Carriers Perceive Teleglobe as Top Competitor in Wholesale Voice and Colt as Leader in Wholesale Data.

DUBLIN, Ireland -- Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c27919) has announced the addition of Wholesale Survey 2005 to their offering.

In this 3rd annual survey, the findings comment on the expectations of carriers for their wholesale businesses in the year ahead, covering both voice and data.

The Wholesale Survey 2005 is based on research with selected international wholesale carriers conducted in Europe, North America, Asia-Pacific and Latin America. Collectively the carriers represent around 40% of all world voice traffic estimated at 221.5 billion minutes, and 3.5 Terabits of sold capacity, through over 500 Points of Presence around the globe.

Overall, Carriers confront an increasingly changing and challenging environment.

The report found that in contrast to previous years, operators believe revenue growth will now not occur outside the norm, which increases the focus on other vehicles for growth including mergers, acquisitions, strategic collaboration and voice minute aggregation.

However, price declines appear set to continue but with some amelioration in the speed and percentage rate. In contrast to other regions, high voice and data volume growth is forecast for the Asia Pacific region.

In international wholesale data, the report found that the world market has not yet stabilised, and continues to be highly competitive with low barriers to entry for IP Transit, and the possibility that a new threat to the current IP Transit business model is emerging.

Although the total international wholesale market dollar value increased by only 4% between 2003 and 2004, strikingly the report found that the mobile premium now equates to approximately 40% of all revenues. The proportion of mobile terminating traffic continues to increase - the survey average is 36% - although new challenges could impact future growth.

The report also includes two valuable additional sections that provide context for the survey results: market pricing and the value of the international wholesale voice market, and an assessment of wholesale business profitability.

Voice and Data Competition

The survey found that Carriers perceive Teleglobe as the leading competitor in wholesale voice, and that a similar accolade is accorded to COLT in wholesale data. COLT has achieved this status for the second year running, even though its activities are confined to the European region.

ITXC is critical to the ranking of Teleglobe (now acquired by VSNL) and in combination places the carrier as the number one voice competitor, as viewed by its peers in the market. Belgacom who appeared first in voice wholesale last year, now ranks behind MCI who were identified by the respondents from all geographic regions as truly global and the most competitive wholesale voice carrier, and is now second in the survey.

In international wholesale data, Level (3) Communications and Cable & Wireless, who are viewed as highly competitive and collectively operate across multiple geographies, were second and third respectively.

Who Should Buy This Report

All operators, service providers and suppliers engaged in Wholesale Markets

--Voice and Data Carriers

--Aggregators

--Single Route Operators

--VoIP Players

--Regulatory Organisations

--Law Firms

--Supplier Companies

--Consultancies

--Financial and Investment Services Organisations

Companies mentioned include:

--Telegroup

--COLT

--Belgacom

--MCI

--Cable & Wireless

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c27919.