Capacity Management Test and Monitoring Market, Forecast to 2024

5G, Augmented and Virtual Reality, and Video on Demand are Important Trends to Capitalize on

The global capacity management test and monitoring market is comprised of solutions that allocate and manage the infrastructure resources of the network operator, thereby enhancing network efficiency while reducing operating expenditure. Traditional capacity management solutions were relevant during the deployment of legacy-based second generation (2G), third generation (3G), and fourth generation Long-term Evolution (4G LTE) technologies. These traditional solutions were more specific to the quality of voice calls, such as measuring the number of voice call drops. However, with a substantial increase in the volume of data consumption by mobile subscribers and the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT), the requirement for network operators has shifted from traditional capacity management solutions to advanced network optimization and planning solutions that are automated and feature enhanced machine learning (ML) capabilities.

Key trends that are expected to influence the market during the forecast period include the proliferation of IoT, augmented and virtual reality, as well as video-on-demand services. As these technologies continue to grow, and key components and devices support these technologies to be commoditized, the requirement for a network such as fifth generation (5G) - that is scalable and differentiated enough to support devices and applications operating on different bandwidths - will grow stronger. The development of a full-scale 5G service will therefore be an important factor that will drive market growth.

5G will bring to the forefront inherent challenges posed by the existing infrastructure of many global operators, such as lack of scalability and agility. Network operators are implementing heterogeneous network components, edge computing, and virtualized hardware components to enhance scalability, agility, and throughput, while reducing latency and packet loss. It would be unfathomable for a legacy-based capacity management test solution used across the network infrastructure to improve the quality of service (QoS) and quality of experience (QoE) for the end user. To address the issue, the communication testing community is engineering network optimization solutions that are embedded with enhanced machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities.

The new network optimization solutions are predominantly software-based, more scalable, and easier to deploy across networks that are heterogeneous and consist of physical and virtual network infrastructures. While the capacity management test and monitoring market will continue to experience more traction across North America and Europe, driven by increased 5G-based activity in these regions, Latin America and the Middle East and Africa are expected to lag behind in terms of adoption of capacity management test and monitoring solutions.