Unfortunately though, many large enterprises are unable to take advantage of advances in technology due to old or outdated infrastructure and ICT technology silos. In addition, being locked in to one technology vendor often stymies the enterprise from being able to update the tools necessary to increase employee productivity.
For instance, something as simple as developing and deploying a new app is often a frustrating experience, as the enterprise must submit a request to the technology vendor for a new app to be developed, then wait until the vendor adds it to their development queue before finding out when to expect it. This often takes months, if not longer.
In the meantime, instead of waiting for the new app, many employees take the “shadow IT” route. They download rogue (i.e., non-IT-supported) apps that will allow them to move forward with at least some of the functionality they seek, even without IT support. While this work-around may provide some degree of productivity enhancement for the employee, wouldn’t it be better if the enterprise was able to either plug in existing best-of-breed third-party apps or develop and deploy its own apps without having to wait for a vendor to become involved?
Alcatel-Lucent thinks so, which is one of the reasons our new solution, Rapport™ for Large Enterprise, is generating so much interest. Rapport is a private cloud-based communications and collaboration solution designed specifically for the large enterprise.
With Rapport, the communications network becomes a platform for innovation, enabling the creation of new “contextual communications”, where fundamental services such as voice, chat, video conferencing and sharing become functions available to any application, website or connected object. “Rapport liberates large enterprises from the communications technology silos and proprietary vendor offerings that IT departments need to contend with,” according to Bhaskar Gorti, President of Alcatel-Lucent’s IP Platforms business.
With the Rapport platform, application developers are able to access the rich set of client and network open application programming interfaces (APIs) and simple software development kits (SDKs), allowing quick and easy development and deployment of communications services. This accessibility allows the enterprise to deliver innovative communications features to apps, websites and other connected objects, enhancing them with a communications-enabled, contextual communications experience.
Enabling Contextual Communications
Business today is global and 24/7. As such, employees need to be able to communicate with their peers, business associates or clients wherever they are, on whatever device they are using.
One of the most recent developments contributing to this is contextual communications – essentially, having the communications features you need embedded in the tools you use. However, in order to provide these functions to employees, large enterprises need to be able to quickly develop and launch these new contextual applications. Rapport open APIs make it easy to embed real-time communications functions into devices, applications and websites.
If you’re not familiar with contextual communications, here are a few examples of what they might enable your business to do:
Rapport’s REST-based APIs let applications developers create uniquely differentiated communications experiences, depending on the business requirements. This helps large enterprises better serve their employees and customers by building these communications services into the applications, websites and other connected objects they use.
Rapport also provides the enterprise with the option of either developing and deploying their own apps using the Rapport open APIs, or plugging in best-of-breed apps to help meet the needs of employees for the latest services, whether in the office or on the move. With Rapport APIs, it’s about the future of communications.
Unlock Service Innovation
Because Rapport open APIs provide easy access to rich communication and collaboration features, innovation now becomes part of corporate communications. Use Rapport APIs to add ‘communications as a feature’ to existing services and WebRTC client libraries to extend your services to the web. Create compelling new contextual applications with the quality of service users want. Rapport also offers large enterprises the use of our sandbox, a fast prototyping environment, to pre-validate and demo your application and WebRTC client with our Rapport cloud test platform, leveraging IMS technology.
With Rapport, instead of waiting on a vendor, application developers are able to develop and deploy the new communications features, services, applications and innovations the enterprise needs. By tapping into capabilities such as HD voice and video, conferencing, interactive voice and rich communications, developers can now build compelling new communication-enabled apps, helping to increase employee productivity and user satisfaction.
Summary
As you see, Rapport open APIs help the large enterprise break free of technology silos and vendor lock-in by freeing them to develop and deploy the contextual communications services they need, as they need them – instead of waiting on a vendor to tell them what will be available and when. By using Rapport’s open APIs, large enterprises are now able to develop and deploy apps in a real-time manner. What once took months or years can now literally be done in a period of weeks.
For more information on Rapport for Large Enterprise and how it can help your business, please visit the Alcatel-Lucent Rapport for Large Enterprise website or contact your local Alcatel-Lucent sales office.
Well actually, it already has.
Earlier this year, we hit a pretty significant milestone for deployments of our Cloud DVR solution. Across our various customers – which include Swisscom, Telefónica and Telecable – we now have almost 30 petabytes (that’s 30 with 15 zeros after it) of cloud DVR storage capacity installed.
Now, compared to the world of data storage, 30 petabytes isn’t that much. But in the world of IP video, it equates to around 1,000 years of high-definition content.
Think about that for a second. 1,000 years. That’s more than 4 million movies. Or a week’s worth of catch-up TV for 50,000 HDTV channels. Or, if you prefer, the entire Netflix “master” catalogue 9 times over (source: Vance, Ashlee, "Netflix, Reed Hastings Survive Missteps to Join Silicon Valley's Elite", Businessweek).
That’s a lot of content.
