Increases in Diameter traffic inevitable with Apple FaceTime and other data-intensive services.

Exact Ventures yesterday released a forecast that cumulative product revenues for Diameter Signaling Controller (DSC) could approach $1 billion between 2011 and 2016 – a 25-percent increase compared to its earlier forecast. The report recognizes Tekelec as the DSC player that has captured 75% of this growing market segment.

What’s significant about the forecast is its relevance to growing speculation about service-provider capabilities related to iO6 FaceTime video calls over cellular, as well as the ongoing increases in Pandora and Netflix traffic, not to mention the expected M2M explosion that is expected.

Just one user streaming 10 minutes of video each day can hog up 1.71GB of data on a network each month. While capped and tiered plans might help in the short term, the need to create a positive customer experience also has to be on the radar screen for operators, who will no doubt be the ones consumers blame if they cap out after only a couple of FaceTime calls.

For Tekelec, the quest will be one of helping operators manage the explosions of sessions and connections precipitated by new apps and devices, which will inevitably drive increases in Diameter traffic as well.

In upcoming blog posts, we will address the most critical Signaling and Security issues relevant to network operators striving to optimize their 4G and LTE networks’ performance.