Infonetics Research Publishes Global Service Provider Survey

In its “Policy Management Deployment Strategies and Vendor Leadership: Global Service Provider Survey,” Infonetics Research (News - Alert) has provided insight into the investment drivers, strategies, and integration efforts of operators deploying policy management solutions.

“Service providers named Tekelec (News - Alert)/Camiant and Openet as the top two, when asked in an open-ended question who they consider to be the top three policy management vendors, followed by Bridgewater Systems (News - Alert) and Ericsson in a tie for third,” expects Shira Levine, Infonetics Research's next gen OSS and policy analyst. “Including service and support, the #1 supplier selection criterion, Huawei (News - Alert) and Ericsson receive high marks from operators for many buying criteria, the company stated in a press release.

“As policy management becomes less about pure bandwidth management and more about enabling new business models and value-added services, there is a clear shift in who holds the budget reins within telecom operators. Compared to last year's survey, a higher percentage of respondents named the IT department as the budget holder for policy management investments, and fewer named network engineering and operations departments.”

For policy management investments, bandwidth on demand and advanced subscriber control capabilities are operators' top application drivers, followed by VoIP; operators clearly are interested in using policy to enable more choices and a better experience for the customer. Suggesting that operators view policy management as a critical capability and aren't willing to sacrifice quality, reliability and scalability top the list of criteria for choosing a policy management supplier, while price and early availability are at the other end of the spectrum.

Recently, in its third quarter 2011 (3Q11) IMS Equipment and Subscribers market share report, Infonetics Research predicted that IMS equipment market will witness a 50 percent growth in 2011. Down 18 percent sequentially in 3Q11, but up 46 percent year-over-year (from 3Q10), the global IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) equipment market continues on its extremely variable growth path. Followed by Ericsson and Huawei, Nokia Siemens (News - Alert) Networks pulled ahead in the fast-growing IMS session control function (CSCF) server market in 3Q11.