In discussions at PTC, carriers who had already begun their rollout of a next-generation IP network expressed their commitment to seeing the transition through, even in the face of difficult market conditions, while carriers who were in earlier stages of the process were re-evaluating, delaying, or even scrapping rollout plans.

For the international carriers who were backing off of their IP rollout plans, new strategies showed some interesting regional differences. In developed markets, these players were looking for partnerships that would allow them to outsource their international business operations to an IP-enabled player, and redirect focus toward customer acquisition and care, as well as maximizing the value of on-net terminations.

In emerging markets, however, many international players have a mandate to stay in the international voice space for business or even policy reasons. These players expressed intentions to continue to run their operations within the TDM environment as long as possible, or until the capital environment improved.

Since more of the IP first movers are concentrated in mature markets, if carriers execute as they are now discussing, the result may be significant regional differences in the patterns of IP and TDM voice traffic.

The theme for PTC this year was “Collaborating for Change,” and one of the impressions that came across strongly in the discussions and panels was a recognition that an IP-driven transformation is happening across the industry. However, there were some interesting differences in points of view on whether current economic conditions will speed up or slow down the pace of change.

For carriers that have already begun to roll out their Next-Generation Network (NGN) investment, today’s difficult market conditions are providing a strong motivation to continue, so they can begin to leverage the advantages IP offers in overall costs as well as time to market for new services. The faster these carriers can complete the transition, the faster they can realize the cost savings and transformational effects of IP.

However, for carriers who are still in the scoping or planning stages of the transition, the need to be very careful with capital will likely result in a re-evaluation of investment plans. Some of these carriers may simply delay the transition, but others will likely be looking for partners who can help them with solutions.

Industry-wide, key players are anticipating a next generation of outsourcing, as carriers look for less capital-intensive strategies to compete in an IP-enabled landscape. But whether done through in-house or outsourced investments, the result is likely to be more traffic migrated to new IP environments over the course of the upcoming year.