Despite a sequential decline of 19 percent, the mobile wireless infrastructure market posted a 13 percent gain in the first quarter of 2008 when compared to the same period last year, according to a new report.

The mobile softswitch market grew fastest, at 44 percent year-over-year, followed by UMTS equipment, which posted a 27 percent increase, according to Synergy Research Group.

Though incumbent manufacturers dominate much of the market, new entrants are seeing opportunities because of substantial changes in mobile wireless infrastructure, according to Aaron Vance, a senior analyst at Synergy.

“These opportunities are being driven by increased momentum for Release4 VoIP, WiMAX (News - Alert), and Mobile Multimedia deployments,” Vance said. “Furthermore, Synergy believes this will only continue to grow as mobile applications further embrace all facets of communication, collaboration, and entertainment.”

Synergy officials say that mobile wireless market share gains were difficult to come by in the quarter, a sign high competition in the nearly $15 billion market. The exception to those difficulties, according to Synergy, was Huawei, which saw a significant increase in mobile wireless deployments last quarter.

The market for mobile softswitch dropped nine percent in the first quarter of 2008, to $2.2 billion, though it was up nearly 44 percent relative to the first quarter of last year, according to Synergy’s data.

Generally speaking, a softswitch is a central device in a telephone network which connects calls from one phone line to another through software running on a computer system. Typically used to control connections between circuit and packet networks, the work was formerly carried out by hardware, with physical switchboards to route the calls.

Mobile VoIP Media Gateway sales jumped 24 percent in the quarter and climbed 22 percent year-over-year, company officials say, Synergy says.

Synergy also says that growth will be stifled in the developing Femto Cell market, due to the lack of a standard. Yet once the 3GPP Femto Cell standard is ratified, Synergy officials say, Femto Cell sales will accelerate to address pent up demand in the first half of 2009.

Source:TMCnet