In a recent assessment exercise conducted by ABI Research (ABI) on top players in the Evolved Packet Core (EPC) Segment, Ericsson emerged the overall top scorer followed by Huawei and Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN). The assessment which is part of ABI's Software Defined Networking (SDN) & Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) Research Service, included business and technical evaluation of the current EPC solutions and was conducted on various categories including implementation and innovation strenghts. In the Innovation category, Alcatel Lucent took the top spot while Huawei ranked highest in the Implementation scores. The Assessment took into consideration the highly differentiated solutions and the unique product positioning employed by each player before finalising the scores.
“These hyper-competitive vendors differentiate in many ways, making for well-structured marketing strategies but face a challenging shopping comparison,” says Joe Hoffman, principal analyst at ABI Research. “Performance advantage is temporary and comes with the most recent technology refresh, so we see Ericsson and Huawei struggling to best each other, while Cisco and Nokia Siemens are unrelenting and quickly advance when the others stumble.”
