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Alcatel-Lucent Technology News

Sponsored Data Charging - Disrupting the Mobile Industry

By: Barbara Sampson, Senior Marketing Manager, Alcatel-Lucent

New Service Provider Revenue Monetization Model

Just as LTE has evolved to be the predominant technology for mobile broadband providers -- generating an average data volume per user of 168% higher than 3G data – so must the traditional charging model change. One charging model growing in popularity is Sponsored Data Charging. 

Sponsored Data Charging enables mobile subscribers to view, stream, and benefit from sponsored content and use applications over the mobile service provider’s network without that data usage coming out of their monthly plan. The data charges that a subscriber would pay for the sponsored content are paid instead by the third-party provider owning the content. Even more importantly, a subscriber can test out certain sponsored applications and features for a short time to determine whether to subscribe, without impacting monthly data-plan limits.

Not only is Sponsored Data Charging built for massive broadband usage from all kinds of connected devices, it also can support emerging technologies such as VoLTE and NFV. Key target industries include advertising, retail, media, entertainment, healthcare, and financial services.

VoLTE Challenges: The Case for Integrated Policy, Charging and Diameter Signaling

By: Peter Bernstein, TMCnet Senior Editor


VoLTE Challenges: The Case for Integrated Policy, Charging and Diameter Signaling

Hopefully, Voice over LTE (VoLTE) has arrived or is coming to your preferred mobile service provider.  As mobile networks transform into end-to-end IP ones, the business case for VoLTE as a means for mobile operators to provide differentiated services, including high definition voice and multiple media ones, has become compelling and taken on a sense of urgency. 

Indeed, it is being viewed strategically as a way for service providers to distinguish their services on the basis of Quality of Experience (QoE) from 3G and OTT voice apps. It is also seen as providing competitive advantage because of its ability to enable end users to seamlessly move from a voice call to a video call, or shift from one device to another in the midst of the conversation.  It is why interest in accelerating VoLTE deployments is so high. 

However, network transformations are not easy.  VoLTE deployment and operations is an interesting case in point.  It brings unique challenges for service providers related to policy control, charging and Diameter signaling control.  Steffen Paulus, Director of Product Marketing, Alcatel-Lucent has some interesting insights worth sharing on the need for integrated policy, charging and Diameter signaling in a virtualized solution, as the path forward for VoLTE success.  This is particularly relevant in light of Alcatel-Lucent’s recent launch of its End-to-End Voice over LTE (E2E VoLTE) solution that is an integral part of the Rapport multimedia real-time communications platform which has been architected specifically to me service provider and enterprise needs.

Details on New Zealand's Ultra-Broadband Effort

By Paula Bernier, TMC Executive Editor

New Zealand is a remote place, which may explain why most people know little more about it than that it served as the backdrop for the Lord of the Rings movies.

The now-concluded HBO series Flight of the Concords also had a lot of references to New Zealand, but it could be tough to discern which ones were real (I checked, and it seems there actually is a toothbrush fence) and which were created for comedy value.

In any case, there’s now a real and important effort going on in New Zealand that involves the creation of a nationwide ultra-broadband network. That state-of-the-art network will help New Zealand’s citizenry and businesses communicate with one another and the rest of the world, and to access existing and next generation information and applications. It’s also intended to make New Zealand a more important player on the world economic stage and to give the country a competitive edge over others in attracting business.

Cable MSOs can Create New Revenue Streams with Cloud-based Big Data and Analytics for SMBs

By: Mae Kowalke, TMCnet Contributor

Cable multiservice operators (MSOs) have embraced the need for broadband data, and with good reason. Broadband data demand is expected to grow by 560 percent over the next five years, according to a recent Bell Labs study, largely driven by demand for pay TV and video and cloud traffic generated from the proliferation of data centers.

Cable MSOs are doing well by their entertainment services bundled with residential broadband offers, but this revenue is under siege by the likes over over-the-top (OTT) video services such as Netflix and Apple. Hence, cable MSOs are constantly in search of new revenue opportunities.

