Market research firm Infonetics Research has released excerpts from its July Fixed-Mobile/CDN Routing Strategies and Router Leadership: Global Service Provider Survey, for which carriers with carrier Ethernet switches (CES) and IP edge routers were interviewed to assess their needs and analyse trends in the router and CES market.

“The three-headed monster of video, mobility, and the cloud is putting enormous pressure on operator networks, and throwing more routers at the problem isn’t the answer because traffic is rising much faster than equipment prices are falling,” notes Michael Howard, Infonetics Research’s principal analyst for carrier networks. “This is driving a fundamental shift in how IP edge networks are being architected, with carriers combining their fixed and mobile networks for operational efficiencies and using caching and content delivery networks (CDNs) to move frequently used content closer to the consumer, speeding up response times and greatly reducing the amount of traffic crossing the network.”

Howard adds: “Our survey shows the top three drivers for deploying CDNs are providing a better quality of experience for customers, network optimisation, and reducing the cost and traffic load associated with delivering OTT video content.”

Survey highlights include:
– Over 50 per cent of service provider respondents plan to deploy transparent caching or CDNs by 2014
– 4/5 of respondent operator networks carry mobile traffic
– Service providers rate Cisco, Alcatel-Lucent, and Juniper as the top service provider edge router and/or CES vendors; Cisco and Juniper also top the list of core router manufacturers

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