The other thing to note about these numbers is that one of the most important benefits of cloud DVR is that, where content rights allow, the storage can be shared. Regardless how many people want to record this Saturday’s big movie, it only needs to be stored once. So we require significantly less storage space when compared to personal DVRs and set-top boxes.
And when you also consider that the 1,000 years of cloud DVR storage capacity is actively being used by more than 1 million people, you get a real idea of the scale of adoption of this technology.
I think in those terms, we have a compelling case for saying that cloud DVR has truly come of age.
Today cloud DVR is primarily used for catch-up TV and live pause/rewind services. But as more content owners and pay TV providers reach agreements on content rights that will open the floodgates for personal cloud recording as well.
Related links
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.
]]>What if you didn’t need to have your phone beside you at all times? What if instead, you can use your own car to connect with you, direct you and protect you wherever you go?
Well, by 2022, a Telefónica Industry Report (PDF) predicts that there will be 1.8 billion automotive Machine-to-Machine (M2M) connections that can do just that. This will comprise 700 million Connected Cars and 1.1 billion Internet of Things (IoT) devices for services such as navigation, insurance, stolen vehicle recovery (SVR) and infotainment. In fact, Machina Research predicts that by 2020, 90% of new cars will feature built-in connectivity platforms, growing from less than 10% today.
Connected Cars will not replace smartphones - merely it’s a way to extend the IoT connectivity and bring the everyday lifestyle right to the car. Ellis Lindsay’s blog on Connected Cars as an everyday lifestyle does a great job of explaining this concept. He goes into detail about connected cars giving us the ability to link our life experiences – whether it’s our deadlines, travel plans, monthly payments or Facebook notifications – to wherever we are and wherever we go.
I really think this quote by Henry Ford “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said ‘faster horses’” explains the evolution of Connected Cars perfectly. Connected Cars have changed the way we approach the future of communications and if I had the chance to ask Henry about the future of Connected Cars, he probably would have repeated the same quote. Another great Ford leader, Steven Odell, an EVP at Ford Motor Company, believes “Cars are the smartphones of the future” stating that 79% of industry experts believe the IoT connectivity will soon be the primary decision in car purchases and that 80% of cars will be connected by 2020.
Today’s primary decisions in making car purchases are pricing and gas mileage, without a doubt. However, when the M2M players and service providers join forces to bring connected cars to end users, they will have to realize the challenges of bringing M2M to the masses. These challenges include simplifying the use of technology and creating an experience where they consistently feel connected to their everyday lives. Oh, and let’s not forget the millennials’ preferences to self-service. There will be more to purchasing decisions than pricing and gas mileage – the means of having voice over LTE (VoLTE), push notifications, customer self-support, and mobile data will be major players in the decision.
All of the services of the Connected Car I mentioned have two important elements: It further connects us to our everyday lives and enhances the customer experience. This enables us to have our cars become our smartphones. Just imagine, making payments right from your car, having your car find the best available parking spots and not having to worry about the maintenance of your car as there are automatic vehicle system checks, firmware updates and data management services. What else could you ask for?
To learn more about Connected Cars, take a look at the ng Connect program. Is there an application or service you think every Connected Car should have? How big of a role will the IoT play in that service? Please share your thoughts in the comments below. I’d like to hear from you.
When he’s not blogging or tweeting, Anthony Trinh (@Trinh_Anthony) is a third-year marketing and information systems student from Carleton University in Ottawa. He is currently completing a co-op term as the Integrated Marketing Assistant for the Motive marketing group at Alcatel-Lucent.
]]>The emergence of cloud computing and mobility, not to mention bring-your-own-device trend (BYOD), has introduced a strong need for mobile virtual private networks (VPNs). Yet, most operators are only able to offer mobile VPNs to larger customers since their fixed-line VPN infrastructure is often separate from their cellular infrastructure.
One solution to this problem, outlined in a recent TechZine article, Mobile VPNs for Enterprises of All Sizes, by Jan Vandehoudt, Principal Consulting Engineer and Patrick McCabe, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Alcatel-Lucent, is for mobile network operators to use an enterprise services gateway (ESG).
“The ESG approach simplifies the network and ultimately streamlines the operational and provisioning model,” noted the authors. “This makes it feasible to extend the mobile VPN service to small- and mid-sized enterprises for the first time.”
An IP/MPLS router that has massive scalability, high performance and carrier-grade resiliency for VPN services is at the heart of the ESG model. This router not only handles IP/MPLS but also functions as a mobile gateway. By mixing functions, the ESG is able to replace the mobile gateway (PGW, GGSN), PE router and border gateway.
The benefits of combining functions into one ESG include massive scalability and resiliency, a simplified network and streamlined operational and provisioning model, and automated service provisioning.
Using such architecture also dramatically reduces both capital expense and operational expense for mobile network operators. A recent Bell Labs study found that over a five-year timeline the new approach is two times less expensive in terms of CAPEX and 10 times less expensive in terms of OPEX.
Further, the study found that deploying an ESG allowed the mobile network operator to offer services more quickly and with greater reliability.
