Service Delivery Platforms (SDP) is being deployed at a higher rate than previously predicted, says market research firm ABI Research (News - Alert).

 

ABI Research, which estimates the deployment is increasing at 15 percent, says the reasons for deploying them, and the roles they are expected to play, are changing.

 

SDPs enable service providers to acquire, launch, and manage potentially thousands of services running over their networks. SDP encompasses a set of technologies that service providers are adopting to remain competitive as the telecom market moves toward next-generation, convergent networks.

 

ABI expects nearly 950 deployments to be completed by the end of 2013.

 

“In the beginning, Service Delivery Platforms were considered to fall under the umbrella of IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem (News - Alert)). As IMS went, so went SDP. Because IMS has not quickly delivered the multimedia services it was designed for, and is a very expensive and complicated technology,” said ABI Research Vice President Stuart Carlaw.

 

According to ABI, many vendors are saying ‘We have to have IMS eventually. But we have a pressing need for some of its functionality right now’.”

 

SDP is increasingly seen as an interim, pre-IMS solution that can deliver some of its multimedia services immediately at a fraction of the cost. The result : a less expensive bill of materials, and the ability to do more with a smaller budget.

 

Using SDP, operators can offer an array of applications that blend voice, video and data.

 

ABI claims that the research revealed that many of the applications currently being deployed via SDP are not new or converged.

 

 “They are messaging, music downloads, and other legacy applications. Operators can and should be bolder in their vision of what SDP can do for them and their subscribers,” the researcher said.

 

ABI Research is a market research firm focused on the impact of emerging technologies on global consumer and business markets.