IHS report found Verizon No. 1; CenturyLink surged to No. 2
Verizon Communications retained the top spot in the latest ranking of North America’s top session initial protocol trunking service providers.
The survey, conducted by IHS Infonetics, noted Verizon maintained the No. 1 position for the seventh straight year in its “SIP trunking scorecard” rankings. IHS stated that large operators continue to dominate the market, explaining: “in a service market based on cost, scale is necessary for success.”
Regional telecom provider CenturyLink surged up the rankings to the No. 2 position, edging past AT&T and XO Communications. Diane Myers, research director for voice over Internet Protocol, unified communications and IP multimedia subsystems at IHS, cited a growing installed base and improved financials for CenturyLink’s success.
Outside the top four, significant players in the space include Cox, Fusion, IntelePeer, Level 3, Sprint and Windstream.
“While the installed base of SIP trunks is important to providers’ overall leadership score in the scorecard, financial stability and market strategy also have a measurable impact on the standings,” IHS noted. “Since features aren’t a critical component of SIP trunking, providers differentiate their offerings based on security, interoperability, pricing and reliability.”
The report found that while business VoIP services are currently looking toward cloud platforms for support, SIP trunking “is equally important for service providers as it is the next generation of voice connectivity.”
IHS released a report last month that found between 60% and 65% of global telecom operators surveyed are today running voice over broadband, SIP trunking or hosted business VoIP services over IMS, with that number expected to hit 88% by 2017.
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