But there are some options mobile carriers might want to consider to help keep their subscribers’ data plan bills more manageable, and keep their customers happier. One way to allow for that is by introducing sponsored data charging programs.
Sponsored data charging programs are an effective way mobile carriers can help their subscribers justify the cost of connectivity, while growing their own user bases and expanding their ecosystems to include more application providers and marketers. That’s the word from Barbara Sampson, senior marketing manager for policy and charging PLM marketing, and Thomas King, manager of the policy and charging portfolio, at Alcatel-Lucent. The two wrote a recent TechZine posting, Operators benefit from sponsored data charging, that details how mobile operators can prosper with these types of programs.
Such programs, Alcatel-Lucent calls them Smart Plans, enable mobile subscribers to enjoy connectivity without being charged for it on their monthly plan.
There are various models of sponsored data charging. The zero rating model, for example, has an application provider or other third-party pay for subscriber data consumed by the specific app or service. A second example would involve a marketer providing a subscriber with a data reward for making a mobile purchase or trying a new service.
However, introducing these kinds of new options involves a bit of work on the billing front. That’s why Alcatel-Lucent and Aquto have joined forces to address sponsored data charging. The partnership involves Aquto leveraging Alcatel-Lucent’s SurePay platform with its own monetization platform to enable mobile carriers to support sponsored data models.
Aquto offers both cloud-based sponsorships to enable data rewards and zero rating, and a service provider user-engagement application option, which provides a destination at which subscribers can discover apps and services and get advertiser offers for data rewards and/or zero rating.
A huge benefit here is that operators can build service plans that give customers visibility over all of the devices that us data plans which enable them keep track of usage and let them top off their accounts wherever they may be. Mobile service providers can thus not only obtain news revenues from sponsors but are positioned to provide customers a more compelling and understandable user experience.
]]>The Internet and the smartphone have altered customer expectations related to service. They have both elevated the requirement for fast results in terms of response times, and they have made consumers more comfortable with finding answers themselves using the devices in their hands and the information that is now at their fingertips.
Meanwhile, communications providers continue to expand the ever-growing number of services they offer to consumers. That now includes an array of Internet access, mobile, and TV services. The growing number of CSP services and customers also increases the potential for more help desk inquiries.
Six to 53 percent of consumers across Brazil, Japan, the U.K., and the U.S. reported they had issues with their high-speed Internet, mobile, or TV services within the last six months, according to recent research done by Alcatel-Lucent’s Motive unit. This illustrates the potential for CSP help desk overload, given the four countries have nearly 500 million mobile subscribers, more than 164 million Internet subscribers, and nearly 200 million TV subscribers. That means if just 10 percent of these users have service issues in any given six-month period, CSPs in these countries could have to work to help 14 million dissatisfied consumers each month, according to the Motive research paper “Toward self-service: Empowering connected consumers to help themselves”.
While the help desk is the primary channel for helping customers with their problems, mobile apps can also help do the job, reducing costs, lowering the strain on help desks and improving customer experiences through the channel in the process, and responding to the trend toward customer self-service. Indeed, as the Motive white paper explains, CSP self-service applications in some cases have reduced help desk calls by up to 75 percent and lowered the frequency of expensive truck rolls by more than a fourth.
However, the white paper goes on to note that self-service app adoption can be a challenge. Indeed, it says, typical adoption of such apps is 30 percent or less. It is why CSPs need to redefine the customer experience leveraging self-help.
A recent blog, 10 strategies for communications service providers looking to offer appealing self-service apps, by Greg Owens, Senior Director, Customer Experience Solutions Marketing, Alcatel-Lucent, however, offers tips on how CSPs can successfully introduce and drive adoption for customer self-service apps.
His suggestions include:
Self-help if not done properly can be as if not more frustrating than dealing with an agent who either is not skilled, or is not empowered to solve your problem or answer your question. However, done correctly it not only reduces expense by significantly cutting contact center call volumes, but also can be a valuable tool in actually improving the customer experience.
]]>The customer experience has always mattered, but its importance has grown in recent years. This has been driven by increased global competition, including the almost instant availability of alternations, and the rising expectations by fickle and informed consumer. Yet, cable operators have a long way to travel if they want to deliver the customer experience (CX) that consumers demand.
The Temkin Group’s Q3 2014 survey of 10,000 US consumers’ opinions about goods and services registered the lowest ranking average Net Promoter Score (NPS) for pay TV providers, a telling statistic. Internet service providers did almost as poorly, coming in only one position higher.
“As technology innovations drive shifts in consumer behavior and open new service opportunities, operators must start eliminating pain points,” stressed Alcatel-Lucent’s Nicholas Cadwgan in a recent TechZine article, Cable MSOs transform the customer experience. “This includes any obstacles that will impede their ability to launch and provide adequate care and quality assurance for those services.”
Cadwgan lays out four customer experience management (CEM) areas that cable operators should focus on.
“This means operators must have comprehensive control of and visibility into every device and every service delivered to those devices from their networks,” he noted.
2. Basic customer service has to be improved, including help desks, interactive voice response (IVR) systems, and self-help portals.
“To provide CSRs all the information they need to reduce resolution time, the new CEM platform must have powerful analytics capabilities in conjunction with data-gathering that reaches across all devices and systems,” suggested Cadwgan.