“This approach not only provides cost and revenue advantages for the MNO, but it also opens new markets to include small- and mid-sized enterprises that may not have been candidates for this service in the past,” noted the TechZine article.
The use of an ESG is a win-win both for operators and their customers. Customers get high speed access to key business applications with high availability, as well as persistency of connection without constant re-authentication and log-ins and multi-device flexibility. At the same time, mobile network operators get flexible service definition within existing framework and a simple implementation model that scales from small to large enterprises. Operators also get simplified operations including end-to-end service assurance, SLA monitoring, and traffic engineering.
In short, the case for enterprise service gateways is strong.
]]>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!
]]>
We live in exciting times – again. I had been wondering if there was still room for fundamental innovation, for technological disruption – the worn out word. We had the Internet bubble that burst 2001/2002. We had the advent of the smartphone in the recent years. Great innovation, but somehow they reached a plateau. Faster processors, larger screens? It doesn’t seem to make a real difference. Apple’s engine showed the first signs of sputtering.
And yet, there is something brewing behind the scenes that makes the engineer’s heart beat faster: NFV and SDN, a bold new vision about the future of networks (read these blog posts about understanding Network Functions Virtualization and Software Defined Networks). Network functions are to be reduced to pure software - doing away with all the special purpose chips, circuit boards, and cabinets into which we have poured our brains to deliver the ultimate in features, performance, and reliability.
Telefonica is one of the original masterminds of the NFV idea, and a partner who truly shares with us the excitement about this new technology. I had the pleasure to work with a multi-national team dedicated to making NFV a reality. The objective of this proof of concept was to drive the vision of NFV and develop a blueprint for the future production of NFV infrastructure. We installed the first node of our CloudBand NFV Platform in one city, and then a few months later extended the installation with a second node in another major city hundreds of kilometers away. One of the interesting questions to explore was the remote management of a distributed NFV infrastructure. How quickly can we deploy cloud nodes in additional locations? Can we really operate the infrastructure without having to send engineers and operations staff around the country? How can we set up the network between multiple sites to react dynamically to changes to network function deployment?
This latter question points to another major topic tackled in project: the relationship between NFV and SDN. Virtualizing the network, SDN should be a perfect addition to NFV as a platform to virtualize network functions. In fact, we deployed the Alcatel-Lucent CloudBand™ NFV Platform along with an SDN solution from Nuage Networks. This allowed us to push virtual network functions (vNF) policies into the Nuage Networks policy repository. The SDN solution then knew how data traffic from the VNF should be handled not only in a single data center but automatically extending across multiple data centers.
For me, the project was a milestone on the way to our NFV vision. It was the first project covering more than one site. It was the first project with SDN integration. It was an excellent opportunity to discuss with our friends and colleagues at Telefonica many of the questions that arise only as we go from the theory of the architectures developed at ETSI to the real networks, even if they are not yet serving real customers. One challenge was the deployment of the proof-of-concept alongside a live network. This meant we had to work within a very narrow maintenance window. And not only that: we had to undergo all the qualification and certification stages of a standard appliance-based solution being introduced into the network. At first, we were surprised of this requirement as NFV was invented to cut down exactly on these operational processes. But we quickly understood the situation. Once the NFV infrastructure was qualified and certified, any virtual network functions running on it no longer would have to go through the same process. There may still be a qualification and certification process for virtual network functions, but this process can be more automated and doesn’t have to repeat some of the steps already done for the NFV infrastructure.
Another experience from the project relates to the culture of collaboration and debate. If we want to be successful in NFV we must be disruptive and challenge each other and challenge the overcome ways. Maybe we, Alcatel-Lucent, were a tougher partner for Telefonica than others on this front. In one case, the Telefonica operations team came to us and requested user-configurable VM sizes (flavors). We did not immediately comply with this requirement, but put up the challenge: does it make sense to have so many sizes? What is the impact on efficiency of resource usage? Together we concluded that we must adopt web-scale MOPs (Method of Procedure) to be really efficient and lean in operations. Much like for this operations team, we need to be there for the service providers. Together think differently. Collaboration is the word in NFV.
I am convinced I will be able to witness how virtualization and cloud will lead to massive changes in the telco industry. I am glad to be able to contribute to these changes. Could there be any better place to be?
Syntonic Wireless™ is bringing sponsored data to AT&T customers. The Seattle-based mobile services company’s new Syntonic Sponsored Content StoreSM, creates an open marketplace where AT&T’s iOS and Android customers can find and consume free or premium content without consuming their data plans. Integrated with AT&T’s Sponsored DataSM service, the Syntonic Sponsored Content Store operates on the third party pays concept, one of the six degrees of mobile data plan innovation.
When it announced Sponsored Data in January 2014, AT&T offered a vision for a service that would give sponsors new ways to engage with customers and employees. Sponsors could come from industries as diverse as healthcare, retail, media and entertainment, and financial services. They could use sponsored data in a variety of different ways, including:
These examples don’t require sponsors to buy large quantities of data. Videos would be a few minutes long at most, and would not necessarily require HD quality.
