Next Generation Communications Blog

Next-Generation Communications

New Revenue Opportunities Possible with the New Conversation Experience

Edited By Peter Bernstein on January 3, 2012


By Susan Campbell

Service provider (SP) revenues are taking significant revenue hits from application and content providers (ACPs) as the disaggregation of content from physical access shifts value generation opportunities toward third parties.  At the same time SPs are also attempting to ward off “free” offerings, such as people using things like Skype for making phone calls who are willing to put up with inferior quality, by attracting people to superior services they will pay a premium for.  The challenge, which every day gains more urgency, is how to react to both trends. 

The objective is to be relevant and central in evolving ecosystems and thereby be in a position to maximize new opportunities while minimizing risks. The vehicle for turning things around is embodied in the desirability of creating a new conversation experience with customers based on a holistic strategic approach.

A recent Alcatel-Lucent article, The Value of the New Conversation Experience highlighted the need for service providers to increase the average revenue per user and reduce churn, two of the major revenue corrosive issues. It focused on the reality that to accomplish these goals, SPs must quickly bring to market enhanced service bundles and also rapidly introduce innovative service offerings with compelling and differentiated perceivable value as critical to combating free services.

Posted in Alcatel-Lucent Corporate News, Alcatel-Lucent Technology News, Broadband, Mobile Marketing, Next-Generation Communications, Security, Web 2.0

Permission-Based Mobile Marketing Strategies Hold Value for Advertisers, Operators and Consumers

Edited By Peter Bernstein on January 2, 2012

By Beecher Tuttle

The influx of smartphones, tablets and next-generation networks has created a number of new ways for brands and marketing agencies to reach consumers. Unfortunately, many of today's mobile marketing techniques fail to engage consumers, who often find the advertisements to be bothersome, intrusive and unrelated to their interests.

One innovative and effective way to bridge this gap is a strategy called permission-based mobile marketing, a targeted advertising technique that changes the marketing paradigm by creating a dialogue with consumers, rather than an invasive, one-sided monologue.

The basic premise of permission-based mobile marketing is rather simple: users opt-in and give their consent for brands to send them targeted, preference-based marketing materials for products and services that they are interested in. If executed properly, a permission-based mobile marketing strategy can create value for brands, agencies, consumers and mobile network operators.

Posted in Alcatel-Lucent Corporate News, Alcatel-Lucent Technology News, Mobile Marketing, Mobile advertising, Next-Generation Communications, Research

Ensuring the Future of the Smart Grid

Edited By Peter Bernstein on January 2, 2012


By Susan Campbell

Our growing reliance on energy has sparked a new focus on how to make consumption more efficient. The Smart Grid has emerged as an important focus in this space, projected to impact the business landscape, the energy marketplace and even the ways in which we interact.

According to a recent Alcatel-Lucent article, EPB Chattanooga: Customers at the Center of the Smart Grid’s Future, smart grids will also enhance convenience and control within the industrialized world while positive social progress is enabled in developing countries. The level of skill with which energy providers are able to manage change will determine when and how well the benefits of smart grid technology will gain traction.

Posted in Alcatel-Lucent Corporate News, Alcatel-Lucent Technology News, Broadband, Eco-sustainability, Next-Generation Communications, Smart Grid, Wireless

SIP CLF Will Simplify Network Management, Call Tracking and Troubleshooting

Edited By Peter Bernstein on January 2, 2012

By Beecher Tuttle

Assessing the performance of Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) servers in a multi-vendor environment is a difficult proposition for today's service providers. This issue is mostly due to the lack of common SIP call log standards, a reality that allows vendors to develop call logs based on their own format.

The myriad of call log formats acts as a barrier for service providers that want to review SIP transactions across multiple vendors, evaluate and troubleshoot their servers, and analyze call trends.