Analytics systems need to be able to track and identify issues based on information relevant to whatever access link a particular user is on, and the operator’s CX system must be able to aggregate and present all relevant information from a user-centric viewpoint.
The customer experience matters, and cable operators better start taking it seriously if CX statistics are to be believed.
For more of Cadwgan’s thought about opportunities transformation can afford cable operators you are invited to listen to the following podcast on the subject.
Self-service to one degree or another has been present since the rise of the web. However, customers are increasingly choosing self-service because they feel more empowered and it is often perceived to be an easier interaction than dealing with a live person. The rise of the smartphone also has increased the use of self-service.
In fact, as explained by Jessica Verbruggen, Integrated Marketing Assistant at Alcatel-Lucent Motive, in a recent TechZine article, Empowering Autonomous Customer Self-Care, self-service can be a win-win for customers and communications service providers (CSPs).
The voice of the customer supports self-service
Verbruggen, citing a recent consumer survey by Nuance Enterprise to illustrate here point. The survey found:
Plus, in terms of what motivates them to use a mobile app:
Benefits to CSPs
As noted, CSPs are finding self-service to be very beneficial. Experience has already proven that customer self-care reduces the cost of interaction with customers, allows them to collect more customer information and helps them deliver a more personalized experience.
“This, in turn, drives higher customer retention, increases revenues, and positions their brand as being a provider of a comprehensive and personalized customer experience,” Verbruggen noted.
One problem that many CSPs have, however, is easily delivering all the functionality that consumers expect and appreciate. That’s why products such as Alcatel-Lucent’s Motive’s Self-Service Console, part of the company’s Motive customer experience solution, are so well-received.
The Motive Self-Service Console empowers customers to pay their bills, access their accounts and schedule maintenance without having to involve a live agent. A large European operator that uses the tool has reported that 88 percent of customers that used the Motive troubleshooting application were able to avoid a call to the help desk entirely.
That’s huge. And it demonstrates strongly why CSPs are increasingly attracted to customer self-care.
“CSPs are able to cut costs, get a better view of their customers, and provide more personalized service,” explained Verbruggen. “That’s a win-win if I’ve ever seen one.”
]]>No matter where one looks these days, be it in enterprises or service providers, there can be no disputing that enhancing the customer experience has become a top, if not along with security the top, C-level concern.
Indeed, from burnishing the brand to enhancing customer loyalty, having permission to upsell and getting early visibility on new opportunities the customer experience (CX is now the short appellation) has become a cross line-of-business preoccupation and priority. This has meant business units’ increased attention on listening to, analyzing and reacting upon needs arising from the “voice of the customer” (or certainly knowing more about their service usage behavior), and IT department focus on providing the tools necessary to support these requirements.
It has also meant that businesses of all sizes and vertical markets are changing their views on what it takes to have a better understanding of the customers. This means using new metrics for success. It also has highlighted the realization that you need to look at life cycle management of customers, i.e., as the headline says it is no longer about the destination in the form of a sale but is about assuring optimization of what has been popularized as “The Customer Journey.”
Ultimately, what it has also meant is that organizations need not only the tools, skills and strategies to optimize the customer journey but also need to be able do so quickly. The reasons are obvious but worth repeating. Competitors are becoming more nimble and customers armed with better real-time information themselves have become more fickle. Time is of the essence.
Illustrative of an area where there is, or certainly should be, a sense of urgency regarding having all of the capabilities to optimize the customer journey is in the global mobile services business. This is a sector rife with competition and susceptible to high churn rates. The good news is that the information that resides in the network and various lines-of-business (LOBs), when properly mined, analyzed and acted upon can give service providers more satisfied customers and a competitive edge.
The question is, where are the places to go to get the information and tools needed? The answer can be seen in a recent Alcatel-Lucent webinar, “LTE, It’s Not About the Destination, but the Journey,” which is embedded in its entirety below.
Spoiler Alert!
I’d like to encourage you to view the entire webinar by sharing just a few insights provided by presenters David J. Swift Marketing Director Wireless, and Josee Loudiadis, Director Network Intelligence, Alcatel-Lucent.
The first is the chart that is the backdrop of the webinar (yes you are seeing double) which is a still frame tickler as to why Alcatel-Lucent believes the deployment of an LTE overlay network is the preferred way to go as the vehicle for being fast-to-market. Swift provides a granular explanation but the benefits slide sums it up well.
Source: Alcatel-Lucent webinar, LTE, It’s Not About the Destination, but the Journey
The savings are demonstrable and it should come as no surprise that several of the world’s leading mobile service providers have opted for an LTE overlay as their choice for not just deploying but leveraging the Alcatel-Lucent LTE Express to enable fast deployment.
For her section of the presentation Loudiadis highlights the Alcatel-Lucent belief that the network has the information to keep customers happy. She describes what this information is, and how it can be generated and analyzed for use in looking at:
In fact, a compelling case is made, and again with an emphasis on the need for service providers having some sense of competitive urgency, for implementing an analytics-driven customer care solution such as Alcatel-Lucent’s Motive Customer Experience Solutions.
While a bit of an eye chart, you hopefully get the picture.
