It’s hard to believe it now, but at one time, VoIP was a hard sell in this industry. At pivotal moments in this market, telcos have faced the challenge of having to do something to react to changing user needs and habits, but they have hesitated to believe that heir-apparent technologies were the way to go. We are at one of those crossroads again. Just as VoIP was once doubted yet imminent, NFV and SDN sit poised to become hugely important in the telco space. And yet major players continue to hem and haw over the potential value of these technologies.
NFV is inevitable. The legacy telco that ignores NFV and its IT-domain-equal, SDN, will be left in the dust. If you still need convincing, consider this:
- Software telcos have lower capital and operational expenditures than their legacy peers.
- Software telcos will enjoy a higher rate of service velocity and the capability of rolling out new offerings faster.
- Software telcos can bring on more ad hoc resources to prepare for service spikes, such as when the Olympics or some other major event rolls around.
- Software-based infrastructure is already here. SBCs and media servers are already deployed, and common management for these resources will come on the scene soon.
- The availability of bandwidth and the current power of Intel processors lay the groundwork for the success of NFV and SDN.
- There won’t be a massive shift overnight, but we’re already selling software-based SBCs, transcoding solutions and media servers. Within the next three years, expect the same kind of ramp up we saw with VoIP.
Today’s cost pressures and service requirements will ultimately push telcos toward NFV and SDN. Want to learn more? Check out our on-demand webinar with Heavy Reading Senior Analyst Jim Hodges. Register for “The rise of NFV and the software telco” here.
