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Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert), a research firm that analyzes a number of market sectors including mobile and telecommunications, announced in its latest report that the telecom market sector in Central and Eastern Europe will be able to achieve the increasing growth rates despite of the recent market decline, as the telecom operators in the region have been focusing on entering new lucrative spaces and are willing to revise their current business models.

The value of the telecommunications market in Central and Eastern Europe, which includes Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania, decreased by 14 percent; the reason being that the introduction of a rigorous market regulatory policy and the 2009 economic slowdown.

In its new study titled, ‘Telecommunications in Central and Eastern Europe: Top Markets Outlook 2010,’ Frost & Sullivan suggests that the market earned revenues of  around $31.3 billion in 2009, and estimates it will touch the figure of $36.8 billion by the year 2014. Further, the research report says that as a result of the saturation in the market’s main segments, growth will continue to face challenges; still, the increasing focus of telecom operators on entering new lucrative spaces, and the revision of current business models, will ensure that increasing growth rates can be achieved.

According to Edyta Kosowska, research analyst at Frost & Sullivan, there is still a lot of growth potential within the broadband segment and increasing demand will be expected for high-speed technologies such as FTTH or EuroDOCSIS 3.0, as well as mobile broadband, especially in the peripheral areas.

The study emphasizes that the most important driver of telecom revenues will be the development of cross-vertical services such as m-payments, m-commerce and M2M, while the operators will also benefit from heightened interest in advanced ICT solutions for the enterprise sector. It also states that the telecom operator strategies in Central and Eastern Europe will not differ much from that of their Western European counterparts, as they aim at churning reduction in the initial phase, assigning due notice to the fact that acquiring new customers is much more expensive than retaining existing ones. Also, the telecom operators will be able to attract their existing customer base by offering new services to them.

Kosowska noted that the challenge for the immediate future will arise from the reality that most market regulators will follow the European Commission’s directions and focus on facilitating market access to other participants, which will finally result in intensified competition.

In September 2010, Frost & Sullivan announced the results of a study highlighting the difference between Iridium (News - Alert) 9555 and Inmarsat IsatPhonePro satellite phone devices and services. The study was aimed at educating end users and decision makers, such as emergency first responders and disaster recovery personnel, who need to purchase, deploy or use satellite devices.