Source: Alcatel-Lucent webinar, LTE, It’s Not About the Destination, but the Journey
Yes, the realities of the mobile market, especially as global service providers are in a mad dash to deploy LTE quickly and not fall behind competitors is to get it out there fast. However, being fast-to-market is only part of the equation. You need to also be cost-efficient, and more importantly fast in the market/agile as well. To be the later requires real-time actionable insights. That is where the information and insights from the network become critical.
Success going forward really will be about creating and leveraging better and better knowledge about the entire customer journey. Indeed, it is with such knowledge that services providers can go from being not just reactive but proactive in terms of not just pleasing customers but beating competitors to the punch.
]]>Churn can be a costly problem for service providers, particularly when it gets up into the high double-digit percentages. And that’s exactly what can happen when customers are less than satisfied with their communications services. In fact, it has been estimated that churn is 89 percent for subscribers who have a poor customer experience.
But there is an answer.
As highlighted in a recent TechZine article by Alan Marks, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Alcatel-Lucent’s Motive Customer Experience Solutions, Alcatel-Lucent, service providers can leverage analytics solutions to help them identify and track network resources, and customer behavior and experience on the network. This enables them to have visibility into whether customers are receiving the level of service for which they have subscribed.
As Marks explains, having such visibility helps service providers build customer loyalty. This has direct impact obviously on obtaining a reasonable return on investment (ROI) on those customers over time.
Plus, it better positions the service provider to upsell those subscribers in the future. It allows service providers to avoid customer care and new customer acquisition costs. And, of course, it results in happier customers, which is a positive all around.
The connected home is one application for which customer experience management tools that do analytics makes perfect sense. This arena is a relatively new one for service providers like the cable TV companies and telephone companies, which traditionally have liked to keep outside demarcation points at residential customer premises. But the connected home is now increasingly inviting service providers into consumer homes. This is great because it can enable those service providers to play a bigger role in the customer experience. It also creates challenges, however, because there are more moving parts that service providers need to consider when assessing the total customer experience.
New tools from such as Alcatel-Lucent Motive Customer Experience Solutions give service providers visibility into what’s happening with home device connectivity, Internet security and malware protection, online video quality of experience, and usage and performance. This information can be analyzed so service providers can make changes to their networks to improve the customer experience and to improve internal customer care processes.
As Marks details, the Motive CX analytics framework for optimizing the customer experience in the connected home is broken down into four categories:
Home device and home network analytics—enables operators to collect device and home network data, and use the resulting intelligence to proactively discover, diagnose, and resolve issues
Online video analytics—combines data from video player plug-ins, content delivery networks (CDNs) and quality of experience (QoE) agents to measure subscriber QoE, and assess viewing trends, content usage, and CDN performance
Security analytics—helps to establish and maintain a safe home network environment by providing network-based analysis of Internet traffic for malware and protecting the network and subscribers
Care analytics—leverages the wealth of intelligence embedded within customer care sessions and their associated workflow steps to create more efficient customer care processes.
Source: Alcatel-Lucent, TechZine blog, Analytics can customize the connected home
As depicted above, Alcatel-Lucent’s Motive Customer Experience Solutions portfolio includes solutions and consulting services that address different, critical touch points in the relationship between communications service providers and their customers. Among the offerings in the portfolio are Motive ServiceView (available in both Home and Mobile versions), which enables the visibility discussed earlier; Motive Big Network Analytics, which service providers can leverage to capture and extract intelligence from the network and combine it with key customer data; and many other solutions.
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A recent U.S. survey by Alcatel-Lucent Motive found that 71% of smartphones had no security protection to defend against malware. That’s a sobering stat considering the 20% rate at which mobile malware is increasing annually. The malicious activity can degrade smartphone performance, secretly pirates your data minutes, and steal personal information from you, spy on your whereabouts and track your browsing calls, texts, emails and web browsing.
Now here’s where the survey gets even more interesting: It reveals 65% of mobile subscribers think it’s the service provider’s responsibility to protect their smartphones. And the majority is willing to pay their service provider for this mobile service – up to $4.40 per month!
For operators continually on the hunt for new revenue generating services and “sticky” offers that attract and retain subscribers, device security services is a lucrative and differentiating opportunity right under their nose.
Operators already have a trusted billing relationship with customers. So who is more uniquely positioned to protect customers’ connections and content than the service provider? By defending customers’ devices against malware, operators are protecting their own networks, strengthening their relationship with customers and ensuring subscribers have a high quality service experience.
Opportunity Knocks
Motive Security Labs (formerly Kindsight Security Labs) conservatively estimates that 15 million mobile devices are infected with malware at any one time. And with LTE and VoLTE devices flooding today’s market, subscribers are spending increasingly more time browsing the Web, accessing data and consuming video. As a consequence of being more active on the Internet, subscriber devices will be at greater risk of infection, which can cause unwanted traffic over an operator’s network.
Service providers are wise to take the steps necessary to prevent infections that can also sour the customer service experience and potentially slow network performance. To do this, service providers need a cloud-based, network-driven security solution that can be rapidly deployed and scaled. Because it resides on the network, the security service is always-on and up-to-date and can pinpoint malware on subscriber devices without having to be installed on them.