If sponsorship deals don’t enable most customers to reduce the amount of data they purchase — either because the amount of sponsored data is too small or the sponsored applications don’t merit frequent use — the service provider can treat the sponsor’s payments as incremental revenue. Prices can be lower than those offered to the consumer. In fact, sponsors may argue they deserve a discount for buying large volumes of data or committing to a minimum purchase while not receiving enhanced speeds. Service providers need to manage expectations around pricing for customers: Since customers’ wireless bills don’t shrink, some may accuse service providers of charging twice for the same data.
On the other hand, if some customers can use sponsored data to reduce their monthly data plan, service providers will need to keep sponsor pricing in line with what the average consumer pays for data. Otherwise providers risk delivering the same amount of data but getting less revenue for the sponsored portion, causing margins to decline. If sponsored data prices are not meaningfully discounted, use cases will continue on current trends and be relatively light on data consumption. Sponsoring data at normal consumer prices for a data-heavy application, like streaming video, will be costly.
Pricing aside, how can sponsored data offers be structured? While by no means a complete list, here are five possibilities that can provide benefits to service providers, sponsors and customers alike:
These scenarios illustrate a few of the many ways that sponsored data can be used to market new content and applications, drive subscription campaigns, help enterprises address some of the challenges of supporting BYOD policies, or even reduce cost. In scenarios where data sponsorship ends after a time limit or consumption threshold is reached, communication by both the service provider and content provider will be key to avoiding customer dissatisfaction.
The toll-free data market is still nascent. We will see innovative third-party pays use cases emerge as service providers and content providers partner on new offers across industries. AT&T’s Sponsored Data and Syntonic’s Sponsored Content Store are key steps in bringing third-party pays data plan innovations to the market.
What other ideas do you have on how sponsored data offerings can be structured? Please add your thoughts to the comments section below or share them with me on Twitter @rhcrowe.
Download the Six Degrees of Mobile Data Plan Innovation e-book. Please follow us on TMCnet, and click here to subscribe for more information and updates.
Past blogs in this series:
]]>
The last Six Degrees blog explored consumer attitudes toward two different mobile share plan options: sharing data only and sharing voice, messaging and data. This blog will explore attitudes toward a 3rd option: sharing unlimited voice and messaging — but not data — across multiple devices or subscribers.
Of course, data is still in the mix. Subscribers who use a shared voice and messaging plan would have the option to purchase a separate data plan for their own devices. This sharing scenario is similar to the one offered by the Sprint FramilyTM plan, where each plan member has the option to choose a different monthly data limit.
Fast-growing Framily Sprint’s report for the quarter ending March 31, 2014 charts the rapid growth of the company’s Framily shared plan offer. Although the offer was introduced early in the quarter and only available in Sprint-branded stores, nearly 3 million customers had already signed up, making Framily the fastest-growing Sprint rate plan ever. An interesting dynamic of the Framily program is its ability to turn customers into recruiters for Sprint as they try to maximize their discount by getting more people to join their Framily. |
Market research by Alcatel-Lucent reveals that consumer interest in unlimited shared voice and messaging plans varies significantly from country to country (Figure 1). These plans appeal to a small percentage of respondents in the United Kingdom, United States and France. But interest is much higher in Brazil and Japan: Nearly one-fifth of Brazilian respondents and more a third of Japanese respondents say they are interested in unlimited shared voice and messaging plans. Interestingly, those who indicate a preference for sharing unlimited voice and messaging – including those from Brazil and Japan – aren’t demographically different from those who prefer to share data only or share everything.
The Alcatel-Lucent survey also shows that those interested in unlimited shared voice and text plans are likely to purchase these plans. Among interested respondents, likelihood to purchase ranges from 64% (Japan) to 92% (Brazil). While overall interest in sharing voice and text is lower in France, the UK and the US, those who are interested are highly inclined to make the purchase, as shown in Figure 2. These findings carry on a theme that emerged in the previous blog in the Six Degrees series: consumers attracted by sharing plans are willing to take action to get what they want.
As with data and "everything” share plans, the availability of unlimited voice and messaging share plans has a formidable impact on customer churn and retention for interested consumers. Respondents in all 5 countries show a willingness to switch service providers to get their preferred form of mobile sharing or to stay with their current service provider to keep it.
Figure 3 shows the churn impact of unlimited voice and messaging share plans among those who express an interest in these plans. Willingness to switch is strong in all 5 of the surveyed countries. It is highest in Brazil (86%) and the US (78%), and lowest in France (39%).
Figure 4 shows the retention impact of unlimited shared voice and messaging plans in the 5 countries. In each case, more than half of all interested respondents indicate that these plans would have a strong or very strong influence on their willingness to stay with their current service provider. Shared voice and messaging plans exert the strongest pull in the US (91%), UK (90%) and Brazil (87%). The retention impact isn’t quite as strong in France (55%).
