The market for policy deployed as a virtual network function (VNF) is forecast to reach $2.8 billion by 2020, representing 90 percent of the total policy management market, according to IHS Research.
According to IHS, the total global market for policy management solutions reached $1.6 billion in 2015, with growth driven largely by wireless momentum. Data monetization is a key driver behind policy management investments in the mobile realm, as is the deployment of adjunct policy charging and rules function (PCRF) and policy system replacement to support voice over LTE (VoLTE) services.
The market research firm highlighted that there has been some momentum around deploying policy management via a cloud‑based software-as-a-service (SaaS) or platform-as-a-service (PaaS) model, although mostly among smaller operators and for adjunct lines of business at this point. This trend is expected to intensify over the next few years.
IHS said that policy is becoming closely linked with the larger concept of customer experience management (CEM) by providing operators a way to offer their subscribers and prospects more creative and targeted services that are consistent across multiple delivery mechanisms and end-user devices. As this occurs, there is growing interest in pushing policy control to the device as a tool for subscriber engagement, enabling self‑care, targeted offers and promotions, etc.
IHS forecasts that the wireless revenue as a percentage of the entire policy management market is projected to increase over the next several years, while growth in the more mature fixed-line market will be slower.
