The global market for operations support systems that perform engineering, provisioning and management functions in telecoms networks will exceed $46bn in 2008, research estimates.

A new report by Insight Research claims that telecoms industry spending for operations support systems is expected to lag only slightly behind forecasted growth in service revenue over the next five years.

This indicates that the industry is expecting sustainable growth in the years ahead, according to Insight Research.

The report suggests that telecoms network operators worldwide will increase investment in operations support systems at a compound rate of eight per cent over the next five years.

North American investment in the computing and software systems used to acquire, serve and bill customers will lag behind worldwide investment, growing at a compound rate of nearly six per cent over the same period.

"The carrier community has recovered its confidence and is investing in operations support systems at nearly the same rate that consumers and businesses are picking up new wireline and wireless services," said Insight Research president Robert Rosenberg.

"Our research suggests terrific growth ahead for those operations support systems needed to support 3G wireless services.

"RF planning and engineering tools, and the professional services need to support them, carrier-to-carrier billing and service provisioning tools, as well as customer-accessible service management systems all appear to be growth areas in the months ahead."