Alcatel-Lucent’s newly announced Motive Security Guardian fits that description: operators gain real-time insight into what subscribers and devices most affected by malware and the most common types of malware to better contain and block threats. It also enables operators to better understand how malware impacts their network resources and performance to arrive at strategies for improved efficiency and service delivery optimization. And by correlating malicious activity on the network to infected subscriber devices, it enables operators to proactively alert subscribers and provide step-by step instructions on how to remove the threat.
Seize the Opportunity (Before your competitor does)
Device security is an ideal path to service provider differentiation, new revenue and subscriber loyalty. Here’s proof:
While the Internet and all of the technologies that have stemmed from its creation have served to make our lives easier in many ways, they can also be very confusing and frustrating at times. In these times, people have traditionally turned to call centers to get customer support. In today’s increasingly digitized world though, fewer people are relying on this form of assisted service. Contacting a call center tends to be time consuming and, often times, frustrating. Traditional customer support is not very well-suited to handling the millions of very specific questions that arise during device usage every day. Enter mobile self-service.
There are few areas of our economy today that haven't been touched by the growing self-service industry. Many, it seems, prefer to resolve their issues themselves. People relish the ability to “do it themselves” because it affords them a certain level of control over their devices and services that was previously not attainable.
A recent consumer survey commissioned by Nuance Enterprise found that a majority of respondents thought positively about self-service. More specifically, 72% of smartphone users surveyed said that they have a more positive view of a company if they have a mobile self-care app, and 81% will tell others about a positive app experience. In terms of what motivates them to use a mobile app, 35% said that effortless transition to a live agent from a mobile app is the feature most likely to drive usage, while 48% want more functionality.
It’s not just customers who are embracing self-service though. Many CSPs are hopping on the bandwagon and offering web-based portals and mobile applications that standardize the customer experience across fixed and mobile device platforms. These tools provide customers with a personalized, contextual experience for diagnosing and troubleshooting configuration and performance issues related to access networks, home LANs, devices, applications, and Wi-Fi.
Why are both customers and service providers adopting self-care so enthusiastically? From the customer’s perspective, self-service is valuable because it is convenient and flexible. It provides an “autonomous communications channel enabling customers to obtain ongoing support on an “anytime” basis”[1]. Users are able to address the issue from wherever they are using whatever channel is most convenient for them, whether it be a smartphone, a tablet, a laptop, the Internet, or within a website. This is being enabled by new technologies like WebRTC and VoLTE, which make it easy to strike up a conversation from anywhere. For CSPs, self-service not only reduces the cost of interaction with customers, but also allows them to collect more customer information to deliver a more personalized experience. This, in turn, drives higher customer retention, increases revenues, and positions their brand as being a provider of a comprehensive and personalized customer experience.
It is critical to implement these self-care initiatives without compromising customer satisfaction in return for the cost-savings associated with an automated self-service system. The self-service tools that are provided must be valuable to consumers in order for them to adopt them wholeheartedly. They must empower customers to transact how they want, when they want.
At Motive, self-service is something we have long been interested in. Our dynamic and innovative self-care products, like Motive’s Self-Service Console, empower CSPs to reduce support costs, accelerate problem resolution and exceed customer expectations. These tools also allow customers to pay their bills, access their accounts and schedule maintenance, all without having to involve an intermediary. After making Motive’s self care options available to a large European operator, 88% of customers that used its PC-based troubleshooting application were able to avoid a call to the help desk altogether.
Due to the increasing amount of human-computer interaction in our world today, many people are much more comfortable accessing an account via a self-service portal. Customers feel empowered when they are able to avoid bypass the middleman and just resolve their problems themselves. On the flip side, CSPs are able to cut costs, get a better view of their customers, and provide more personalized service. That’s a win-win if I’ve ever seen one.
[1] Gupta, B., Johnson, R., & Pramidi, S. (2005). The Challenge of Customer Self-Service in Telecom. Infosys.
Voice and text revenues are declining as mobile service providers (MSPs) face an unprecedented challenge from OTT communication apps such as Facebook, Instagram, and lesser known entrants, including WhatsApp and LINE. At first, MSPs enjoyed net gains because the use of these apps had generated significant data revenue. But times have changed. While still a source of revenue, these apps have begun to erode MSP’s native voice and messaging revenue.
To illustrate, let’s look at WhatsApp, who recently debuted its business model for mobile virtual network operators. In this model, WhatsApp (now owned by Facebook) provides voice and messaging services while leasing wireless services from a mobile operator. This means that MSPs are left with price per bit as their sole differentiator.
What’s more, the massively popular OTT apps are generating ad revenue, giving them yet another advantage in their competition with MSPs who haven’t yet effectively exploited this revenue source. Fortunately, the tide is turning in favor of MSPs with the introduction VoLTE and rich communications services.
To help you prepare for a VoLTE launch, this blog series provides tips and insights on your go-to-market questions. You’ll also see how our Wireless Network Guardian’s network analytics capabilities can assist you with your launch strategy.
There are several key apps in this sector whose popularity we’ve examined:
Each offers at least one voice feature, such as video calling, voice calling, or voice messaging. Much like VoLTE, these apps often combine voice features with texting or content sharing. This study situates their voice services within the overall voice-enabled communication package delivered by these apps.
