[ABI]: VIdeo QoE (CDN, Monitoring and Analytics) Market to Reach $477M by 2020

A new study by Eric Abbruzzese, Research Analyst, and Sam Rosen [pictured], VP of Consumer, ABI Research finds that "Content Delivery Network (CDN) Balancing and OTT Monitoring, as well as Real User Monitoring (RUM) and Application Performance Monitoring (APM) technologies used to measure video services are growing, with associated revenues estimated to reach US$477 million in 2020.

While the video analytics market as a whole is rather mature, the desire for more granular, user-level data led to a shift in focus from QoS metrics to QoE services and data .. the increasing complexity of the IP video and OTT content markets will continue to drive both new and existing providers, operators and content owners to pursue deeper analytics capabilities to fully understand the experience of the end user.

Whether mobile or wireline, operators and service providers are focused on minimizing content start times and buffering delays while maximizing video quality and stream reliability .. Real-time, granular, user-level data streams allow the opportunity for a deeper understanding of not only how a network is performing but also how individual users are affected by network idiosyncrasies. Automated load balancing and network optimization platforms will help inform future business decisions, from content licensing to CDN usage.”

See "Growing IP and OTT Video Delivery Demands and User Experience Focus Drives Network Optimization and Analytics Services" - here.

[ABI]: 400M Wi-Fi Access Points in 2019

A new report by Ahmed Ali, [pictured] Research Analyst, ABI Research finds that "Service providers and enterprises continue to find new revenue opportunities in Wi-Fi as the number of installed access points ramps up to nearly 400 million commercial and enterprise units by 2019. Emerging technologies like Hotspot 2.0, VoWi-Fi, and 802.11ac in the Wi-Fi space support further development of the current business models and encourage business model innovation"

See also:

• [ABI]: Wi-Fi Offload Traffic Volume will Exceed All Cellular Traffic" - here 
• [Infonetics Survey]: CSPs Expect to "significantly increase"  Wi-Fi Access Point Deployment - here

".. Service providers and enterprises have direct relationships with end-user customers and therefore play an important role in aggregating valuable data and controlling the delivery channels for products like mobile ads and apps. The potential B2C segment is extensive and ranges from small local shops to large international brands ..  Bringing together the supply from hotspot owners with the demand from various businesses creates an expanding B2B ecosystem of innovative solution providers”.

See "Hotspot 2.0, 802.11ac, and VoWi-Fi: Nearly 400 Million Strong Ecosystem to Monetize Wi-Fi" - here.

[ABI] Encryption Drives Mobile Optimization to a $40B Over 5 Year Market

While many think that the legacy DPI, optimization and traffic management functions lose their role in network management due to customers' demand for QoE, OTT services and growing video traffic, ABI research thinks differently - and the reason is the use of encrypted traffic.

A new report by Joe Hoffman [pictured], Practice Director, Mobile Networks, ABI Research sees the "worldwide market for mobile network monitoring and optimization exceeding US$40 billion over the next 5 years... LTE uptake in China leads worldwide traffic growth, including video, and pulls along the monitoring and optimization markets. 

Widespread adoption of SSL-encryption changes the game from compression, transcoding and transrating to throttling, pacing and manipulating the Adaptive Bitrate Stream from the content provider to achieve operator goals. State-of-the-art traffic management technology delivers a better customer experience and virtual capacity gains that operators will appreciate.

Mobile optimization is more important than ever and the advent of all IP services, including VoLTE, VoWi-Fi, LTE-U / LAA requires close attention from the operator to assure QoE. With an eye to monetization, DPI, Optimization and Policy remain the largest segments and come together as part of a total revenue enhancement solution. 

All leading network infrastructure vendors, including Ericsson, Nokia Networks and Alcatel-Lucent, offer their own or partnered solutions.Likewise, the independents, such as Citrix ByteMobile and Openwave Mobility, provide differentiated, targeted and ready-to-use solutions for every mobile broadband operator"

See "LTE Adoption to Drive Network Monitoring and Optimization Spend Past US$40 Billion" - here.

