NetEqualizer News Blog

NEW YORK/PRNewswire/ — Bandwidth demands at branch locations are skyrocketing, according to Nemertes Research’s Advanced Communications Services benchmark. The study found that IT executives expect an 84% increase in bandwidth available in 2008, and a 99% increase in 2009, up from a 72% increase in 2007.

“The continued demand by remote workers for high-performance collaborative and centralized business applications is the driving force behind these increases,” says Robin Gareiss, Nemertes’ executive vice president and senior founding partner.

Nemertes also found the adoption of managed services at the branch is increasing, and has been for the past three years. Now, 63% of companies use some type of managed service at the branch, compared with 46% in 2007, and 27% in 2006. Participants tend to use traditional carriers for network-based services, such as router management, WAN management and implementations. With resellers, the focus is ongoing management of applications, installation and training. With systems integrators, the focus is on design and implementation. With outsourcers, they center on network or application management.

Other key findings of the research include:

• Video applications (including desktop, room-based and telepresence) top the list of reasons for bandwidth growth.
• New collaborative applications, multimedia Web-based applications, and IP telephony are also drivers for bandwidth increase.
• Management and monitoring tools are crucial for benchmarking costs, performance and utilization.
• Robust, reliable, high-performance networks are crucial, especially in light of new applications and bandwidth requirements.
• Optimization tools can assist with curtailing bandwidth spending and improve network monitoring.
• Forty-nine percent of benchmark participants use managed routers or other network gear at the branch, followed by 22% using IP telephony management.