Spurred on by the build-out of LTE networks, the deep packet inspection market is projected to reach $2 billion in revenues in four years.
A recent report by Infonetics Research also said that service provider deep packet inspection (DPI) product revenue grew 29 percent to more than $470 million worldwide in 2011. Also last year, Huawei edged out Sandvine to take the lead in global service provider revenue share.
“Though fixed-line operators continue to invest in deep packet inspection solutions for traffic management and to manage the impact of over-the-top (OTT) content on their networks, wireless operators are looking to DPI for more granular traffic management, including prioritization and strategic offload, and are starting to deploy DPI hand-in-hand with their LTE network upgrades,” said Shira Levine, directing analyst for next-gen OSS and policy at Infonetics Research.
Other highlights of Infonetics’ report included:
- DPI is increasingly being incorporated into larger solutions, such as video optimization and mobile offload, creating opportunities for suppliers that offer DPI technology on an OEM basis.
- Operators are evaluating alternatives to throttling or blocking high-bandwidth video content – including using DPI for media caching – to prioritize select video content to support guaranteed QoS, and as part of a content delivery network strategy.
- Infonetics forecast strong growth for service provider DPI products in emerging markets in Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa as operators look to address network congestion caused by rapid subscriber growth, comply with regulatory requirements and support cybersecurity initiatives.