[ABI]: Wi-Fi Offload Traffic Volume will Exceed All Cellular Traffic

Just after Opera Software added features to handle Wi-Fi congestion (here) ABI Research finds that Wi-Fi offloading is growing at a "double-digit rate".

A new report by Nick Marshall [pictured], Research Director, ABI  Research forecasts that "..rapidly increasing offload of cellular traffic to Wi-Fi will reach over 17 exabytes per month by 2018 – greater than all of 2G, 3G, and 4G cellular traffic combined.

..In-building wireless data traffic will grow at a double-digit rate to reach more than 50 exabytes per month worldwide in 2020 .. Video remains the dominant traffic type with traffic volume outstripping all other traffic types, while in the enterprise and commercial segment sports venues, transportation and healthcare continue to be the verticals which transport the most traffic with shopping malls and hospitality coming in a close second place.

..DAS (distributed antenna systems) and Mobile Equipment vendors are poised to benefit from this explosion in traffic. Leading companies include Alcatel-Lucent, Axell Wireless, Cisco, CommScope, Corning, Dali Wireless, Ericsson, Goodman Networks, JMA Wireless, Nokia Networks, TE Connectivity, Wireless Telecom Group and Zinwave. These companies and others will benefit from increased DAS spending as Mobile Broadband Operators densify networks to meet this explosion in mobile traffic".

See "Global In-Building Off-load to Exceed 17 EB per Month—Critical Leverage for Mobile Broadband Operators" - here.

To be Connected: 1B Homes, 342M Cars

While an Infonetics report forecasts 1B fixed broadband connection (by 2019, here), a new report by James Hodgson [pictured], Research Analyst, ABI Research finds that "Connected Automotive Infotainment Systems will exhibit a CAGR of 33.8% over the next 5 years, with a rapid expansion in connected navigation and in-car Wi-Fi driving growth. Developed regions, which accounted for over 60% of shipments in 2014, will account for only 37.4% of shipments in 2020. Indeed, just over half of all systems shipping in 2020 will do so in the Asia-Pacific region.

..Many OEMs have made commitments to equip the majority of their consumer vehicles shipping in 2020 with embedded connectivity. Nevertheless, a significant number of vehicles are still expected to rely on smartphone integration for their connectivity, with shipments of telematics systems supporting such integration on average expected to exhibit a CAGR of 60.6% between 2015 and 2020.

.. it is unlikely systems such as Android Auto, Apple CarPlay and MirrorLink will serve as the vehicle’s sole infotainment system. Rather, they will complement the OEM’s own proprietary system, as is the case with the new Volvo XC90.”

See "Over 342 Million Connected Automotive Infotainment Systems to Ship between 2015 and 2020" - here.

[ABI]: Citrix, Openwave and Ericsson Lead the $400M Optimization Space

ABI Research announced it has evaluated the "..leading vendors for Video, Audio, Web and Data Optimization the Gi-LAN space, and finds Citrix ByteMobile with the most compelling total value proposition, followed by Openwave Mobility and Ericsson. ABI Research finds web and video optimization performance as mainly determined by the x86 architecture, and the vendors differentiate along the lines of packaging and the depth of value adding features such as monetization, big data analytics and traffic management bundles.

The leaders in each category include:

• Overall: Citrix ByteMobile, Openwave Mobility, Ericsson:
   
• The Citrix ByteMobile ATM takes top honors with its long standing market reach and total value proposition of its web and video optimization, content caching, and added value in DPI, traffic policy enforcement
   
• Openwave Mobility takes second honors and keeps up the pressure with an innovation clean sweep in depth and breadth, analytics, subscriber and monetization innovation focus
   
• Ericsson takes a not-surprising third award with the rich value proposition of its Multi-Service Proxy and Service Enablement Platform
   
• Implementation: Citrix ByteMobile, Ericsson, Flash Networks
• Innovation: Openwave Mobiity, Citrix ByteMobile, Ericsson
  

Joe Hoffman [pictured], Practice Director, ABI Research said: “Nobody buys just video optimization, and now that the fundamental technologies are commoditized table stakes, we enrich the evaluation to consider the total value proposition including analytics and monetization, When an operator buys into one of these solutions, it is economically efficient to consider the big picture bundle.” 