On average, 43% of subscribers worldwide make use of these OTT apps on mobile networks on a given month. But breaking it down by app is more revealing: their popularity ranges from less than 1% for Facetime and Nimbuzz to 26% for WhatsApp. Even more interesting is the fact that some subscribers use more than one OTT voice-enabled app. When adding the popularity of the individual apps, the sum is 68% – far exceeding the 43% reported above which represent the number of unique subscribers operating those apps.
But this competitive landscape varies widely across geography, and indeed, even across different networks within the same country. Service providers in North America have little competition from OTT voice-enabled apps, since only 12% of subscribers, on average, make use of them. The most popular of these apps in North America is WhatsApp, reaching just over 4% of users.
By comparison, Middle Eastern subscribers are especially active with OTT voice-enabled apps where 81% of subscribers make use of them. In fact, the cumulative sum of subscribers across those apps reaches 123% which means some subscribers use more than one of these apps! In that market, WhatsApp leads the pack by a wide margin with 71% of users hopping on it monthly.
Europe and APAC have 70% and 79% of their users launching voice-enabled apps; but WhatsApp dominates in Europe whereas LINE dominates APAC. APAC is also home to the network with the most users for a given OTT voice-enabled app in this study: a record setting 85% made use of LINE.
OTT apps are largely perceived as being “free”. Few users think about the data usage incurred by these apps since their bill only reports the total monthly data volume spent. How much is spent for each app is a total mystery for consumers and often for service providers too! But it is imperative to know how much data users spending on OTT voice-enabled apps to select the appropriate tariff strategy for VoLTE.
The average subscriber consumes 3.9 MB per day on these apps. That number includes all manners of communication offered by the app: voice messaging, video calling and texting. But that number differs greatly across apps and by geography. Facetime is by far the most data intensive with data volume of 12 MB per user per day on average. Its video call format drives data consumption much above other OTT voice-enabled apps who offer a range of less data intensive communication methods such as texting or audio phone calls. Another interesting observation: WhatsApp users in the Middle East and LINE in APAC consumed significantly more data than other app and geography combinations. This effect could be due to subscribers using the app often through the day, or to using data-heavy features. This distinction should be further investigated in a given mobile network before a VoLTE launch.
The average by geography is also telling: APAC spends the most data with 5.3 MB per user per day on average. Some regions of APAC offer mostly unlimited data which may explain the difference. And while fewer subscribers in North America used OTT voice-enabled apps, the average consumption is close to the highest with 4.4 MB per user per day on average. This average is driven mainly by Facetime which tells us of North America’s propensity for video calls. The number of minutes of usage is another key piece of information for marketing strategy.
On average, these OTT apps will see 10 minutes of usage per day. Those minutes represent the overall amount of time spent using the app, whether sending voice messages, video calling or texting. But users could be spending anywhere from 2-61 minutes depending on geography and specific networks.
And therein lies the fork in the road: should voice features be charged per minute as usual or is it time to ban minutes altogether in favor of data usage fees? Depending where one lives in the world, a VoLTE strategy will have different goals. In North America, it is about keeping subscribers from transitioning to OTT voice-enabled apps. In the Middle East and some locations in APAC, it is about enticing them back to the service provider’s app.
In North America, the trend has been to keep VoLTE rates identical to 3G: unlimited domestic minutes are included in the monthly plan. Given the limited competition from OTT voice-enabled apps in North America, the status quo for VoLTE voice calls makes sense. And video calling will be charged against the data plan – an excellent harbinger of healthy revenues to come given North America’s pre-disposition to video calling and the sharp data demand associated with that service.
In Europe and the Middle East, a different strategy might be required. To compete against WhatsApp and Viber, it might be necessary to meet them on their own turf and charge for data. VoLTE has been shown to require 10 times less bandwidth[1] – a marketing campaign touting that attribute in conjunction with the deployment of systems capable of reporting per app data consumption should lead users to make more educated choice towards the least expensive VoLTE option for voice calling.
While this blog focused on users’ affinity for alternate OTT voice-enabled apps, another attribute is key to a successful VoLTE launch: service quality. Mobile operators are in a position to deliver higher quality voice calls than their OTT competitors. Guaranteed quality could be an attractive proposition for enterprise users, especially while they try to access conference bridges or attend important calls while on the go.
Our Analytics Beat studies examine a representative cross-section of mobile data customers using the Alcatel-Lucent Wireless Network Guardian and are made possible by the voluntary participation of our customers. Collectively, these customers provide mobile service to millions of subscribers worldwide.
[1] Signals Ahead Research “Behind the VoLTE curtain, part 1” reports 6 times fewer PDCCH (Physical Downlink Control Channel) grants, 4 times fewer transmissions, and 89% less signaling overhead.
It’s a story experienced all the time in cities across the world, and is a major challenge for transit operators in the battle for passengers. When you are wet through and the bus still hasn’t come around the corner, taking the car always feels like the better option.
However, telecommunications technology is helping to readdress this balance. Research has shown that use of mobile apps which show up-to-date and accurate journey information is improving journey experience. Passengers can plan their journey better meaning the wait for the bus is no longer such a drag.
Using a smartphone is also increasingly the way to kill time while you wait. This has had a significant impact on perceived and actual waiting times when public transport is delayed, a real Achilles heel for transport operators. Smartphones allow users to work and interact on the go and constant access to mobile broadband is now expected by urban dwellers.
