MUMBAI: Consumer value added services (Vas) are set to triple from $125 billion worldwide in 2011 to $420 billion in 2020.

This was the predication made at the recently concluded trade event CommunicAsia 2012 in Singapore by Point Topic CEO Oliver Johnson. Point Topic is an industry analyst firm for global broadband statistics, information and reports.

As competition reduces margins in the basic broadband business, and with increasing penetration of broadband value-added services, their contribution to revenues is becoming increasingly more important.

VoIP is currently the top revenue earner. However, Point Topic predicts that this will be trumped by IPTV by 2020.

Johnson also pointed out that growth may not be easy for some services, particularly when faced with competition from online and traditional offline services.

Johnson said, "Development may be harder for some markets than other. For example, security already has a penetration rate of over 85%, so being able to grow this further will depend on developing other security related services, or on the advent of a virulent and destructive online threat."

Access revenues, subscriptions charged for a broadband service, are similarly a tough area to grow revenue, especially as saturation permeates through more and more markets.

Offering the right bundles for their consumers in a particular market, signing the right deals and maintaining a customer base in the face of global competition will be the mark of a successful ISP in the next few years. Get it wrong and they won’t see growth – get it right and their prize will be an income base worth several multiples of its yearly value.

"Challenges lie ahead for all and the internet can be fickle, but the right player with the right service, or more likely set of services, has the chance to sweep all before them," concluded Johnson.