"This research covers the leading vendors that offer video, audio, web and data optimizations solutions, including Allot, Avvasi, Flash Networks, Huawei, NEC, Nokia Networks, Opera Software, and Vantrix, and accounts for a large part of the US$400M in 2014 revenues in this market space".

See "ABI Research Ranks Citrix, Openwave Mobility, and Ericsson with Top Honors in the 2015 Mobile Web and Video Optimization Competitive Assessment" - here.

[ABI]: Sandvine, Allot and Citrix Lead the Independent $600M DPI Market

A new report by Joe Hoffman [pictured], Practice Director, ABI Research evaluates the "independent vendors delivering Deep Packet Inspection, Traffic Steering, and Policy Control in the Gi-LAN space, and finds Sandvine as best of breed, followed by Allot and Citrix ByteMobile

... This research covers the leading independent vendors, Allot, Citrix ByteMobile, F5 Networks, Ipoque, Sandvine, and Procera Networks that account for nearly US$600M in revenues in this market space.

With the DPI commoditized, the independent vendors work hard to present differentiated value propositions to the telecom market:

• Sandvine takes top rating because of its industry leading power-performance efficiency [see "Sandvine Adds a 200Gbps/2RU Appliance w/100GE Interfaces" - here], focus on compact form-factor suitable for distributed or centralized networks, and a very rich analytics and monetization emphasis.
   
• Allot takes second place with virtually the same power-performance [see "Allot Launched the New Service Gateway; Orders from 4 Operators (over $9M)" - here] but in a NEBS compliant ATCA platform.

Allot's ServiceGateway Tera

Sandvine's PTS 32000

• The Citrix ByteMobile ATM places third with the added richness of its total package solution, and also with NEBS compliance.

See "Sandvine, Allot, and Citrix Top ABI Research’s DPI and Traffic Management Competitive Assessment" - here.

[Report] Video and Data Optimization Can Gain $28B for MNO in 5 Years

A new report by ABI Research, commissioned by Opera Software’s Skyfire unit, finds that "Mobile operators globally can benefit from a net gain of at least $28.7 billion over five years by deploying mobile video and data optimization technology in their networks.

Key findings, based on a conservative assumption that if just one in three operators deploys video and data optimization technology, the savings and revenue boost will therefore be as follows:

• Churn-reduction savings: $12,947 million
• Tariff-upgrade revenue boost: $6,481 million
• Total-cost-of-ownership reduction savings: $9,347.6 million
• Total over 5 years: $28,776 million

..The model uses actual country market data, from economic and demographic data to mobile operator subscription and radio access network (RAN) deployment data.

Sample use cases:

• Philippines, churn reduction: Using the Philippines market, where there is some 4G subscriber adoption (2.5 million) but a much larger proportion on 3G (22 million), the average data throughput in the base station cell edge zones is estimated to be 365 Kbps without optimization. Boosting the quality of experience by enabling 30% to 60% greater data throughput can boost overall subscribers by around 2% per year and increase the subscriber retention rate equating to additional retained service revenues of US$204 million over a 5-year period.

• Brazil, tariff upgrade: Using a conservative scenario of 2%, ABI Research calculates that an operator in the Brazilian market can generate an additional US$474 million in service revenue over a 5-year period from its 3G and 4G subscribers, attributed to faster user data rates and improved QoE".

See "Video and data optimization can deliver $28 billion net gain to mobile operators over five years, independent analysis for Opera reveals" - here.

