[December 02, 2011]

Telecom Operators Rate Policy Vendors in New Infonetics Survey; Tekelec, Openet Named Top Players

As part of its Continuous Research Service (CRS) series of analyst reports and surveys about the next gen OSS and policy market, Infonetics Research this week published Policy Management Deployment Strategies and Vendor Leadership: Global Service Provider Survey. The survey provides insight into the investment drivers, strategies, and integration efforts of operators deploying policy management solutions, as well as their thoughts on leading policy vendors.

ANALYST NOTE

"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. This creates a challenge for the more established policy vendors who have longstanding relationships with operators' network departments but less sway with IT and marketing teams, while creating new opportunities for IT players such as the billing vendors entering the policy space," expects Shira Levine, Infonetics Research's next gen OSS and policy analyst.

POLICY MANAGEMENT SURVEY HIGHLIGHTS

• When asked in an open-ended question who they consider to be the top three policy management vendors, service providers named Tekelec (News - Alert)/Camiant and Openet as the top two, followed by Bridgewater Systems and Ericsson in a tie for third
• Huawei and Ericsson (News - Alert) receive high marks from operators for many buying criteria, including service and support, the #1 supplier selection criterion
• Bandwidth on demand and advanced subscriber control capabilities are operators' top application drivers for policy management investments, followed by VoIP; operators clearly are interested in using policy to enable more choices and a better experience for the customer
• 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, suggesting that operators view policy management as a critical capability and aren't willing to sacrifice quality

ABOUT THE SURVEY

For its Policy Management Deployment Strategies and Vendor Leadership: Global Service Provider Survey, Infonetics (News - Alert) Research interviewed purchase decision-makers at 24 telecom service providers, including several of the world's largest mobile operators and some high profile competitive players in emerging markets. The operators surveyed represent 25% of the world's telecom capex ($68.9 billion) and 29% of worldwide telecom revenue, and hail from EMEA (particularly Western Europe), North America, Asia Pacific, and Central and Latin America. The report focuses on policy management drivers, applications, integraton efforts, solution criteria, supplier criteria, vendor familiarity, and purchase decision-makers. The survey features a vendor scorecard with operator ratings of 9 vendors (Alcatel-Lucent, Bridgewater/Amdocs, Broadhop, Camiant/Tekelec, Ericsson, Huawei, Juniper, Nokia (News - Alert) Siemens, Openet) on multiple criteria.

EVENTS AND WHITE PAPERS

• WEBINAR: The Future of Shared Data Plans: Tue. Dec. 6, 11:00 a.m. Eastern
• WEBINAR ON-DEMAND: Smart Monetization: Using Policy Management To Boost Profitability
• White Paper: All in the Family: The New Requirements of Shared Data Plans
• White Paper: How Policy Will Manage the Mobile Data Deluge

Download prospectuses, tables of contents, highlights, etc. at http://www.infonetics.com/login (see NEXT GEN OSS AND POLICY for 2011 and new 2012 services)

RELATED RESEARCH

• Convergent charging passes the billion-dollar mark in 2011, up 42%
• Subscriber data management market set to jump 55% in 2011 to $563 million
• Telecom capex up 6% to $311B in 2011, rev. up 8% to $1.86T, driven by mobile broadband
• Mobile network optimization / self-organizing network (SON) market nearing $3B by 2015
• Millions opting into shared data plans represent huge opportunity for mobile operators
• Mobile operators fueling hockey-stick growth in standalone deep packet inspection market
• Amdocs acquisition of Bridgewater changes policy management game; $1.6B market by 2015
• Service delivery platform (SDP) market forecast to hit $5.16 billion by 2015
• Convergent charging gets sophisticated; carriers name Amdocs, Ericsson top vendors
• Competition heating up in policy management market as role of policy evolves

SALES

• Larry Howard, VP, Western NA, Asia, CALA: [email protected], +1-408-583-3335
• Scott Coyne, Eastern NA, Texas, Midwest: [email protected], +1-408-583-3395
• George Stojsavljevic, EMEA: [email protected], +44-755-488-1623
• Japan, Taiwan, Korea: http://www.infonetics.com/contact.asp

Infonetics Research is an international market research and consulting firm serving the communications industry since 1990. A leader in defining and tracking emerging and established technologies in all world regions, Infonetics helps clients plan, strategize, and compete more effectively.

Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=50093722&lang=en

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