One strong candidate for new revenue is commercial services for small and medium-sized business (SMBs). This area generated 10 percent of MSO revenue in 2014, according to Gilbert Marciano, CMO Strategic Marketing - Customer & Market Insight Senior Manager at Alcatel-Lucent, in a recent TechZine posting appropriately titled, Differentiate your SMB services with big data. In fact, it is noted that in the U.S. Comcast and Time Warner Cable together generated roughly $5.5 billion from the segment in 2013.

Optical Network Terminal (ONT) Provisioning Made Simple

By: Mae Kowalke, TMCnet Contributor

Fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) enables providers to deliver more bandwidth and better services to customers, but service provisioning can be a substantial headache since FTTH networks are shared and therefore the optical network terminal (ONT) location is not known. Not knowing the ONT location, currently operators must send a technician to the customer’s home to establish the right location and apply service provisioning.

Alcatel-Lucent understands this problem well, and it has taken steps to ease the pain of FTTH service provisioning by developing its ONT Easy Start solution.

Alcatel-Lucent Explains the Importance of CDC-F Optical Networks

By: Paula Bernier, TMC Executive Editor

Today’s technology now allows a single fiber strand to carry up to 17.6 terabits per second of traffic. That’s the equivalent of transmitting 88 Blu-ray discs in a second. This ultra-broadband capability, and the new software-defined networks that service providers are embracing, have important impacts on optical networks further upstream.

“…we need to stay in the light/photonic domain as long as possible in order to reduce the cost associated with repeatedly converting wavelength photonic signals to electrical,” notes Scott Larrigan, senior marketing manager of IPR&T product and solution marketing at Alcatel-Lucent, in a recent TechZine posting, CDC-F optical networks propel us forward, and in the podcast embedded below.

How to meet the challenges of virtual network functions assurance

By: Kevin Landry, Product Marketing Manager, Alcatel-Lucent

As they move into the cloud era, network operators need a service aware network operations tool to assure virtual network functions (VNF) management. They’ll need it to efficiently perform a variety of network operations tasks, including:

  • Service impact assessment
  • Fault localization
  • Identification of true root-cause (from symptomatic faults)
  • Taking corrective actions to resolve problems fast

As described in a vEPC post related to converging NMS and VNF manager functions within the ETSI Management and Orchestration (MANO) architecture, operators need to evolve their network operations tools for NFV through tighter coupling the NMS and VNF manager functions. Specifically for VNF assurance, the blog states “Troubleshooting is simplified because traditional NMS faults/events are correlated with VNF related events/faults. The VNFM provides lifecycle management and automates the self-healing of VNFs.”  

Video Shows How Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) Actually Works

By: Mae Kowalke, TMCnet Contributor

Rarely does a video about network functions virtualization (NFV) captivate your attention like the one that Alcatel-Lucent recently uploaded about service innovation and lean operations in the context of NFV. Sometimes NFV can be a challenging concept to get your head around, but the video breaks it down with clear visuals and none of the PowerPoint that usually puts you to sleep.

If you haven’t seen the video you can watch the embedded version below. But also let me explain what the video is talking about.

Four Ways Cable Operators Can Boost the Customer Experience

By Mae Kowalke, TMCnet Contributor

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.

Motive Big Data Analytics (BNA) Helps Operators Leverage Network Data for Service Creation

By: Mae Kowalke, TMCnet Contributor

Service providers are seeing an increasing number of applications moving outside of their control. At the same time, they are facing stiff competition within their geographical markets. Developing new revenue streams has become a top priority.  As a result, many service providers have invested in business intelligence systems to help them figure out these new offerings and how to win and keep customers.

Interestingly, despite this need and a sense of urgency most service providers are ignoring their greatest asset: Their network. The network provides more visibility into subscriber usage and trends than Google, Yahoo and Facebook combined, according to a recent Alcatel-Lucent Motive posting on the value of big networks analytics (BNA).  They believe it is time for this visibility to be unlocked and put to work.

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