The survey results show two key ways in which service providers can benefit from offering shared unlimited voice and messaging plans. The first is that they can attract new subscribers from a defined segment of the market. The second is that they can create “stickiness” by giving existing customers the ability to attach multiple devices and subscribers to a single mobile plan.
The primary reason respondents give in favor of sharing only voice and messaging is that they anticipate a lower price. This response is especially common in Japan (87%) but was chosen by more than 70% of respondents in all countries. Saving time by managing a single bill is a secondary motivator in France, the UK and the US.
But why not share data as well? Consumers adding data to the mix could surely expect a lower price and a single, unified bill.
Conversations between Alcatel-Lucent and service providers have uncovered a few reasons why subscribers may not want data included in a share plan. For example, some account owners won’t want to take responsibility for ensuring that individual plan members don’t use too much data. Likewise, some plan members may not like the idea of ceding account control and having their data limits or
In markets with low-price mobile data, there is still interest in individual plans that allow subscribers to share data from a primary account with one or several of their own data devices. See the previous blog in the series for more on data-only sharing. |
usage managed by another subscriber.
Because of this, some of Alcatel-Lucent’s service provider customers indicate that they see data usage control as a source of increased tension among share plan members – often family members. Not sharing data relieves this tension even if voice and messaging are shared. In markets where competition has spurred service providers to offer low-price data plans, the barrier to enabling data use for multiple devices and subscribers is low, and data sharing offers limited value. However, sharing voice and messaging still has appeal for the discounts that are assumed to come with it.
The Alcatel-Lucent survey results make it clear that mobile subscribers who are interested in sharing –whether it’s voice and messaging, data or all of the above —know what they want and are willing to take action to get it. All of these sharing options are possible in a data-first business model. By flipping their business models and putting data first, service providers can give subscribers the sharing options they want. This freedom of choice will help increase customer satisfaction and retention and reduce churn.
Connect with the author on Twitter: @rhcrowe
Past blogs in this series:
]]>
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.
]]>While network functions virtualization (NFV) introduces new challenges to security, it also presents unique opportunities for addressing security problems due to the unprecedented scale, flexibility, and central control it affords. Compute, storage, and network resources can be optimally allocated and stitched together as required by the security policy. Our approach to address NFV security is based on a recursive, divide-and-conquer methodology, which involves securing the Alcatel-Lucent CloudBand™ NFV Platform, cloud nodes, and the network that interconnects them. CloudBand uses policy-based placement capabilities enabled by the CloudBand Management System to install virtualized functions in their appropriate security zones, and re-uses the security services provided by NFV applications.
I thought it would be a good idea to describe the journey to this approach together with its "making of" episodes.
When ETSI NFV started its security effort a year and a half ago, the founders’ expectation was a small (no more than six people) expert group that was sharply focused on a single objective, which was to formulate the NFV security problem statement. Igor Faynberg from the Alcatel-Lucent CloudBand™ team and Hui-Lan Lu from the Alcatel-Lucent IP Platforms team were invited to the first unofficial and very informal NFV security planning meeting, which took place in the corridor during the spring meeting of the IETF. Bob Briscoe from BT, a well-known networking expert and then convener of the ETSI NFV SEC group, and Bob Moskowitz from Verizon, an author of IPsec, Private IP Addressing, and Host Identity Protocol working for years on the enterprise side, made up the NFV Security Group at the time. These four had lively conversation, as many opinions differed.
Bob Briscoe was focused on virtualizing enterprise customer premises equipment (CPE) as the first step in a far reaching strategy. Bob Moskowitz was also interested in CPE, secure identities for NFV components, and network-independent secure communications. From the Alcatel-Lucent side, we suggested a systematic approach to NFV security based on the experience that we had gained in an earlier study and development of hypervisors, network operating systems, and the ITU-T Next Generation Network Security and Cloud standardization effort.
Two months later we were asked to present this approach to the ETSI NFV leadership. By that time, CloudBand had already developed an embryo of the NFV security vision: The NFV security could be developed recursively, layer-by-layer, in a way that applications (such as IMS) could in fact be re-used to enhance the platform security. Igor was elected as the convener of the NFV Security group, as Bob Briscoe decided to take on the essential role of outlining the Security Problem Statement as a rapporteur.
Within a year, the group grew to 14 regular participants and contributors spanning both major operators (AT&T, BT, DT, Telefonica, Sprint, and Verizon) and other vendors (notably Citrix, Huawei, Ericsson, and Intel). The mailing list today comprises passive participants of around 10 times more members. The group completed the work on the NFV Security Problem Statement while also contributing security considerations to the output of the Infrastructure (INF) and Software (SWA) groups. In this year, the group’s security expertise has been consistently sought after by the NFV Management and Orchestration (MANO) group. Based on these results, the ETSI NFV leadership encouraged the SEC group to widen its charter with two major work items: Security & Trust Guidance for NFV environment and OpenStack security evaluation. The latter item was developed by the specific request of NFV Chairman, Prodip Sen of HP (was at Verizon at that time), to Hui-Lan Lu, who was unanimously appointed the rapporteur. Analyzing OpenStack security capabilities is among the tasks the CloudBand team is running today together with RedHat as part of our partnership. The resulting mapping will enable us to understand what is missing in OpenStack to support NFV security and to prioritize the required "derived roadmap" in our products.
