Cloud services will be one of the key revenue generators for operators over the next 24 months, according to data from the Telecoms.com Intelligence Industry Survey 2013, with over 80 per cent of respondents expecting operators to own their own cloud infrastructure within the next two years. Over 90 per cent expect operators to be selling cloud services within the same time frame.

Although only about 12 per cent of respondents think more than 50 per cent of operators worldwide will own their own cloud infrastructure by 2015, the majority think between 11 and 30 per cent will have some kind of cloud platform in place.

There are slightly higher expectations of operators actually selling cloud services within the same time frame, but this may be due to a healthy outsourcing market where operators are reselling cloud services from specialist providers.

“Operators are going to build and offer different cloud services to a varying degree across infrastructure, platforms, software and services,” said Manish Singh, CTO of cloud solutions provider Radisys.

“Clearly all these operators are looking at offering SaaS, but cloud takes them to the next level. Today many of these operators have existing touchpoints with CIOs in the enterprise space where they are providing connectivity solutions, and the future is all about offering connectivity and computing bundles to the enterprise.

“This is where the operators really shine in managing infrastructure that is reliable, robust and secure along with connectivity and computing services,” Singh added.

The Telecoms.com Intelligence Industry Survey 2013, which will be published on February 18th, collected data from almost 2,000 industry respondents, including 600 operator employees from 260 different operators worldwide.

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