Abstract
“Since the advent of on-demand bandwidth at Ethernet speeds, organisations expect high-speed access that is flexible, in terms of bandwidth increments and quick deployments.” Margaret Hopkins, Analysys Mason Associate
Product overview
Business data services continue to represent an extremely competitive area of telecoms service provision, comprising 24% of the fixed telecoms market in Western Europe. Bandwidth requirements continue to increase, while budgets are static or declining. IP-MPLS VPNs have become standard for business data networks, usually with several classes of service, and using Ethernet access connections to provide flexible, high-bandwidth transport. Obtaining Ethernet access to connect sites that do not justify the cost of fibre is a problem for service providers, and is driving the roll-out of Ethernet over copper. As FR and ATM become obsolete, carriers are keen to switch off their networks, but demand is likely to continue for some time for specialist applications.
The 2500-word report accompanying the forecasts provides insight into customer expectations and marketplace trends, based on interviews with end users, user groups, vendors and service providers. The Excel forecasts give detailed estimates of spend by service type and access technology for seven countries: France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the UK, as well as high-level forecasts for Western Europe as a whole.
Business data services in Europe: market drivers and forecasts 2008 - 2013 answers your key questions:
- Will demand for business data products persist in a slower-growing economy?
- What do customers really want from business data services?
- Which customers want Layer 2 Ethernet VPNs?
- How long will it be before FR and ATM networks can be switched off?
- How can customers be influenced to purchase by SLA, rather than by specific technology?
- What new features do customers want from WAN service offerings?
Who should read this report
- Incumbent telecoms operators that are seeking to defend substantial revenue from business data services
- Data network operators for which business data services are central to business
- ISPs that are buying these services for backhaul, as well as selling them to SMEs
- Unbundlers, cable operators and fibre-in-the-loop operators that can target businesses to boost returns from residential networks
- Vendors supplying equipment to these operators
- Systems integrators that are procuring business data services for their customers as part of managed service contracts
- Virtual network operators that are creating managed networks for their customers by reselling capacity
Table of Contents
Data Annex
The Excel spreadsheets provided with Business data services in Europe: market drivers and forecasts 2008-2013 give detailed estimates for spend by service type and access technology for seven countries:
- France
- Germany
- Italy
- Poland
- Spain
- Sweden
- the UK.
They also include high-level forecasts for Western Europe as a whole. Services are broken down into the following types:
- Internet access
- Layer 2 VPN
- Layer 3 (IP) VPN
- point-to-point circuits.
They are mapped onto five categories of access technology:
- ATM
- broadband
- Ethernet
- FR
- SDH, WDM and other.
Spend is further divided by size of site (large, corporate small and SME small) and by type of organisation.
The 2500-word report provides a snapshot of the market for business data services, describing customer' s top priorities and the state of network evolution, and illustrating the commentary with quotes from industry experts.