[ABI]: New Video Delivery Technologies

A new report by Sam Rosen [pictured], Practice Director, ABI Research finds that video delivery technology has to be adapted to be able to meet demand and quality.

"A few trailblazers are working on disruptive innovations. Areas such as the inability of TCP delivery to keep up with high throughput demands, the lack of perceptual tools in modern codecs, as well as the inefficiency of storage within CDNs all pose significant additional challenges within the ecosystem. A number of innovative companies, from startups to more mature businesses, are addressing these issues: bitmovin [transcoding and players], beamr [Optimization], Akamai, Aspera [High-speed transfer] (part of IBM), Vantrix [here], and Conviva [Analytics]".

“Of the areas we examined, carrier equipment for video delivery, transit replacements for TCP, and real user monitoring (RUM)/application performance monitoring (APM) applied to video have the largest market potential and are expected to be the most pervasive in tomorrow’s video services .. Meanwhile, OTT monitoring is expected to remain a niche market. These disruptive innovations will lead to about US$1.5 billion in 2020 revenues across a variety of industries”.

See "Video Delivery Requires New Codecs, Improved Network Protocols and Analytics" - here.

[ABI]: VoLTE (w/IMS) is the Next Big Thing; $30B Market to 2019

   

A new report by Sabir Rafiq [pictured], research analyst, ABI Research finds that ".. as the first wave of LTE deployments achieve coverage, VoLTE is the next big thing. VoLTE runs on IMS, and the market will total over $US30 billion through 2019 as it becomes widespread. 

Leading infrastructure vendors such as Ericsson and Nokia are fully committed to VoLTE and IMS space and equip customers with this next wave in mobile broadband. Similarly, other vendors such as Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei, and Cisco recognize the impact VoLTE and IMS will have on the market. These vendors are active in the VoLTE space by offering credible solutions in order to attract and retain customers ..  IMS mobile core revenue corresponds directly with the popularity of VoLTE”.

".. With the availability of VoLTE smartphones, operators realize benefits with improving quality in voice service, and also top-line growth with value adding services. This leads to increasing VoLTE services in smartphones, with Apple [see "iPhone 6 also supports Voice over LTE (VoLTE)" - here] and high-end Android  [see "New Moto X on Verizon to get Advanced Calling 1.0, run VoLTE - here] devices leading the way. 

[see also: "GSA: 116 MNOs Offer HD Voice - Even on 2G Networks!" - here]

VoLTE will become extremely important in the future and ABI Research believes competitive positioning will lead operators to VoLTE/IMS"

See "Mobile Broadband Operators Scramble for VoLTE, Creating an IMS Land Rush as Ericsson and Nokia Stake Claims on the $US30 Billion Market" - here.

[ABI]: 123M Fixed LTE Connections by 2019

Yet again analysts are expecting mobile access technology to be an alternative to residential broadband access and replace cable or DSL.

Already 4 years ago, 8.5% of UK households said they are using mobile service at home, as their only access service (here). Other expected it to fail - see "Analysys Mason: Mobile Broadband will Fail as an Alternative to Fixed Broadband" - here) but shortly after saw the light with LTE "Analysys Mason: Will LTE be a Threat to Fixed Broadband Providers?" - here.

3 years later, LTE is seen again as an alternative, mainly to cover for lack of a fixed infrastructure. I wonder what would be the cost of 300 GB quota service with LTE.

A new report by Jake Saunders [pictured], VP and 4G practice director, ABI Research finds that "1.26 billion households do not have DSL, cable, or fiber-optic broadband. Fixed and mobile telcos are looking to LTE to make the connection .. By the end of 2014, ABI Research anticipates there will be 14.5 million residential and commercial premises with fixed LTE broadband access. By 2019, that figure should grow to 123 million .. the shipment numbers for residential LTE gateways and commercial LTE fixed wireless terminals to grow from 9.3 million in 2014 to nearly 44 million in 2019"

See "LTE Reinvigorates the Broadband Wireless Access Marketplace" - here.