But with more and more people using data-sucking devices, the pressure on urban communications networks is immense. Indeed 77% of people say they currently experience slow download speeds. You might have a full 4G LTE signal, but the performance of the network is poor, only adding to the frustration of that wet Monday.
Existing 4G networks use macro cells, which are not optimized to provide connectivity suitable for a large number of passengers to access mobile data services at the same time. But there is a way to improve radio coverage. LTE small cells solve the mobile broadband capacity crunch by boosting coverage density and capacity in saturated areas.
While LTE small cells are not common yet, their deployment may about to be as widespread in cities as the humble advertising billboard. At the end of September JCDecaux joined forces with Alcatel-Lucent to speed up the roll-out of connected street furniture. With references including 276 railway transit systems, and 10 of the top 20 airports in the world, it’s an agreement that could have huge implications for the future of connectivity.
Alcatel-Lucent’s small cell technology is suitable for 3G and 4G networks and is simple and quick to install. Crucially it offers a capacity gain two times greater than current macro networks and can reduce demand on macros by up to 70%. Smart cells also offer a 38% total cost of ownership saving over using only macros.
Teams from both companies are now working together to optimize the aesthetic integration of small cells in JCDecaux’s street furniture that are in tune with the urban environment and meet demand for broadband.
So in the smart city of the future, you may not be able to stop the rain, or the bus from being late. But at least your smartphone won’t let you down.
For more information contact thierry.sens@alcatel-lucent.com.
Field service is often the only face of the company that a customer will ever see, so it’s not a surprise that CSPs are striving to make a positive impact on customers in this realm. Achieving full potential in field service saves CSPs a lot of time and money. Productivity and efficiency reviews targeted at field service operations, done correctly, can reinforce other areas of the business by increasing customer satisfaction and improving safety and quality.
Field service has traditionally worked as follows. Something breaks or needs to be installed. The customer notifies the CSP. Dispatch schedules a field service technician. The technician arrives, resolves the issue, then moves on to the next job. While many CSPs have perfected the process of efficiently scheduling technicians, it does not negate the fact that there has been a disruption in a consumer’s life or an organization’s productivity, and they are likely unhappy as a result.
The CSP is starting from a disadvantaged position and must turn the situation around by providing exceptional field service – or risk losing customers, profits, and opportunities. Inefficient field service increases the amount of time the customer is stuck with a non-performing asset, thereby increasing the amount of time that the customer is not generating revenue from that asset, as well as increasing the amount of time that the customer must spend appeasing his/her own customers. All of this eventually leads to lower renewal rates and, ultimately, CSP customer loss.
So, what does it take to achieve field service excellence? For Alcatel-Lucent, an optimized field service solution empowers lower-cost service methods. This includes remote service, self-service, and fixes by phone or mail from the contact center. An optimized approach incorporates several essential elements, including: automation, mobility, and consolidation and collaboration.
Automation:
Communications service providers need the ability to automate and remotely manage broadband access network operations at three key stages of the customer lifecycle:
This approach will enable CSPs to accelerate time-to-market, reduce operating expenses, and maximize their capital investments. The ultimate prize, of course, is long-term customer loyalty.
Mobility:
“Best-in-Class organizations prioritize the investment in mobile tools to provide technicians with better access to information in the field. The need to resolve customer issues quickly and efficiently has led to the best firms equipping the field with the right tools to find information in a complex world.”[1]
CSPs must decide which corporate systems should be available via mobile device at a customer site in order to most effectively resolve potential issues. On the scheduling/dispatch side, CSPs need to have the GPS aspect of their mobile strategy figured out up front so they can make location-specific scheduling and routing decisions from Day 1 of go-live.
Consolidation and Collaboration:
Maintaining separate dispatch systems or processes for different areas of business is expensive and inefficient. With a single common service management platform, CSPs can comprehensively define, publish and execute advanced service activation, troubleshooting and management logic across the service delivery ecosystem.
If you’re still on the fence about leveraging field service as a revenue growth driver, consider this:
Alcatel-Lucent’s solutions allow customers to receive a convenient, more personal experience while also allowing executives more visibility into the organization. With our solutions, field agents are more empowered to deliver great service while completing more jobs per day.
Above all, Alcatel-Lucent’s field service management solutions get the right field service technician to the right place at the right time – with the right service parts, tools, and information – to get the job done right.
[1] Aberdeen Group. Service Lifecycle Excellence: Resolution at the Heart of Service. July 2014.
http://www.aberdeen.com/research/9358/rr-service-lifecycle-excellence/content.aspx
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There’s been a lot of debate within the industry about VoLTE’s readiness and how it stacks up against 3G voice and applications like Skype.
Now Signals Research Group (SRG), a leading field research and consulting services leader covering the wireless telecommunications industry, has closely studied the performance of VoLTE, 3G and Skype in AT&T’s commercial network and issued their report. As we noted last week, SRG conducted that independent network benchmark study in Minneapolis-St. Paul, in collaboration with Spirent Communications. This is a market where Alcatel-Lucent provides the infrastructure, so I’m particularly glad to share this report with my friends and colleagues who’ve helped design, deploy and optimize VoLTE.