Source: Alcatel-Lucent
By the way, so far, OpenStack has over 1.7 million lines of code, which can be roughly "translated" into a 6 meters high tower of A4 paper. How high do you think the security part of this tower is?
Our vision emphasizes the necessity of building the trust chain for NFV components in three major steps. The first step is securing the platform— reinforcing deliberately disconnected islands of compute, storage, and networking infrastructure as well as the management system. The second step is the deployment of virtual security appliances, such as firewalls that transform the islands into controlled network zones, and virtual DNS servers that help to mitigate denial-of-service attacks. In the third step, virtualized functions in support of applications are placed in the zones established previously. The security of that deployment is assured by a combination of native application security controls and virtual security appliances, and then it is further enhanced by NFV platform capabilities. Once deployed, the security services provided by the applications can, in turn, be used to improve platform security further. For instance, the IMS virtualized Home Subscriber Server (HSS) can be used to provide an extra authentication factor for access to platform software. With these three steps in place, a centralized management and orchestration system can ensure a consistent, horizontal implementation of security through systematic application of security policies that will be enforced through the policy management mechanism of an NFV orchestrator, as in the CloudBand Management System.
Within Alcatel-Lucent, a team that comprises the IP Platforms CTO (Hui-Lan Lu), CloudBand PLM (Chris Deloddere), CloudBand Security Operations (Mark Hooper), and CloudBand CTO (Igor Faynberg) have been shaping the security vision over the course of the past year or so. The team demonstrates how the vision can help in solving problems documented in the ETSI NFV Security Problem Statement among others, and AT&T, BT, DT, Telefonica, and Verizon help with validating the approach. To this end, a recent report on the ETSI NFV Security Proof of Concept activity related to virtual routers performance in the face of distributed denial of service attacks has confirmed our observation that NFV can improve the security of the provider’s network. All the right ingredients were "orchestrated" (I just can't stop using this word . . .) here. This was an innovative and unique technology vision, customer validation, initial implementation in the CloudBand 2.1 NFV Platform, worldwide leadership at ETSI NFV ISG, pioneering work at OpenStack (together with RedHat), and a strong collaborative effort between the PLM, R&D, and CTO groups.
Remember that question on the "height" of the security portion in the OpenStack "tower"? Well . . . to be honest, I think that there’s no more than an approximately 20cm high stack of explicit cryptographic and other security-functions-related code in an OpenStack "paper tower" (mostly in Keystone), but this is not catalogued. Furthermore, there is no clear mechanism for advertising the new cryptographic-function related features to OpenStack. So far, in OpenStack, there is no common and focused security catalogue. Obviously, we need to change this; more importantly, our customers are asking us to change this.
Having a clear and focused view is a necessary step in getting our customers out of the lab, beginning NFV field trials and launching commercial deployments.
Learn more by reading our white paper on “Providing Security in NFV”.
]]>
Last week, I talked about mobile operators are building an overall brand experience that engages young consumers because the youth segment is valuable — and do influence adult segments. In addition to creating a youth brand or a youthful brand, mobile operators must also consider how to craft specific offers that promote the “mobile data first” experience to drive mobile data growth through the youth market.
Here are the 10 ideas that can help craft the “mobile data first” offers using an online charging solution (OCS).
1. Try before you buy
There are often barriers in the way of a young person’s first purchase impulse. The same barriers also apply to buying and consuming mobile data. So help them get past these barriers with short-term promotions. For example, with a 100% discount on data for the first 3 months. Or offer 300MB for the price of 100MB, for the first 3 months. These offers can stimulate the data experience and encourage greater usage.
2. Mobile data as a reward
Young consumers spend money on brands they love. Spend in other areas detracts from an immersive mobile data experience and spending. Mobile Apps like Kickbit working with an OCS allows consumers to get more megabytes of data in exchange for doing things like taking quick surveys, trying free trials, shopping, and watching videos. These incentives help overcome financial barriers, deepen the data experience and remove dependency on Wi-Fi. Taking the concept further, sponsored data plans and toll-free data can also help encourage youth to surf on their mobile Internet, rather than Wi-Fi, if the offers apply to the contents they enjoy frequently.
3. My Tribe and social gamification
My Tribe, a twist on shared data plans, helps counteract churn by offering young consumers a variety of propositions, such as unlimited voice and text while on your network. It can also offer group discounts on mobile data. The bigger the tribe is (up to a designated number of the tribe), the bigger the savings the tribe members will share. This idea capitalizes on youth social groups to provide mobile data discounts and increase retention and acquisition. Solavei’s social media referral offers and Sprint’s Framliy offers started this with a total bill discount.
We all know youth today also love mobile gaming, especially multiplayer games. Mobile operators can go further leveraging the gamification concept to provide an instant discount or additional bonus allowance when the total tribal usage reaches over multi-level thresholds.
