DENVER, CO -- (Marketwire) -- 12/06/12 -- BroadHop, Inc., the leader in next-generation policy control platforms for service providers, today announced the results from a global survey it conducted with Heavy Reading, a leading telecom market research services company, of over 170 telecom industry experts and executives regarding current policy use, policy challenges and the benefits SDN (Software Defined Networking) is expected to bring to policy management.

The survey was conducted as part of a joint Heavy Reading and BroadHop webinar on "A Next-Generation Policy Crash Course: Ensuring That Your Policy Management Solution Has a Future."

When asked to classify the majority of their current policy use cases, 62% of respondents said they were still using policy primarily for bandwidth management or data caps, tiered services, and throttling, while nearly 23% said they were using policy for new service delivery, including data plan creation, user self-care and promotions. Sixteen percent surveyed were not using any policy management solution.

When asked what the biggest challenge ahead for policy control deployments was, 37% said interoperability with other IT and network equipment; 24% said making a business case based on service differentiation, and 20% said scaling up to high transaction loads. Adding new policy use cases was flagged by 8.6% of respondents and 10% felt regulatory issues such as net neutrality and privacy were among the biggest challenges.

Although the majority (33%) of respondents felt it was too early to tell what the main benefit would be of running policy management in a software defined network (SDN) environment, 28% said that SDN would make it easier to launch new policy-supported services. The rest were split evenly between the opinions that SDN would make it easier to handle peak loads, that it would reduce the cost of policy deployments, and that it would enable policy to be bought and sold as a service in the cloud.

"As this survey shows and as we look ahead to 2013, there are tremendous value-added benefits for service providers that embrace the shift from resource-intensive, first-generation policy systems to more intelligent, next-gen policy 2.0 management platforms," said Graham Finnie, Chief Analyst, Heavy Reading. "In turn, the community must work collectively to meet the challenges service providers face through greater vendor interoperability, technology innovation and market education of the benefits of Policy 2.0."

"2013 is a turning point in the industry as a significant number of service providers have begun to use policy for new service delivery," said Kishen Mangat, Vice President, Solutions at BroadHop, Inc. "The replacement cycle for Policy 1.0 solutions has begun in earnest. Policy 2.0 solutions must be interoperable with a wide range of players, be ready to support massive scalability, require little to no professional services and offer a clear ROI for service differentiation."

BroadHop's Quantum Network Suite, a next-generation policy management platform, is purpose-built and independently validated to meet the interoperability, scalability and flexibility service provider challenges.

To listen to the entire BroadHop and Heavy Reading webinar please visit: http://www.lightreading.com/webinar.asp?webinar_id=30128&webinar_promo=28633

About BroadHop, Inc.
Deployed by more than 90 telecom service providers serving more than 500 million subscribers in 40 countries, BroadHop's advanced next-gen policy management solutions enable service providers to control network resources in real time, monetize new services and applications, and deliver personalized, identity-based services in wireless and wireline networks. BroadHop products enable service providers to deliver converged applications, content and services over multi-access networks, so they can quickly build new revenue streams, reduce operating expenses, and create competitive advantage in their markets. For more information on BroadHop and its products, visit www.broadhop.com or follow the company on http://twitter.com/broadhop.

All trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies.

Add to Digg Bookmark with del.icio.us Add to Newsvine