Survey Sez 08/16/12

Vertical Systems Group named AT&T, Verizon, tw telecom, CenturyLink, Cox, XO, Time Warner Cable and Level 3 as its top Ethernet service providers, based on their each holding 4 percent or more of the market based on billable enterprise port installations…According to Analysys Mason, key considerations for mobile operators when evaluating mobile-backhaul suppliers include hardware deployment costs, the potential integration of multi-vendor solutions and end-to-end management of the technology along with the service cycle required to manage and maintain the backhaul network until the next technology-upgrade cycle. As such, the group recommends operators select an OSS that adheres to Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) standards, specifically, IEEE 802.1ag, IEEE 802.3ah and ITU Y.1731. Another suggestion: Deep packet inspection probes in the radio access network working together with the policy charging and rules function helps regulate traffic coming through the backhaul network, enabling mobile operators to avoid network congestion problems…Hosting providers that don’t differentiate themselves via value-added services see themselves locked into a destructive pricing race to the bottom, according to research from IT operations and cloud management solutions provider ScienceLogic Inc. In a recent survey, the company found nearly 50 percent of those polled name “price wars” as the greatest threat to the industry; they don’t see competition from such large cloud providers as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Facebook and Google as much of a threat. Almost 60 percent cited management and support as the main way to differentiate from competitors as opposed to price, while only 34 percent cited price as a strategy to differentiate from the competition.