During June and July, SRG tested VoLTE, 3G and Skype for everyday conditions, including stationary and mobile locations, strong and weak radio coverage, and under a variety of network loading and multi-tasking conditions. The tests evaluated voice quality, call setup time, call reliability, eSRVCC handovers, network resource utilization, and battery life.
For subscribers, SRG concluded VoLTE delivers superior call quality even for weak radio coverage and loaded networks, along with faster connectivity and substantially less battery drain. For the operator, VoLTE consumed fewer network resources than Skype.
The SRG report states: “Whenever we do these types of studies we are always fearful that the results will fall short of our expectations and we will be in the precarious position of telling proud parents that their baby is less than beautiful. Fortunately we were not faced with this situation after completing the first part of the VoLTE study. VoLTE generally lived up to our expectations.”
The SRG results should settle the industry debate. A voice app such as Skype was shown to require a sunny day situation in order to sound good: strong radio signals, little network loading, and no multi-tasking. VoLTE works all the time, including everyday conditions. VoLTE’s audio fidelity is better: our voice tones are richer and warmer, and we don’t have annoying latency or lost audio during calls. Plus VoLTE provided significantly longer battery life than Skype, and only a bit less than 3G.
VoLTE’s user experience also beats 3G Circuit Switched Fallback (CSFB). Calls were setup nearly twice as fast as CSFB. VoLTE’s voice quality was measurably higher due to intrinsic AMR-WB, which isn’t in that 3G UMTS network. Particularly important for today’s data-hungry people, VoLTE subscribers get faster broadband, because LTE is always available, including voice calls.
SRG also measured how VoLTE provides efficient network utilization. Its design shrinks the packet header so that it consumes less radio bandwidth (Robust Header Compression); it requires fewer scheduling grants and resource blocks; it provides better coverage (TTI-Bundling); and it takes greater advantage of techniques such as discontinuous reception or transmission (DRX, DTX). When compared to Skype that means VoLTE ensures the LTE cell has more capacity for broadband data services.
For consumers and enterprises, VoLTE is the clear winner. It provides a superior experience while simplifying everyday communications. VoLTE enables anyone to talk clearly while simultaneously browsing the Web, downloading videos, sending emails, playing games or sharing content at LTE speeds.
]]>There are two kinds of technology consumers: Those who revel in the technology, and those who just want the benefits of the technology without having to think about tech itself.
While I definitely am someone who enjoys the technological innovation as much as the results of that innovation, most consumers are not. They just want technology that works, i.e., where the proof of the viability of next generation capabilities can be summed up as “seeing is believing.”
One example of this is the increasing popularity of multiscreen entertainment as delivered over a leading-edge multiscreen video platform such as the Alcatel-Lucent one that has become with service providers around the world. Consumers don’t want to have to fiddle with their computer or TV to get their content from one device to the next. They just want it to work; consumers want to be able to walk around the house with their shows or take their entertainment out into the world via their smartphone, not unlike we’ve been able to do with hardbound books for generations.
Thankfully, the Digital Living Network Alliance (DNLA) is making that relatively easy for consumers nowadays. DNLA helps specify the standard for enabling the sharing of music, video clips and photos across devices.
Earlier this year DNLA released guidelines for its Commercial Video Profile-2 (CVP-2). CVP-2 lets pay TV operators share premium content across devices inside a subscriber’s home, opening up much greater sharing of content across devices.
The release of these guidelines is a crucial step in the evolution of cloud TV and away from a device-centric model toward a cloud model where content follows the consumer.
As a recent TechZine article by Roland Mestric, Director, Multimedia Solutions Marketing, Global Corporate Marketing, Alcatel-Lucent, titled DLNA CVP-2: Addressing the Multiscreen Challenge, noted, CVP-2 will start in the form of home-based gateways to process the content according to the devices used. The gateway will also act as the DLNA server, streaming content to these devices inside the home.
However, “the next logical step will be to move the processing and streaming functions of the DLNA server into the network,” the article noted. “Pay TV operators can then prepare the content in a central location, from which they can serve each device and have a better control over the delivery mechanism.”
DNLA and its new CVP-2 guidelines will in very short order open up the way that consumers consume media, effectively liberating content from a single device or group of devices. As Mestric explains in a podcast on the subject, while this will cut down on the geek factor of moving content between devices, for the majority of consumers this will be a big win.
]]>The craze for WebRTC grows louder as its realization in the market begins to be marked with high profile adoptions such as in Google Hangouts, Amazon Mayday, and SnapChat’s AddLive solution. The formal standardization of WebRTC began in 2011. Early implementations by Google and Mozilla, on Chrome and Firefox respectively, followed shortly - beginning in 2012. And with the availability of developer versions of WebRTC on Chrome and Firefox, an ecosystem of proof-of-concept and early commercial products and solutions quickly emerged. Open source plug-ins are filling the gap in browsers that do not yet support WebRTC e.g. Internet Explorer. There is also clear progress being made in WebRTC standards for ORTC. Given this, we expect that WebRTC ORTC will likely be natively available on Microsoft’s Internet Explorer within the next 18 months.
