European IP-VPN Market Shows Some Promise

The Western European market for IP virtual private network (IP-VPN) services is set to increase seven fold in the next five years to $6.6 billion. The success would be even greater if not for service providers paying insufficient attention to user requirements.

This is one of the major conclusions of Market Realities of IP-VPNs, a report published by Analysys.

"When service providers are desperate for revenues, we found it surprising that they were not putting more effort into attracting users--especially SMEs--to the obvious benefits of this developing network technology and in matching users' requirements," says report author Margaret Hopkins.

Fifty companies in the USA and Europe were commissioned for the report.

Major concerns included the failure to obtain expected cost benefits, network latency, bandwidth and security.

Existing and potential users of IP-VPNs say they want e-mail, Web browsing, remote database access, remote network access and intranets. They gave a low priority to voice and data integration, and many stated they were not yet convinced of the benefits.

The report is available for $3,060.