Bonanza ahead for enterprise VoIP over Wi-Fi

Cisco's worldwide presence and huge resources make it hard to beat

Enterprise VoIP over Wi-Fi equipment sales will be worth around $2bn this year, growing to $15bn in 2012.

A new report from Juniper Research said that Cisco will emerge as the undisputed leader in the enterprise VoIP access point and VoIP wireless Lan switch/mobility controller markets in the next few years. 

"Cisco has a worldwide presence and huge resources that make it difficult for any other vendor to take market share," said report author Basharat Hamid Ashai.

"Other vendors such as Aruba Networks, Trapeze Networks, Proxim Wireless and Meru Networks will face stiff competition, and will not be able to maintain a lead for more than two or three consecutive years. 

"However, these companies are growing at a good pace and are almost on a par with each other in terms of success in this sector."

Enterprise VoIP access points are expected to reach over $5bn in revenues by 2012, growing from $930m this year.

VoIP wireless Lan switch/mobility controllers for enterprises are expected to reach almost $8bn by 2012, growing from just under $1bn in 2007.

North American revenues are expected to grow from $942m in 2007 to $4.45bn in 2012. EMEA and Asia Pacific revenues are expected to reach $4.4bn and $3bn respectively by 2012.

Single-mode VoIP over Wi-Fi handsets are predicted to enjoy sales of $155m in 2007 increasing to $1.5bn by 2012.

The Juniper report found that Spectralink is expected to lead the single-mode VoIP over Wi-Fi handset market for the next few years aided by its powerful OEM relationships with Avaya, Inter-Tel, NEC, Alcatel and Nortel.