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Australian Telcos to Tap SD-WAN to Offset Declining Data and IP Market Revenue - GlobalData

Australian Telcos to Tap SD-WAN to Offset Declining Data and IP Market Revenue - GlobalData Image Credit: GlobalData

With the adoption of new technologies such as SDN, intense competition and price erosion, the Australian data and IP market revenue is forecast to decline at a CAGR of 1.3% over the period 2017-2022, according to data and analytics company GlobalData.

While the adoption of services such as cloud, big data and video conferencing is driving the demand for more connections and bandwidth, enterprises are not allocating more budgets. Against this back drop, telcos need to get serious with managed SD-WAN, suggests the company.

Siow Meng Soh, Asia Technology Market Analyst at GlobalData, says: “In terms of competition, besides tier-2 players such as Vocus and TPG, there are players such as Megaport and SuperLoop which are entering the market and leveraging SDN-based technologies for market disruption.

“In terms of technologies, we expect SD-WAN to start having an impact on the market. While we do not suggest that vast swaths of enterprise customers are already moving network estate away from multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) and Ethernet, the demand is undeniable and SD-WAN is happening now. This is consistent with the CIOs/IT managers in Australia that GlobalData interviewed on a regular basis. Most of them had already evaluated SD-WAN and some had already started to deploy the technology. In addition, the company’s survey results show that among the various enterprise network and communications, budget allocation upside is mainly in SD-WAN and network services.

Soh adds: “Besides potential cost-savings, SD-WAN offers enterprise a much greater level of control over their networks and therefore, most of the early adopters are self-managing the solution. At the moment, the SD-WAN vendors account for a large percentage of the initial uptake. Vendors such as VeloCloud (now owned by VMware), Aryaka and Silver Peak have made a big entrance into the market.”

However, enterprises with existing MPLS/Ethernet networks are increasingly looking to develop a hybrid network leveraging SD-WAN. This trend is expected to accelerate as telecom providers and managed service providers are now actively partnering with SD-WAN vendors to tackle this segment.

Soh concludes: “While SD-WAN adoption will limit the growth of traditional data and IP services in Australia, we do expect growing opportunities in the managed network services space to offset the decline in carriage revenues. Telecom providers that do not have SD-WAN in their portfolio need to act fast.” 

Author

Ray is a news editor at The Fast Mode, bringing with him more than 10 years of experience in the wireless industry.

For tips and feedback, email Ray at ray.sharma(at)thefastmode.com, or reach him on LinkedIn @raysharma10, Facebook @1RaySharma

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