broadband has been forecast to garner nearly 450 million subscribers by 2016.
VoMBB refers to the end to end routing of standard mobile phone calls over a mobile broadband networks such as LTE and HSPA.
Research firm Signals and Systems Telecom has predicted that native VoMBB subscriptions will grow at a CAGR of nearly 150% over next three years, with subscribers growing from 10 million by the end of 2013 to 450 million by the end of 2016.
By this time, almost 5% of global mobile carrier voice subscriptions will be based on VoMBB, generating nearly $100 billion in voice service revenues, the research firm said.
With three commercial network deployments, the VoLTE (Voice over LTE), the market is well positioned for further growth with subscriptions expected to surpass 100,000 by the end of 2012.
After MetroPCS, LG UPlus and SK Telecom, Verizon has also indicated that it will launch commercial VoLTE service in the first half of 2013. AT&T and Clearwire will also follow suit. With the addition of the US mobile carriers, Verizon will add considerable strength to the subscriber base for VoLTE, Signals and Systems Telecom predicted.
While VoLTE has been the principal interest of vendors for a native mobile VoIP solution, the research company added, similar opportunities are being developed for HSPA that allow mobile operators to deliver VoHSPA, which presently offers even a larger addressable market.