[ABI]: Multi-tier, Multi-device Shared Plans Allow Price Increase

A new report by Lian Jye Su, Research Associate, and Jake Saunders [pictured], VP and Practice Director for Forecasting, ABI Research, finds that "The aggressive deployment of LTE networks has encouraged higher data consumption .. countries that have a monthly data quota in the range of 8 to 10 GB have increased from 21% in 1Q 2014 to 83% of the total in 2Q 2014.

Facing a downward trend in ARPU, mobile operators are in search of solutions to boost their income. The introduction of multi-tier, multi-device shared plans allow mobile operators to target different customer segments more effectively, and in some cases, increase the price.. This is reflected in an average increase of 11.31% in the monthly tariff in the top 20 markets. In Canada, all three major mobile operators increased their price by US$4.50, despite offering an identical data quota (limit) before the price hike.

On the other hand, all-you-can-eat data plans are slowly disappearing, dropping from 50% in 1Q 2014 to 27.6% in 2Q 2014. Instead of unlimited data plans, major mobile operators in the United States, Canada, Hong Kong, and Australia are offering multi-device data sharing plans. For example, U.S. Cellular focuses its pricing strategy solely around data sharing plans and has increased its prices significantly" 

See "Mobile Data Sharing Plans are Gaining Popularity, but They Come at a Higher Cost" - here.

[ABI]: Mobile Internet Services to Generate 45% of MNOs Service Revenues by '19

A new report by Marina Lu [pictured], research analyst, ABI Research finds that "In 1Q 2014, the worldwide mobile service revenue increased 0.58% year-on-year (YoY) to US$264 billion .. the aggregate service revenue for 2014 will grow 2.9% YoY to US$1.01 trillion, mainly driven by the robust growth of the mobile Internet market. 

Proliferating mobile data subscriptions and enhanced network capacity will drive global mobile Internet service revenue to US$456.7 billion by 2019—44.7% of total mobile service revenue. Despite global service revenue growth, the Western European market is declining: 1Q 2014 service revenue declined 5.2% YoY".

"In ABI Research’s profitability analysis, Verizon Wireless beat China Mobile for the first time, carrying the top position for most profitable mobile carrier in aggregate for 1Q 2014, followed by China Mobile and AT&T respectively. Strong growth in retail postpaid subscribers, increased smartphone customer base, enhanced 4G LTE smartphone line-up, and attractive pricing plans have contributed to Verizon’s profitability. In addition, Verizon also moved up one position to second in the ranking for quarterly gross profit per subscriber, at US$77.1".

See "Mobile Internet Will Continue to Drive Mobile Revenues, Contributing to 31% of Global Service Revenue in 1Q 2014" - here.

[ABI]: Mobile DPI/PCRF/Optimization Market - $3B (!!) in '14; Optimization Market Changes

A new forecast by Joe Hoffman [pictured], practice director of mobile networks, ABI Research estimates that ".. the mobile portion of the 3GPP PCRF, DPI, and web/video optimization market as a collective whole will nudge US$ 3 Billion in 2014 and comfortably exceed US$ 25 Billion through 2019. Of this, roughly 80% of the market is DPI and policy related, as video optimization revenues remain challenging".

According to the above, the mobile DPI/PCRF market for 2014 is expected to reach  $2.4B (see also ABI's last year's report - ($20B in 5 years, vs. the current $25B/6 years - here).

This is a very high estimate compared to other analysts reports. Some examples:

• Heavy Reading said recently that "The initial market for policy servers and deep packet inspection (DPI) gear is pretty much saturated, at least in the wireless sector .. our forecast predicts. We expect the market to nearly double from $1.45 billion in 2013 to $2.8 billion in 2018 [here]".
   
• Infonetics Research sees a $1B market for Policy management [here] and $730M for DPI [here] for 2013. 

