[Gartner]: MNOs Should: Rethink Their Data Caps; Cache and Optimize Video

A new report by Jessica Ekholm [pictured], research director, Gartner finds that "Global mobile data traffic is set to reach 52 million terabytes (TB) in 2015, an increase of 59 percent from 2014,.. The rapid growth is set to continue through 2018, when mobile data levels are estimated to reach 173 million TB .. New, fast mobile data connections (3G and 4G) will grow more slowly, from 3.8 billion in 2015 to 5.1 billion in 2018, as users switch from slower 2G connections and consume more mobile data. 

Gartner analysts advise communication service providers (CSPs) to rethink their data caps to meet consumer needs and win market share .. CSPs must create and sell data plans with higher caps to increase their share of this growing market. With video usage as a percentage of total data usage set to rise from 50 percent now to 60 percent by 2018, we should expect CSPs to offer the best-of-breed video experience to consumers, This involves using video optimization technologies and caching content closer to the consumer. Contract plans that single out video traffic to allow users to reach a certain cap (without touching their contract data cap) will increase usage and revenue for CSPs and meet consumer demand for more mobile video."

See "Gartner Forecasts 59 Percent Mobile Data Growth Worldwide in 2015" - here.

Gartner's WAN Optimization Report

Gartner has updated its "Magic Quadrant for WAN Optimization" (see chart below, courtesy of SilverPeak).

SilverPeak announced that "Gartner has named Silver Peak a Magic Quadrant Leader. Be among the first to see the latest report by completing the form on the right. According to Gartner, as WAN optimization appliances increasingly include WAN path control and local link load balancing capabilities, these products are morphing into SD-WAN solutions".

Gartner's report also indicates that "When WAN access bandwidth is adequate, WAN optimization can also be delivered as a network-based "WAN optimization as a service" (WOaaS), such as those from Aryaka [see "Arayka Launches Usage-based, Optimized WAN Connectivity Service" - here] and NTT Communications. WOaaS services are delivered from service delivery points embedded in carrier service infrastructure and enable enterprises to avoid the need to deploy on-premises physical appliances".

Related posts:

• Orange Business Services Offers Application-aware Business VPN Internet - here
• tw telecom Launches Dynamic Application Prioritization over VPN Service - here
• Frontier Adds Traffic Prioritization based on User-defined Applications - here
• BT Uses Riverbed for Global Applications-aware Networking Services - here
• KDDI and Ipanema Team to Offer Business-Aware Network Services - here
• Telstra's Application assured Networking Uses ALU - here
   

See "Gartner Names Silver Peak a Magic Quadrant Leader in the WAN" - here.

[Gartner] Riverbed & Silver Peak are the WAN Optimization Leaders

Riverbed shared with us Gartner's Magic Quadrant for WAN Optimization - from a report by Joe Skorupa [pictured], VP Distinguished Analyst and Bjarne Munch, Principal Research Analyst, Gartner.

"Most networks carry a variety of traffic types of differing characteristics and importance. Many organizations are striving to manage this traffic to optimize the response times of critical applications and reduce costs, given that bandwidth continues to represent a significant proportion of operating expenditure for wide-area data networks. But the cost of bandwidth isn't the only consideration — as resources are increasingly centralized, minimizing the effect of latency on application response times is becoming a critical requirement. In addition, virtualization and new application environments, such as cloud computing and Web services as well as data replication, can put an unexpected strain on the WAN"

"The development of the application acceleration market has been driven by customer demand for highly integrated solutions that employ a wide range of techniques to optimize network traffic and that offer scalability and fault tolerance. Vendors in this space initially addressed either the traffic shaping/QoS market or the compression/caching market. These two segments have now largely merged, with most products supporting both sets of capabilities. Increasingly, the combination of application visibility/QoS and latency mitigation is required to achieve acceptable application performance. We therefore see a need for application identification/control and both generic and application-specific optimizations to mitigate the impact of network latency on remote application performance"
  

See: "Riverbed Again Recognized As A “Leader” In Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for WAN Optimization–Seven Years Running" - here

Gartner OSS Leaders: NetCracker, Oracle, Amdocs, IBM and Ericsson

NetCracker announced that "Gartner Inc., the world-leading information technology research and advisory firm, has positioned NetCracker as a “Leader” in its October 2013 Magic Quadrant for Operations Support Systems .. 

Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Operations Support Systems “rates vendors that sell end-to-end solutions for service assurance and fulfillment, including network resource management, service inventory and catalog, and order management; also, provisioning and activation for communications service providers".