4. Subsidized or discounted subscription app and services for My Tribe
The youth market is constantly seeking the hottest and trending mobile apps and services with freemium and subscription services. Without much money left for mobile data after paying for the apps and services, they tend to enjoy them on Wi-Fi. For example, they love WhatsApp but there’s an annual subscription fee of USD $0.99 after the initial free year. Operators could offer group discounts to the My Tribe offers with mobile data by subsidizing or discounting WhatsApp annual fees.
For instance, a community of 6 to 10 people could share a $4.99 offer, with a minimum mobile data allowance, instead of each paying $0.99 for WhatsApp usage. Offers can include other subscription-based music apps or gaming apps. These sorts of offers encourage young people to join your network and bring their friends. They also build loyalty and discourage churn.
5. A choice of subsidized apps bundle
Some young people may want unlimited WhatsApp on mobile data, and others may want unlimited Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and many more. Etisalat has launched unlimited social bundles for a day or a month to tailor to their youth market. Why not let young people select which apps they would like to use in discounted or free mode since they fall in and out of love with mobile apps quite frequently. For example, the enhanced offer could be for a maximum of 3 apps to be included in the social app bundle, chosen from a pre-curated pool. And the discount could be in the form of a bucket of data associated with those apps, either capped or unlimited. A good practice for the mobile operators is to understand the network and usage impacts of mobile apps before curating such a pool of apps.
6. 200MB free each month when purchasing a tablet
We know from research that the youth market loves using tablets and that the growth of media-rich traffic like video is partly driven by tablet usage. Offering an incentive to use tablets will push up data consumption. Tablets could be offered with a free monthly allowance of 200MB of mobile data. Today, T-Mobile USA is offering free 2G data for life with up to 200MB of free 4G LTE data each month for as long as customers own the tablets purchased from T-Mobile.
7. Device-based discount on mobile data
The youth market is very loyal to particular mobile device brands and models and will be attracted to networks that offer the models they like. Attract the youth market to your brand by bundling the leading mobile devices with a discounted data bundle offer. Alternatively, mobile tablets can be bundled with a promotional, discounted data plan per MB, rather than feature phones, to encourage young consumers to surf the Internet freely on mobile tablets in places where Wi-Fi isn’t readily available. This will also help with the uptake of mobile tablet sales.
8. IOU for mobile data
Often implemented in prepaid services, this IOU (I owe you) idea is to advance an allowance from the next payment cycle to help promote a positive user experience. When users reach their data cap, their session simply stops until a top-up is made. The top-up takes time so the youth loses the opportunity to finish their data session, giving a poor user experience. To improve this situation, the youth could receive a flash screen message offering a nominal amount of mobile data, the cost of which will be deducted from their next top-up or next month’s payment.
9. Emergency bandwidth for a week
Often, young data users wait and move into Wi-Fi coverage to continue surfing on the Internet when they run out of mobile data. For existing customers, a cheap, emergency week-long pass for mobile data can be sold to tide the user over when a data bundle expires. It gives the youth market the option to buy either cheap, unlimited, low-bandwidth data or discounted, premium high-speed mobile data for a week. This lets them continue to use data for a nominal fee within their budget before the next bundle kicks in.
10. Bridge mobile data offer between Wi-Fi hotspots
The youth market is tribal and doesn’t have much money. They meet in groups in free Wi-Fi hotspots, consume data and then stop, until they reach the next free Wi-Fi location. Offer discounted data in selected mobile coverage areas like school campuses, shopping districts, concerts and stadiums as consumers move between Wi-Fi hotspots to allow them a continuous data experience — and get them used to consuming data on the mobile network.
What do you think? Do you like the 10 ideas? Have other ideas to share? Want to learn more about the Six Degrees of Mobile Data Plan Innovations and Mobile Application Ranking Report? Want to learn more about how Alcatel-Lucent can help? If you like this article, please feel free to share it with your followers.
]]>In EVPN the control plane and data plane are separated. Instead of using Layer 2 flooding and learning to build the forwarding database, the control plane uses MP-BGP to distribute MAC/IP routing information in the same way that we’ve been using BGP to distribute IP routing information for many years. Multiple data planes are available, EVPN can use MPLS or IP as its data plane encapsulation.
EVPN has several key benefits that enable you to offer advanced Ethernet services over an existing MPLS or IP network.
I just gave an overview presentation about EVPN at the NANOG 61 conference earlier this week. You can download the presentation for more details on how EVPN works and the type of services that you can provide.
]]>For Vodafone Company Kabel Deutschland (KD), Germany’s largest cable operator, it was no question whether the move to IPv6 would be a bolt-on solution or something more integrated. A bolt-on solution would not do for KD, according to a recent Alcatel-Lucent case study on KD. The company needed to address the issue of flexibility to accommodate long-term growth and next generation service delivery without compromising its reputation for high-performance and high-value service.