Back to Joe: “Net Neutrality notwithstanding, the DPI and Policy markets reflect the operators’ need to differentiate and optimize revenues ... Mobile Video and Web Optimization use cases are different from earlier industry expectations. Video Optimization is a necessary table stake for operators and now the focus is on targeted optimization to manage quality of experience under network congestion.

The mainstream infrastructure vendors, Ericsson, Nokia, Cisco and Huawei have all stepped up their offerings with their own or partnered solutions. Likewise, the leading independents, ByteMobile, Vantrix, and Openwave Mobility [see "Flash Networks (40%) and Citrix (30%) Lead the Mobile Optimization Market" - here] provide differentiated and targeted solutions suitable for every mobile broadband operator."

See "Mobile DPI, Policy and Optimization Markets to Top US$ 25B as Smart Broadband Proliferates" - here.

[ABI]: Telcos Should Add APIs for OTT

A new report by Sabir Rafiq [pictured], analyst, ABI Research finds that "The subscriber traffic for mobile broadband services will grow at 36% CAGR for the near future. This is good news for Telecom operators and OTT application providers which are continuously looking to keep subscribers happy and provide a better user performance in spite of network congestion. All of which has the potential to increase revenue for operators and OTT providers .. ABI Research believes telecom carriers must focus their attention on securely exposing services internally and to external partners and applications. Turning network services into resources easily accessed via APIs is the future for enterprises, including telcos. 

Mobile operators such as AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Vodafone, and Infrastructure vendors such as Ericsson, Huawei, Cisco, Alcatel-Lucent, and Nokia open up APIs for developers to use and create features that make their applications more favorable in return. Developers are also keen on using operator APIs, such as handling billing for the developers, which ultimately reduces the costs of development and delivers a better service"

See "Telecom APIs to Boost US$ 1T Mobile Markets as Operators and Vendors Align" - here.

[ABI]: 2B LTE Subscribers by '19; 56% to Use VoLTE

A new report by Marina Lu [pictured], research analyst, and Jake Saunders, VP and practice director of core forecasting, ABI Research finds that "By the end of 2013, global LTE-related cellular subscriptions surpassed 230.9 million, 3.3% of mobile subs, and will continue to grow at a CAGR of 36.6% between 2014 and 2019, to exceed 2 billion".

In early 2013 ABI forecasted 785M LTE subscribers by 2017 (here).

"The extensive presence of LTE networks is also stimulating the deployment of VoLTE. By the end of 2014, there are expected to be 59.6 million VoLTE subscriptions in place, and it is expected that nearly 56% of LTE-related cellular subscriptions will be using VoLTE services by the end of 2019 .. Mobile operators have continued to invest significantly in LTE network, which will cover around 64% of the world’s population by 2019"

See "Expanding LTE Coverage is Priming VoLTE Adoption and Mobile Devices Shipments" - here.

[ABI]: 10.5M Wi-Fi Hotspots by 2018 to Maximize Coverage

A new report by Marina Lu [pictured], Research Analyst, ABI Research finds that "Worldwide Wi-Fi deployments reached a total of 4.2 million hotspots in 2013, and will continue to grow at a CAGR of 15.0% between 2013 and 2018, to exceed 10.5 million .. The number includes Wi-Fi hotspots deployed by mobile and fixed-line carriers as well as third party operators .. Wi-Fi helps to offload 3G/4G mobile Internet users to Wi-Fi networks, which is a more cost-effective method for both mobile carriers and mobile users.”

In Asia-Pacific, China alone has deployed 620,000 Wi-Fi hotspots, of which 420,000 have been built by China Mobile, followed by China Telecom with 128,000 hotspots, and China Unicom with 72,000. 

In Latin America, Brazil’s carrier Oi [see "Oi [Brazil] Uses Aptilo to Create a Public Wi-Fi over Home/SMB Routers" - here] has completed its target of 500,000 Wi-Fi hotspots by the end of 2013, ahead of the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

.. Wi-Fi also represents a good opportunity for fixed-line operators to join in the mobile broadband field. The UK fixed-line operator BT with 200,000 of Wi-Fi hotspots (excl. homespots) is also providing Wi-Fi roaming services to mobile operators and other Wi-Fi providers"

See "Global Wi-Fi Hotspots Will Grow to 7.1 Million in 2015 as a Method to Offload Traffic" - here.