The Gartner report states that "Overall, we expect the worldwide OSS market to grow from $29.2 billion in 2012 to $37.6 billion in 2015. Inventory is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.5% through 2017. Network and service assurance (including customer experience initiatives) is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.2%, and provisioning and activation at 5.2% worldwide (for forecast reference see the Gartner Recommended Reading section).

   

See "Gartner Names NetCracker a Leader in Magic Quadrant for Operations Support Systems" - here.

Gartner: SDN/NFV should Lead CSPs to DPI, Analytics and New OSS Investments

Paula Bernier [pictured], Executive Editor, TMC, reports to NFVZONE that "Gartner says the dynamic nature of networking SDN and NFV enable will require service providers to up their game in terms of security. They can do that, according to Gartner, by investing in deep packet inspection and SDN analytic tools that monitor traffic, diagnose threats and mitigate security challenges. At the same time, the research firm suggests, network operators must be sure to manage and monitor security controller access to see who is logging in when and for what purpose.

As for billing and operational support systems, Gartner recommends that service providers invest in new ones that support SDN orchestration and provisioning, policy-based control with security functions, and real-time control and billing.
  
With SDN's control and NFV's flexibility, CSPs can develop business models that are based on tiered services, elastic services like security-as-a-service using DPI functions on-demand or more applications on demand
See "Gartner: SDN, NFV Create New Security, OSS Requirements" - here.

Gartner: Who Leads the Wan Optimization Market?

Gartner updated its "Magic Quadrant for WAN Optimization Controllers" report.

[Gartner]: "High-bandwidth DDoS attacks are becoming the new norm"

A new report by Avivah Litan (pictured), VP and distinguished analyst at Gartner, predicts that "..Twenty-five percent of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks that occur in 2013 will be application-based .. attackers send out targeted commands to applications to tax the central processing unit (CPU) and memory and make the application unavailable .. High-bandwidth DDoS attacks are becoming the new norm and will continue wreaking havoc on unprepared enterprises in 2013".

  

"A new class of damaging DDoS attacks was launched against U.S. banks in the second half of 2012, sometimes adding up to 70 Gbps of noisy network traffic blasting at the banks through their Internet pipes. Until this recent spate of attacks, most network-level DDoS attacks consumed only five Gbps of bandwidth, but more recent levels made it impossible for bank customers and others using the same pipes to get to their websites .. To combat this risk, enterprises need to revisit their network configurations, and rearchitect them to minimize the damage that can be done. Organizations that have a critical Web presence and cannot afford relatively lengthy disruptions in online service should employ a layered approach that combines multiple DOS defenses".

  

See "Gartner Says 25 Percent of Distributed Denial of Services Attacks in 2013 Will Be Application-Based" - here.

Gartner: Major OSS Investment Areas Include Policy Management

Martina Kurth (pictured), published Gartner's Magic Quadrant that "..evaluates the capabilities of end-to-end vendors in the global market for OSS service assurance and fulfillment, a market characterized by simultaneous consolidation and vibrant innovation by startups".

IBM, NetCracker Technology, Oracle, Amdocs and Ericsson are classified by Gartner as "Leaders" (see chart below). HP, who was there last year (here) is now a "Challenger".

"Because of these shifting requirements, we see CSPs worldwide investing in more flexible OSS architectures, which improve the efficiency of service creation, management and timely delivery, and enable them to proactively optimize customers' perceived quality of experience. Simultaneously, CSPs need to keep an eye on opex and capital expenditure (capex). Major OSS investment areas include order-to-fulfillment processes across logical inventory and adjacent product and service catalog domains, order management, configuration management, discovery and reconciliation, and policy management".

See "Magic Quadrant for Operations Support Systems" - here.

[Gartner]: "CSPs should adopt these multidevice plans .. Data revenue is expected to be 65% percent of total U.S. wireless revenue"

A bit late compared to others, Gartner recognizes the importance of shared data plans for MNOs (see other reports - "Infonetics: Shared Data Plans - an Opportunity with OSS Needs" - here and "[YG]: "Operators must think of shared data plans as more than a discount threat" - here).

A new report by Hugues de la Vergne (pictured), principal research analyst at Gartner, concludes that "As the number of devices with cellular modems increases, consumers and small businesses in the U.S. will demand matching multidevice data rate plans .. Historically, CSPs have strictly been focused on individual data plans. Now the U.S. data plan market is set to begin its first real transformation, with data plans poised to evolve from plans tied to an individual device to plans that share a specified amount of data between multiple devices"

"Although billing system customization will be expensive and CSPs' current data revenue streams could decline, the risks of not offering multidevice plans, and therefore being at a competitive disadvantage, are too great"
  

".. Data revenue is expected to expand to become 65 percent of total U.S. wireless service revenue as voice declines to 35 percent in 2106"

See "Gartner Says Communications Service Providers Must Adopt Multidevice Data Plans to Take Advantage of Expanding Cellular Connectivity" - here.

