Mobile operators fueling growth in DPI market

CALIFORNIA, USA: Infonetics Research forecasts that global sales of standalone service provider deep packet inspection (DPI) products to more than triple from 2011 to 2015, when it will top $1.6 billion.

Infonetics in its latest 'Service Provider Deep Packet Inspection Products' report, also finds that the growth in the market is being fueled by operators buying DPI for their mobile networks.

Moreover, revenue from standalone DPI products used in wireless networks is expected to grow at a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 47 per cent from 2010 to 2015. Meanwhile, the CAGR for revenue from standalone DPI for fixed line networks is 10.5 per cent.

"As the deep packet inspection market matures, the focus is moving away from the underlying packet inspection technology and toward the use cases that DPI can enable, such as video optimization, usage-based billing and content caching. Accordingly, DPI suppliers should build up ecosystems with partners to address those use cases, as opposed to relying on more opportunistic relationships," notes Shira Levine, directing analyst for next gen OSS and policy, Infonetics Research.

Mobile operators are investing in DPI for more granular traffic management and to enable tiered services, value-added services, and more sophisticated pricing models, finds Infonetics.

Analytics on the subscriber's network, services, applications, and behaviour will become an integral part of DPI solutions over the next few years, adds Infonetics.

Infonetics expects strong growth in the DPI segment in emerging markets in Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, as operators address network congestion issues caused by rapid subscriber growth, comply with regulatory requirements, and support cyber security initiatives.