For KD, the IP edge solution was the Alcatel-Lucent 7750 Service Router (SR), which provides dual-stack IPv4 and IPv6 to end customers. The dual-stack deployment is based on IPv6-only transport in the access domain to ensure future-proof, native IPv6 connectivity. Backward IPv4 connectivity is provided by using IPv4inIPv6 tunneling, with the customer residential gateway representing the B4 (Basic Bridging BroadBand element). At the edge of the cable network the 7750 SR performs the function of an Address Family Transition Router (AFTR) to encapsulate/ de-encapsulate IPv4 traffic in/from IPv6 and provides CG-NAT using the IPv6 source prefix as the subscriber key.
The 7750 SR Flexible Edge capabilities enable KD to separate the IP service routing from the access technology and simplify the cable hub.
“Not only does this enable the delivery of common personalized and differentiated services consistently across multiple access technologies, it enables migration from the existing network architecture to a future mode of operation, as demonstrated in this case from IPv4 to IPv6,” noted the Alcatel-Lucent paper.
The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 Service Aware Manager (SAM) is a key component for KD. It increases service deployment agility through automation, proactively monitors and manages across the multiple layers in the flexible edge, and integrates with KD’s existing BSS/OSS through open APIs.
At the time of the case study, KD had deployed high-redundant clusters based on the Alcatel-Lucent solution in the biggest cities of Germany, each one supporting 16 Million NAT flows. They were integrated step-by-step in sub networks with DOCSIS 3.0 IPv6 rollouts.
The transition from IPv4 to IPv6 can be a problem. But it doesn’t have to be.
]]>
“Multi-device Shared Plans are starting to gain traction in the market as they now represent 8.3% of tariff plans, growing 38% QoQ.” |
It’s not surprising to find a high level of interest in shared data plans among US consumers. Major US operators are leading the push for shared data plans, and Verizon Wireless launched its Share Everything plan nearly 2 years ago.
But shared data doesn’t just appeal to US mobile consumers. A sizable segment of the market in all of the surveyed countries is interested in sharing data. More importantly for mobile operators, this segment is willing to act to get its data plan of choice.
For example, respondents who express an interest in a shared data plan are highly likely to purchase one (Figure 1). In Brazil, 97% of these respondents say they are likely or very likely to buy a shared data plan. Likelihood to purchase is also high among interested respondents in the US (85%), UK (80%) and France (80%).
Respondents in Japan are the least inclined take the shared data plunge. Even so, 56% of those interested in sharing data say they would likely or very likely purchase a shared data plan. The very high probability of purchase in Brazil could be influenced by the fact that the survey reached a larger-than-average percentage of households with either 3 or more members (69%) or 3 or more devices (78%).
Those interested in sharing data are also willing to switch mobile operators to get this capability. Respondents in Brazil show the strongest willingness to change operators, with 97% of those interested in shared data indicating that they would definitely or likely make a switch to get a shared data plan. Interested respondents in the UK are also very open to change: 73% would change operators to get shared data. Figure 2 breaks down the churn impact of shared data plans across the 5 surveyed countries.
Shared data plans can play a strong role in subscriber retention, too. Results from all countries indicate that those interested in shared data are willing to stay with their current operator to keep it. The retention impact is highest in the US and Brazil, where 91% of those interested in shared data say that it plays a strong or very strong role in keeping them on board. Japanese consumers are less likely to stay with their current operators to keep shared data, but its retention impact (65% strong or very strong) is still formidable. Figure 3 summarizes the retention impact of shared data plans across the 5 surveyed countries.
What do all these interest, purchase likelihood, churn and retention numbers tell us? That this segment of the market knows what it wants and is willing to take action to get it!
And what’s behind the numbers? Respondents cite anticipated cost savings and efficient use of data across mobile devices as their major reasons for favoring share plans. Many also see shared data plans as a means to minimize “slippage” – data that is paid for each month but that goes unused. Those not interested in shared data plans primarily want to keep an existing unlimited data plan or have few mobile devices or users with which to share the data. They also anticipate that shared data plans will come with a cost increase.
Respondents interested in data sharing generally have a higher monthly mobile spend and a larger data allowance. Those who have purchased a Wi-Fi tethering plan from their mobile operator are also favorably inclined toward shared data plans. Finally, the number of people and mobile devices in the household influences interest in and willingness to adopt shared data plans. A minimum of 3 people or devices is the threshold at which consumers become interested in sharing data.
The Alcatel-Lucent research confirms that there is broad consumer interest in shared data plans. It also confirms that those interested in shared data are likely to take action to get it. Shared data is a tool that every mobile network can use to attract and retain customers.
Connect with the author, Rich Crowe, on Twitter: @rhcrowe.
Download the Six Degrees of Mobile Data Plan Innovation e-book. Please follow us on TMCnet, and click here to subscribe for more information and updates.
Past blogs in this series:
[1] Subscriber base size from “Service Provider Capex, Opex, Revenue, and Subscribers Database Quarterly Worldwide and Regional Database.” Infonetics Research, updated April 7, 2014.