Gartner: "Major OSS investment areas include policy management"

 

A recent report by Martina Kurth (pictured), Research Director, Gartner (curtsey of Oracle) "evaluates the capabilities of end-to-end vendors in the global market for OSS service assurance and fulfillment, a market characterized by simultaneous consolidation and vibrant innovation by startups".

"Overall, we expect the worldwide OSS market to grow from $25.3 billion in 2010 to $32.9 billion in 2015".

"Major OSS investment areas include order to fulfillment processes across logical inventory and adjacent product and service catalog domains, and policy management. On the other hand, we see a major revitalization around service quality management and the corresponding network performance and capacity planning, which often revolve around enterprisewide CEM initiatives, by adding an additional analytics and data correlation layer"

See "Magic Quadrant for Operations Support Systems" - here.

Yankee Group: MNOs Should Give Customers Choices for VoIP

   
Yankee Group joins others (Analysys Mason, Frost & Sullivan, Juniper Research) by telling MNOs to join, rather than fight, OTT service providers (in this case for VoIP) - an approach that we now see being accepted by the operators (see recent post on Telecom Italia- here)

Jason Armitage (pictured), Senior Analyst, and Declan Lonergan, Research VP, Yankee Group cover the current status of VoIP use in mobile networks:

"Currently, several European mobile operators have blocked consumer VoIP calls on mobile phones. This means those operators’ smartphone users can only make Skype and other VoIP calls via Wi-Fi—when they are at home or near a Wi-Fi hotspot. In contrast, 3 (in the U.K. and Italy) offers consumer VoIP services—and specifically Skype phones—as a differentiator ..  Operators have also tried the tactic of launching their own services. .. but early indications show these services are struggling to match the takeup of consumer VoIP services. In Yankee Group’s recent user study, operator-owned VoIP services hardly show up, despite the high usage of VoIP among European respondents. Yankee Group believes it will be challenging for operators to differentiate their own VoIP services and achieve the scale reached by Skype, MSN and Google Talk".  
 
Their recommendation to MNOs is: "The long-term operator solution is to focus on careful pricing of all data plans and giving customers choices that are beneficial to them. This focus should take into account both bundled postpaid packages and prepaid services that are priced with total traffic voice and data considered. To position for the new market environment, Yankee Group recommends operators place data plans at the center of strategic decision-making, offer value-priced voice calling and increase the number of monthly prepaid plan offers that focus on data capabilities".

See "How to Handle the Mobile VoIP Explosion" - here.

Gartner: "it is time to have DDoS protection considered "

   

John Pescatore (pictured), VP Distinguished Analyst at Gartner, explains that "There have definitely been environmentally caused Internet outages, but in this case denial of service attacks are the leading cause. There are low scale attacks that anyone who can spell LOIC can launch and then there are large scale distributed attacks that take a bit more knowledge of botnets and the like, but DoS attacks are basically like thunderstorms on the Internet: hard to predict when they will hit, but they will and you can build a thunderstorm-proof Internet connection – just the way you can have thunderstorm proof power to your datacenter".

See "Still in Denial About Denial of Service?" - here.

See also - "Yankee Group Prediction: A Denial-of-Service Attack Will Take a 4G Network Down" - here, and "DPI: NSA Scans AT&T, Verizon and CenturyLink Traffic Going to Defense Firms" - here, with a short review of solutions from the DPI players.

Cellular Broadband One of Gartner's 10 Mobile Technologies to Watch in 2010 and 2011

  

One of Gartner's 10 Mobile technologies  "that will evolve significantly through 2011 in ways that will impact short-term mobile strategies and policies" is Cellular Broadband.

Here is what Gartner (Nick Jones, vice president and distinguished analyst) say about it:

"During 2010 and 2011, the availability of multimegabit wireless broadband performance will continue to grow as mobile networks enhance their broadband performance. Continuous improvements in wireless broadband performance will increase the range of applications that no longer require fixed networking, and make cellular broadband a more effective fallback when fixed connections fail. Embedded cellular networking will become a standard feature of many corporate laptops, and will enable new types of network-connected devices and business models, such as e-books and media players". 

See the other 9 mobile technologies, many of which will also impact the use of mobile data, here.

I believe that mobile broadband will be even more substantial, not only as a fallback but as a real alternative to fixed broadband (DSL, Cable) for home users.