[Infonetics Research Survey] - Which Systems will Integrate with Policy Management?

  

In a recent post to Amdocs' new Data Experience Blog (see more on that here), Shira Levine (pictured), Directing Analyst, Next Gen OSS and Policy for Infonetics Research, provides some insight into their recent operator survey on "Policy Management Deployment Strategies and Vendor Leadership" (here).

Among other questions (here) Infonetics "..asked respondents to identify the systems their policy management solution integrates with or will in the future, and the results conveyed a very clear message: 96% of respondents named subscriber data management, 83% traffic inspection, and 75% billing and charging" (other options were Mediation, SDP, Analytics, Data/Video Optimization, Diameter routing).

The policy management market is well-known to be both crowded and relatively small (see recent report by Yankee Group here and my current list - here). According to the questionnaire, Infonetics sees the following vendors as leading the market - Alcatel-Lucent, Bridgewater Systems/Amdocs, BroadHop, Camiant/Tekelec, Ericsson, Huawei, Juniper, Nokia Siemens Networks and Openet.

Ms Levine says that "I believe the supplier landscape will evolve as well, to the point that vendors will be at a significant disadvantage if they lack a policy management solution that takes adjacent functionality into account. Policy may have once been a network function, with investments made by network operations departments, but as operators increasingly view policy management as an enabler for new services and capabilities, as opposed to a tool for traffic management, the nature of policy deployments is changing, as are the decision makers behind policy investments. The first generation of policy is rapidly disappearing, and vendors that don’t understand this next generation of policy management, including how it interrelates with adjacent functionality, risk disappearing as well". (see also "Infonetics Believes in an "integrated policy/charging solution" - here and "S.O.S Call from Openet" - here).

See "The Next Generation of Policy: It’s Not Your Father’s Policy Management" - here.