Australian telcos must get serious about SD-WAN

In the face of falling data and IP revenues, Australian telecoms operators must get serious with managed SD-WAN deployments, according to data and analytics company GlobalData.

Australian data and IP market revenues are on track to fall at a CAGR of 1.3% between 2017 and 2022, the company has predicted. Managed network services are expected to fill the gap and drive a slight increase in total revenues by this time.

While adoption of services such as cloud, big data and videoconferencing is driving demand for more bandwidth, enterprises are not allocating more budgets, requiring operators to deliver more for less.

SD-WAN is expected to start having an impact on the market shortly, according to GlobalData Asia Technology Market Analyst Siow Meng Soh.

“While we do not suggest that vast swathes of enterprise customers are already moving network estate away from multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) and Ethernet, the demand is undeniable and SD-WAN is happening now,” he said.

“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.”

Vendors such as VeloCloud, Aryaka and Silver Peak have made a big entrance into the SD-WAN market, and players such as Megaport and SuperLoop which are entering the market and leveraging SDN-based technologies for market disruption, he said.

In an indication of investors’ enthusiasm for SD-WAN, Silver Peak has announced it has secured a US$90 million strategic investment from capital market company Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV). Silver Peak will use the investment to accelerate its expansion strategy.

Image credit: ©iStockphoto.com/Henrik Jonsson

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