Infonetics Looks at SDPs

Operators are always looking at better ways to deploy service delivery platforms (SDPs), so as to provide better services at a faster rate. Whether one way works better than another has yet to be proven either way, so Infonetics (News - Alert) Research has taken a survey to determine which strategies and decisions are employed for their companies, providing an intriguing look into the current SDP market.

According to the report, entitled “SDP Strategies and Vendor Leadership: Global Service Provider Survey,” the main goal for SDP investments is to get services to the market as fast as possible. Some other companies, however, are also focused on exposing network APIs for internal and third-party developers.

When it comes to the group in control of SDP purchases, that tends to be IT departments, with half the respondents pointing towards them. A good third, however, say that marketing is the department calling the shots, so that does occasionally change from company to company.

It’s not too hard to get a service delivery platform, though. Forty-six percent of the operators use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software for their SDPs, with some minor adjustments to customize it to their needs. That doesn’t mean that personalized, customized SDPs aren’t worth using (as we can assume the remaining 54 percent use them), just that they can be more expensive than COTS ones.

“Though many of the basic drivers behind SDP (service delivery platform) investments haven’t changed – things like shortening time to market for new services and reducing opex – operators are definitely looking to SDPs to monetize their networks and manage the impact of over-the-top providers on the bottom line,” said Shira Levine, Infonetcs’ directing analyst for service enablement and subscriber intelligence. “Still, the cost of implementing an SDP is a major barrier to deployment, and operators are turning to more productized solutions, including commercial off-the-shelf software.”

Infonetics took the time to speak with multiple operators about their policies and strategies, and the results are enlightening. There’s a market for both COTS and customized SDPs, so long as they remain affordable and can ensure faster to-market time for services. Whether it’s IT or marketing that’s making the SDP decisions, all companies have the same goal: provide the best services to the customers.