Craze@Alcatel-Lucent
This is exciting to witness after having initiated Alcatel-Lucent’s WebRTC work in 2011. Since then we have come a long way:
In June 2013 we launched a complete WebRTC solution for telco and enterprise markets including client Javascript libraries, the WebRTC Border Controller and an ecosystem of partners with a sandbox providing a fast prototyping environment for WebRTC apps,
We played a key role in driving standards for WebRTC including the current 3GPP IMS WebRTC specification work, IETF MSRP Data Channel integration and ATIS ORCA Javascript WebRTC APIs for 3rd party development. Our ORCA API implementation covers basic VoIP/video call control, advanced VoIP/video call control, and RCS over Data Channel and is available through our Web Developer Portal and via github. The solution makes it easy to embed real-time communications into applications, websites and the browser,
We are also engaging with 3rd party app partners, building a vibrant ecosystem of developers, who are integrating their innovative apps with our ORCA APIs and backend system, opening up new opportunities for service providers to capitalize on existing network investments and to enhance the customer experience.
Craze@Telcos
With the growth in IP communications deployment and adoption of VoLTE services, discussions with telcos and enterprises have intensified. Many of these conversations are taking place at WebRTC dedicated public events such as Upperside’s WebRTC Expo Conference, Informa’s WebRTC World Summit and more recently TMCnet’s WebRTC Conference & Expo and IIR’s Next Generation Service Platform where Alcatel-Lucent hosted a VoLTE Innovation Hackathon providing an on-site virtualized platform with support for developers.
What’s clear is that service providers are now prototyping, trialing and integrating WebRTC gateway and services into their existing IP communications. This is happening even while open questions are still pending regarding use of plugins, building of WebRTC apps native to the device as well as in the browser, use of transcoding, federated versus island solutions, and technology maturity in areas of QoS, codecs, identity management, browser support, etc. And there are several reasons for this.
As mentioned by Stephane Cazeaux from Orange Labs during UpperSide’s WebRTC Expo Conference, the telco’s approach to WebRTC is primarily to pursue “access webification”, i.e., WebRTC enabling web access to existing telco services and improving the telco’s brand experience. An example is the New Conversation APIs enhanced version of the SIPPO Web Application Controller from Quobis, which won the first ever “fast tracking innovation” contest at the Conversations 2014 conference. It highlights the value of a common WebRTC client for legacy as well as new WebRTC-enabled services such as collaboration, B2C click-2-call, Gmail plug-in, etc.
But WebRTC doesn’t only make it possible for service providers to leverage the web for telco-based consumer and enterprise services (including B2B, B2C). Talking business strategies and opportunities at the UpperSide conference, Fabrizio Caffaratti from Telecom Italia differentiates the WebRTC retail model -- where WebRTC as a framework enables WebRTC distinctive and enriched retailed services -- from the WebRTC wholesale model -- where the service provider capability is to leverage the web ecosystem for the benefit of telco services (B2B2C) and to monetize telco WebRTC APIs exposure to third party developers. As an example, Apizee’s Web Call Center application integrates Alcatel-Lucent New Conversation APIs allowing RCS service continuity on the web.
The potential of WebRTC to positively impact IP communications is high. There are many use cases and business models being explored in both the consumer and enterprise markets. These scenarios leverage WebRTC for VoIP, video, and data channel-supported services. They include the use of WebRTC in browser as well as WebRTC implementations native to the device – providing a consistent approach to facilitate the realization of the vision for IP communications enablement of all IP connected devices, the Internet of Things. The possibilities are truly exciting and the craze is not stopping!
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Recently in Munich, Alcatel-Lucent ran a 12 hour Hackathon that pitted the industry’s best and brightest developers against each other. The mission: build the most original, compelling and marketable app using New Conversation APIs.
New Conversation APIs make the rich functionality of IP Communications simple to mash up into applications. By enabling developers to easily integrated voice, video, data and contact information into any app, service providers can innovate faster – providing entirely new communications experiences to end users from any screen, device and network. They enable operators to explore new opportunities for enhancing retail services and to pursue new wholesale markets through application partners (web, verticals, M2P, M2M…).
For the Hackathon, Alcatel-Lucent provided on-site the virtualized, commercial grade IP communication platform and APIs access through its WebRTC Border Controller, Converged Telephony and Rich Communication Servers. But the real stars were the developers, whom powered by pizza, beer and caffeine, brought the adrenalin, ingenuity and drama.
The Hackathon did not disappoint. The developers delivered highly original, compelling and marketable apps that run on IP communication serving as the foundation for today’s LTE network and VoLTE services. A panel of global telecom industry analysts, developers and operators had the tough task of choosing a winner.
Ultimately, judges named PhoneDeck the winner. Its developers used New Conversation APIs and WebRTC technologies to deliver an app enabling the seamless mobile integration into CRM Salesforce. The app significantly improved the work experience of sales representatives through a screen-pop displaying relevant information about the customer calling on the mobile; call whispering providing information from a previously scanned customer business card stored on the CRM; click to call back on the sales representative’s browser; mobile, multi-device call handover; and mobile call reporting.
Hackathon finalists included:
Such competitions ultimately benefit end users like you and me. It provides a path to creating a world where communications is more dynamic and compelling – one that connects all contacts and communications in the online and real worlds to make the act of communicating simpler and more meaningful.
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