[ABI]: Big Data Analytics Moves from IT to Telecom Vendors

 
A new report by Sabir Rafiq [pictured], Research analyst, ABI Research finds that "Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) collect large amounts of data from their network, but the use of the data collected is what really counts .. MNOs and Communication Service Providers (CSPs) are actively looking into Big Data and Analytical solutions. They need tools that can impact their businesses and find new ways to reduce costs, improve efficiency of the networks, increase and generate new revenue streams, and increase QoE.”

Big Data Analytics are no longer the exclusive province of IT Software, as leading telecom vendors such as Astellia [see deployments with Eastlink, Bouygues, Zain, Orange, 3], Ericsson, Nokia Solutions and Networks, and Huawei have stepped up. Software vendors, including Citrix [see "Citrix Adds Zettics' Big Data Analytics to ByteMobile" - here] and Guavus [see "Guavus: Characterization of OTT Traffic without DPI" - here], offer big data and analytical solutions to help telecoms collect and analyze data effectively”

See "Telco Big Data Analytics is the New Frontier as Mobile Traffic Hits 200 Exabytes in 2019" - here.

[ABI]: 2B LTE (750M on LTE-Advanced) Subscribers by 2019; Boosts ARPU

 
A new report by Marina Lu [pictured], research associate, ABI Research finds that "Worldwide LTE-related subscriptions reached 229.7 million in 2013, and will continually grow at a CAGR of 43.6% between 2013 and 2019, to exceed 2 billion. .. Among the LTE subscription growth, Asia-Pacific contributes the most with a 49% market share. The second greatest contributor is North America with an 18% share .. The large population base in Asia combined with rapid LTE network deployment and cost-competitive smartphones has accelerated the remarkable subscriber adoption.”

.. LTE-Advanced subscribers will grow to 750 million in 2019 accounting for 37.3% of overall LTE subscribers. North America will be the most aggressive LTE-Advanced market, followed by Asia-Pacific and Western Europe. Remarkably, the South Korean Operators, SK Telecom and LG U+, commercially launched LTE-Advanced networks in June 2013 and by the end of 2013, SK Telecom gained more than 1 million LTE-Advanced subscribers, which equates to 10% of all its LTE subscribers,” adds Jake Saunders, VP and practice director.

The growth of LTE subscribers has also boosted ARPU, because they are bigger spenders than their 3G and 2G counterparts by 35%". 

See "Global LTE Subscriptions to Exceed 2 Billion in 2019, Driven by LTE-Advanced" - here.

[ABI] DPI and Optimization Market to Reach $5B by '19

A new report by Sabir Rafiq [pictured], Research Analyst, ABI Research finds that "Web and Video Optimization and Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) investment will increase to over US$5Billion by 2019. .. The optimization solutions market continues to challenge those vendors, and continued consolidation is likely to achieve a healthy and sustainable ecosystem. Operators should be concerned with the amount of data consumed by their subscribers, and how this affects the overall Quality of Experience (QoE).”

Video and Web optimization solutions from vendors such as ByteMobile, Openwave Mobility and Vantrix are available to improve user experience and network performance. Deep Packet Inspection and monitoring vendors, Sandvine, Astellia, and others, deliver the data packet intelligence and helps operators ensure QoS/QoE at peak times. Operators can also find help with Content Delivery Networks (CDN) as leading infrastructure vendors, including Ericsson, Nokia Solutions & Networks, Cisco, and Huawei offer differentiated solutions. A focus on content delivery allows operators to optimize content to control the delivery and enhance QoS/QoE".

See "DPI and Web/Video Optimization to Reach US$5Bn by 2019 as Vendors Rise to Meet Mobile Operators’ Needs" - here.