An in-depth survey of 21 convergent, mobile and cable operators exploring operators’ strategies for deploying Service Delivery Platforms (SDPs) has found that nearly half of respondents identified supporting partnerships with over-the-top (OTT) providers and better monetisation of subscriber data as very important drivers behind their service delivery platform (SDP) deployments.

“Operators continue to deploy long-standing use cases such as messaging and single sign-on via their SDPs, but they are increasingly looking to expand the capabilities the SDP to support new use cases including partnerships with OTT providers and better monetisation of subscriber data,” said Shira Levine, research director for service enablement and subscriber intelligence at IHS.

“However, integration challenges continue to be an impediment to SDP investments, including the cost and complexity associated with integrating the SDP into existing network infrastructure and IT systems,” Levine said.

Among other findings in the SDP Strategies and Vendor Leadership: Global Service Provider Survey:

• The majority of respondents have deployed their SDPs on-premises with commercially-available hardware, though virtualised deployments on shared hardware and via an internal cloud are most likely to be under evaluation.

• Consequently, support for deployment on commercially-available hardware came in relatively high on the list of key criteria for SDP suppliers, although product reliability and support capabilities topped the list.

• Oracle is the SDP supplier cited as a leader by a majority of survey participants, with Ericsson and Huawei following closely behind.

Categories: Articles, Broadband, Cable, OTT