Wholesale carrier Ethernet services are set to expand as demand for Ethernet interconnects grows, particularly from wireless carriers, Frost & Sullivan predicts in its latest report. The wholesale market brought in $595 million in 2009, a figure expected to more than double by 2014 to $1.5 billion. News release.

Tight control of costs helped stem declining revenues for the world's top telcos in 4Q09, a market research report by Reportlinker says, but average revenue growth remains stagnant at 0.4 percent. Telco KPIs: 4Q09 Analysis looks at 22 telecom operators worldwide. News release.

In another Reportlinker research report, India's DTH (Direct-to-Home) television industry showed significant growth in the past two years, adding 16 million subscribers in 2009--44 percent more than in 2008. With six providers competing for viewers--Dish TV, Tata Sky, Sun Direct, Big TV, Airtel Digital TV and Videocon D2H-plus one free provider, Doordarshan, DTH should continue to heat up in the region. News release.

Convergent charging--billing across multiple types of service (voice, video, data), different networks (wireline or wireless), and multiple regions--is emerging alongside other convergence technologies and will grow to a $2.6 billion market by 2014, Infonetics Research reports. Comverse and Ericsson are vying for the lead globally, while smaller software vendors are finding their niche in emerging markets and Greenfield opportunities. News release.

Related articles:
Network convergence is at hand, driven by technology, service providers
Ethernet exchange: Another tool in the Ethernet service toolkit
Cable losing in India, gaining in Russia as Singapore roils

Here are some of the interesting research reports released in the past week:

• IP/MPLS Infrastructure: Synergy Research this week released "Q1 2010 Carrier Infrastructure (CE, IP, MPLS) market shares," an annual report detailing market growth among the top worldwide infrastructure providers. Overall, the infrastructure market grew 27 percent over Q1 2009. Cisco topped the rankings with a quarter-to-quarter points increase of 7.26. News release.
  
• Optical Networking: Infonetics Research's "Optical Network Hardware" forecast report, released Monday, sees Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei racing neck-and-neck for lead position in this industry. They've been within two market share points of each other for six straight quarters. News release.
  
• Latin America: Latin America is seeing more attention lately, and two reports highlighted this week follow that trend. Research and Markets' report on the region's Unified Communications solutions market noted that while 2008 held high expectations, 2009 growth didn't quite hit the mark. Details here. Still, Latin America's cable broadband market had a record first quarter in 2010, with operators purchasing 330 percent more CMTS ports than they did in 4Q 09. Worldwide CMTS and edge QAM revenue increased 13 percent, to $416 million, in the same period. News release. By the way, don't miss our eBook, Latin America's Next Generation Networks, available now.
  
• OSS/BSS: Meantime in France, where Management World Nice 2010 is going on, BSS/OSS vendor Amdocs (NYSE: DOX) in conjunction with the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) is trying to soothe service providers' fears of becoming a "dumb pipe" in data delivery. Saying the threat is "vastly overstated," the report outlines five strategies for service providers for the "emerging connected world." News release.

Telephony currently has a series on how telecom service providers are increasingly migrating to paperless billing and electronic payments. Those capabilities are nothing new to most bill-paying consumers and businesses at this point, but the pace of converting telecom customers to paperless billing arguably has proceeded at a slower pace than in other sectors (at least this was the case put forth by electronic billing experts I talked to at last year's Billing & OSS World). The reasons for that may vary from the lack of effort the some telecom companies have put into marketing these capabilities to the monthly variance in telecom service charges that causes many customers to want to inspect bills closely and keep paper copies of them on hand for their own records.

But, several service providers have made strides, among them Verizon Communications and Cox Business (the latter profiled by Telephony this week). With more aggressive moves toward environmentally-friendly business practices, there are getting to be fewer and fewer excuses for telecom service providers to leave lengthy paper trails.

For more:
- Telephony has this story

Related articles
Verizon Business offers multi-national enterprises online billing reports
Usage-based billing may represent the future of broadband

Following Hewlett-Packard's acquisition of EDS last year, HP is now looking to package the latter's professional services capabilities with HP's own service delivery, OSS, digital media and other solutions in a new business unit--HP Communications and Media Solutions. The unit will tee off against competition like Oracle and IBM, two industry giants who have strengthened their service provider focus in the last year or so.

HP, which has been in telecom a long time, but whose efforts in the sector have been over-shadowed at times by its own broader corporate troubles, also presents the new unit at a time when traditional network equipment giants are branching further into the software arena. Meanwhile, HP announced fourth-quarter earnings today that included a 13 percent dip in profit, though the slide was mostly attributed to its computer and printer business.

For more:
- Telephony has this report

Related articles
HP bought EDS last year for about $14 billion
HP and BT extended a major partnership last fall

FairPoint Communication, along with integration partner Cap Geminis, has started the process of switching operations in northern New England from hundreds of legacy systems run by Verizon Communications to its own new systems. The company expects that it will be free of the Verizon ties by Monday, Feb. 9. FairPoint states in a press release issued this morning that data extraction from more than 600 Verizon systems began last Friday. The data will be consolidated into about 60 new systems operated by FairPoint. During the transition, "customer orders and non-emergency service requests will be manually recorded and fulfilled after the new systems are operating," the release states.

Meanwhile, FairPoint is being slammed by union forces in Vermont, who said that the company is going back on a pledge to bring 34 new jobs to Vermont as part of its acquisition of the former Verizon properties. FairPoint admitted last week that amid economic uncertainty it has decided to leave the jobs it planned to bring to Vermont as outsourced jobs for now. The move certainly will be unpopular, but perhaps is not surprising. It's clear that the North Carolina-based telco still has to prove itself to the locals in New England--providing a level of service that counter-balances all the criticism will help.

For more:
- Here's the FairPoint press release
- MSNBC has the Associated Press jobs report

Related articles
FairPoint recently announced job cuts
FairPoint has pledged broadband expansion

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Telecom software vendor Convergys said this week that it is unlikely to follow through in the near term on a previously-announced plan to spin off its billing system business. Though the company also said it is open to offers to buy the unit, that too may be unlikely, as such deals have faced major challenges in a difficult market environment.

The unit in question, the company's Information Management division, saw revenue slide during the fourth quarter, as service providers began to spend less on major OSS projects amid the challenging market. However, software in general and OSS in particular should continue to be a source of growth in telecom, as network operators are forced to manage ever more complex multi-play service environments.

For more:
- Telephony has this story

Related articles
Convergys discussed a possible billing spin-off last September
Convergys moved to acquire Intervoice last July

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Japanese vendor NEC already has enjoyed a pretty high profile worldwide as a network equipment vendor, but in the age of M&A-fed mega-vendors, that profile might have slipped a little. Now, NEC is looking to grow internationally, and has announced the $300 million acquisition of operations support system vendor NetCracker. The deal will help NEC build some scale, reach, partnerships and customers on the increasingly important software side of things, just as mega-vendors like Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia Siemens Networks and Ericsson are looking to do the same. The acquisition will also help NetCracker build a larger profile as the OSS market itself has become a playground for big M&A-fed companies like Oracle and Amdocs.

For more:
- check out this coverage at Light Reading

Related articles:
Amdocs acquired JacobsRimell earlier this year Amdocs report
Huawei Technologies also is becoming an OSS contender Huawei report