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Survey shows that 81% of participants said they expect to deploy NFV in 2017.
IHS Markit said 100% of participants in its recent survey on network functions virtualisation (NFV) said they would deploy NFV “at some point” while 81% said they expect to do so by 2017.
The research company added that 59% of operator respondents have already deployed or will deploy NFV this year. Many operators are now moving from their NFV proof-of-concept tests and lab investigations to working with vendors that are developing and productising the software, which is being deployed commercially.
The IHS Markit study indicates that operators see NFV and software-defined networking (SDN) as a “fundamental change in telecom network architecture”.
Expected future benefits include improved automation; new, more agile services and revenue; operational efficiency; and capex savings.
IHS Markit further noted that the vast majority of early NFV deployments in the next year will be for business virtualised enterprise customer premises equipment (vE-CPE), also known as vBranch or enterprise vCPE.
Operators on both sides of the Atlantic have certainly been stepping up the NFV pace this year. In July, for example, both AT&T and Verzion announced the launch of new NFV capabilities while AT&T also announced a collaboration agreement with Orange that will see the pair work together on the standardisation of SDN and NFV technologies.
IHS Markit has also previously predicted that virtual network functions will account for 73% of the value of the global NFV market by 2020, which by then will be worth US$15 billion (€13.6 billion).
That represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 42% from $2.7 billion in 2015, the research firm said.
"We expect strong growth in NFV markets in 2020 and beyond, driven by service providers’ desire for service agility and operational efficiency," said Michael Howard, senior research director, carrier networks, at IHS Markit.
