Sixty-five percent of network operators are doing more network testing now than they were a year ago, according to recent research commissioned by Amdocs.
The research, conducted by Coleman Parkes, involved surveying around 80 network operators around the world. Nearly 70% of operators reported that their testing focused on 4G and the Radio Access Network, with around 60% also reported that they were spending their time testing Wi-Fi, Voice over LTE and network function virtualization/software-defined networking.
Amdocs recently launched a new core network testing service as it seeks to capitalize on the fact that operators are doing more testing and often use more than four different vendors for testing in preparation to launch new services.
“The whole idea was to help our customers respond to some of the challenges that they’re seeing in terms of increasing network complexity,” said Ann Hatchell, head of marketing for network at Amdocs. Hatchell added that historically, there were only a few vendors actually working within the telecom network. Siloing within service providers also helped simplify testing demands. But virtualization is leading to more vendors, she said, while more software and an emphasis on quality mean that testing is gaining importance to ensure that everything works. This holds true for the introduction of new services as well. VoLTE, Hatchell pointed out, is one good example where service quality must be excellent in order to achieve functionality and meet customer expectations.
Hatchell said that Amdocs has been seeing its customer focus their testing around VoLTE, the introduction of carrier Wi-Fi, and the virtualization of the Evolved Packet Core.
In particular, Amdocs’ research showed that NFV/SDN is prompting more testing. Forty-eight percent of global respondents expect that SDN and NFV will be a game-changer for network testing. Manasa Agaram, product marketing manager for Amdocs, said that in North America, 55% of respondents felt that way.
“They know that the evolution to NFV and SDN is going to have a big impact on their network testing needs. That ties into what a lot of global service providers are thinking, that it will be a bit of a change in defining their testing procedures and needs for testing,” Agaram said.
Among the other findings of the Amdocs research:
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- Almost 70% of companies reported that test plans fell short in terms of lack of time to meet testing needs. Lack of budget, software and testing skills were other areas of concern.
- Asked to identify the main challenges for efficient network testing, 75% of respondents cited time to market, and 70% pointed to the complexity of legacy systems.
- Respondents reported that network testing activities typically lasted 9.1 weeks from testing to production.