Infonetics Research Reports Strong Growth in FMC Market, Specifically UMA

T-Mobile USA and Orange are heating up the fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) infrastructure market, according to a report issued this week by Infonetics Research. These two companies are the primary drivers of the nearly 5-fold increase from 2006-2007 of the worldwide market, including UMA network controllers and multi-access convergence gateways. Infonetics forecasts this industry will grow 10-times larger between 2007 and 2011.

“The fixed-mobile convergence market, which was just emerging last year with strong UMA deployments that started in Europe, has now reached significance in North America with T-Mobile USA’s FMC buildout," said Stéphane Téral, principal analyst at Infonetics Research.

The report, entitled FMC Equipment, Phones, and Subscribers, also states the worldwide dual-mode cellular/WiFi phone market hit $26.8B in 2007 and is forecast to nearly triple by 2011. Plus, the number of worldwide seamless FMC subscribers is forecast to grow to 63.7 million in 2011, made up mostly of UMA subscribers.

As further evidence of this growth, T-Mobile USA recently stated that almost half of its customers buying WiFi/UMA cell phones are new subscribers, and that the company plans to introduce 10 new UMA-enabled dual-mode phones this year.

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