The telecom industry has no shortage of standards and trade groups vying for industry attention – and in most cases membership dollars – to establish their leadership credentials for shaping and defining the industry’s future. These groups range from well-established and well-respected organisations that have been in existence for generations to newer upstarts focused on setting the course for next-generation technologies, with virtualisation at the top of that list.
To get a clearer sense of which standards and trade groups are succeeding in attracting industry mind share, Heavy Reading conducted an exclusive worldwide online survey to gauge the views of a range of industry participants on the trade and standards organizations that are vying to shape the telecommunications landscape. The survey, conducted in the first quarter of 2015, elicited responses from more than 450 communications industry professionals and provides some valuable – and in some cases surprising – insight into what the telecom business thinks of its associations.
The survey’s questions focused on key elements of industry perception of trade groups, including familiarity with various organizations, their perceived importance and influence on the industry or relevant subsectors, the perceived direction of change of their importance and overall organizational perception.
The good news for telecom standards and trade groups in general is that industry professionals see tremendous value in them. About 60 percent of respondents called them “essential” and 31 percent more called them “important” (see Figure 1). These percentages held firm for both technology suppliers and network operators.
Figure 1: In General, How Important Are Telecom Industry Trade Associations and Groups to Your Company?
Well-established industry standards powerhouses, such as the IETF, IEEE, ETSI and 3GPP, clearly have maintained the widespread respect and support of the telecom industry, as manifested in their high survey scores in importance and influence, as well as overall perception.
But drilling down specifically to industry groups that are focused on virtualization reveals that three organizations formed specifically to advance the virtualization agenda have already captured significant mind share in the telecom industry. These three groups are Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV), Open Networking Foundation (ONF), and OpenDaylight.
While these new groups certainly are not as widely known as their older and more-established counterparts, survey respondents who are familiar with these virtualization-focused organizations see them as becoming more important to the industry in the future. Of the top five organizations that were viewed as having become more important over the last two years, the first three are relatively new and focused on virtualization (see Figure 2).
Figure 2: Industry Groups with Rising Importance
| Organization | % Rated “More Important” |
| OPNFV | 43% |
| ONF | 40% |
| OpenDaylight | 39% |
| ETSI | 35% |
| IETF | 34% |
It remains to be seen exactly what role each of these groups will play in the telecom industry’s transformation to virtualization. But it’s clear that each of them has made an impressive start in establishing their respective credentials.
By Dennis Mendyk, VP of Research, Heavy Reading
