DUBAI, UAE — Although the pandemic led to a temporary burst in growth, the market is now witnessing more sustained patterns, indicating continuous and substantial growth, said Amr Alashaal, Regional Vice President – Middle East at A10 Networks.
“These positive growth levels are driving both the urgency and confidence for communication service providers (CSPs) to undertake significant investment projects,” he said, referring to the latest A10 Networks report titled “Global Communication Service Providers: Market Growth Fuels Security Investments.”
The report shed light on the priorities, expectations, and perspectives of CSPs worldwide as they navigate the complexities of the digital landscape and expand their services and infrastructure.
The study, conducted by independent research organization Opinion Matters, involved surveying 2,750 senior IT professionals from various communication service providers across 11 regions globally. Within the Middle East, specifically Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the survey included 250 enterprise organizations.
Key findings from the Middle East region indicate that 100 percent of the service providers surveyed anticipate a surge in traffic volumes within the next 2-3 years. Among the respondents, 44 percent expect traffic to increase by up to 50 percent, while 36 percent predict a rise of over 50 percent up to 75 percent. Additionally, 20 percent believe that traffic will soar by more than 75 percent. On average, network traffic volume is projected to increase by 56 percent.
Four prominent themes emerged from A10 Networks’ global CSP survey: investment focus, growth preparation, expanding services to underserved communities, and capitalizing on new market opportunities with new services.
The survey also highlighted the increasing sophistication and diversity of network security strategies. Among respondents, the top priorities for network security investments in the next 2-3 years include upgrading firewalls and security appliances for new threats and increased traffic volume, DDoS detection and monitoring, ransomware and malware protection services, DDoS cloud scrubbing, and simplified centralized management and analytics systems.
Furthermore, CSPs are actively working to bridge the digital divide by expanding their networks to reach unserved or underserved communities.
Around 82 percent of the respondents stated that they are expanding their networks, with 48 percent planning to uplift their subscriber base by more than 10 percent and 33 percent aiming for an uplift of over 50 percent.
Additionally, 16 percent are planning to build additional data centers to provide additional capacity for other service providers.
Regarding enterprise cloud migration, the survey found that 59 percent of respondents reported a positive outcome related to their transition to the cloud. This included direct revenue generation, offering public cloud and managed data center services, and providing differentiated services that increased relevance to customers.
Challenges mentioned by CSPs as networks evolve include maintaining a quality service and avoiding service outages, increased risk from exposed APIs due to app modernization, open source, and AI, and maintaining application availability and security. IPv6 transition remains a continuing challenge for CSPs due to the scarcity of IPv4 addresses.
The survey reveals that only 32 percent expect to achieve the transition to IPv6 in the next 2-3 years. Meanwhile, 39 percent are adopting a strategy of carefully managing IPv4 pools while gradually transitioning to IPv6, and 27 percent aim to run both IPv4 and IPv6 in parallel.