Fortunately, the answer to this concern – SIP CLF – has already been developed and is currently in the process of being standardized by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

Posted in Alcatel-Lucent Corporate News, Alcatel-Lucent Technology News, Broadband, Next-Generation Communications, Security, Web 2.0

Identity Shift -- What a New Book says About Us and the Future

Edited By Peter Bernstein on January 2, 2012


By Peter Bernstein

With Facebook about to pass the 1 billion user mark, YouTube taking the #2 rank as a global search engine, Zynga having gone IPO and Twitter on the way, the total of mobile phone devices having blown past the number of wired ones, three things have become apparent:

  1. With progress toward a world that is always on and all ways connected (think of this as ubiquitous and continuous communications meets pervasive computing) a look back at just the past five years by anyone demonstrates how much ICT has already transformed the ways we work and live.
  2. To use a common phrase, “we ain’t seen nothing yet.”  The pace of change is accelerating.
  3. In the process the nature of who we are and how we interact with the world, especially our virtual personae will have profound implications.

All of this and more is captured in a fascinating new book,  Identity Shift: Where Identity Meets Technology in the Networked-Community Age,  written by leading market research experts, Allison Cerra and Christina James, from Alcatel-Lucent.  The second in “The Shift” series of Web 2.0 analyses, this latest edition looks at consumer behavior across all the key stages of life and how they are influenced by communications technologies.

Posted in Alcatel-Lucent Corporate News, Alcatel-Lucent Technology News, Next-Generation Communications, Research, Web 2.0

The Future Economy of the Smart Grid

Edited By Peter Bernstein on December 28, 2011


By Erin Harrison 

With the world’s overall energy demand increasing by what seems to be the hour, deployment of smart grids presents new opportunities for utilities and service providers – but first they need to weigh all the factors involved in the future of smart grid.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global energy demand is expected to rise by nearly 40 percent between now and 2035, as cited in a recent Alcatel-Lucent article, “Anticipating the Future’s Smart Grid Economy.”

Power utilities are indeed presented with new revenue opportunities, but they need to determine how they fit in to the future Smart Grid.

Posted in Alcatel-Lucent Corporate News, Alcatel-Lucent Technology News, Broadband, Eco-sustainability, Next-Generation Communications, Smart Grid

A New Conversation Experience Demands New Go-To-Market Strategies

Edited By Peter Bernstein on December 27, 2011


By Susan Campbell

The time is right for service providers to recognize new opportunities in converged services strategies as we consistently move toward an all-IP world. With convergence in place, the flexibility to deliver new services and business models is enabled. At the same time, a holistic, go-to-market strategy is essential to support new opportunities in this space.

A recent Alcatel-Lucent article, Converged Services Go To Market stresses that service development is key to staying competitive in today’s market. With constantly changing dynamics, it’s critical that service providers participate the right way in the right markets. The traditional methods for doing business have to evolve to include multi-sided business models that support more sophisticated settlement models, partner ecosystems, new delivery channels and new ways to measure success.

Posted in Alcatel-Lucent Corporate News, Alcatel-Lucent Technology News, Broadband, Cloud, Next-Generation Communications, Web 2.0

IPv6 Adoption Demands Clear Service Provider Strategy

Edited By Peter Bernstein on December 27, 2011


By Susan Campbell

The constant growth of the Internet is demanding the adoption of IPv6 and service providers must be ready with a clear strategy. Each one must be able to effectively navigate multiple technology choices and issues to define the best approach, understanding the implications and deployment options for IPv6 in both mobile and telecom environments.

A recent Alcatel-Lucent article, Making the Move to IPv6, stresses the importance of developing an IPv6 transition strategy as IPv4 addresses are nearly exhausted. Service providers have much work to do as IPv6 isn’t compatible with the technology in IPv4, introducing a number of new concepts that will change the way broadband networks are operated.

Posted in Alcatel-Lucent Corporate News, Alcatel-Lucent Technology News, Broadband, Next-Generation Communications, Smart Grid, Web 2.0

The Social Impact of the Future Smart Grid

Edited By Peter Bernstein on December 20, 2011

By Erin Harrison

While much progress has been made with today’s smart grid, the smart grid of the future will impact our business landscape, the energy marketplace and the ways in which we interact socially and culturally.

The smart grid’s largest social impact will be seen in developing nations, notes Christine Hertzog, managing director of the Smart Grid Library, in a posting “Managing Change for the Smart Grid.” Hertzog states that approximately 2.4 billion people of the world live in energy poverty – what she terms a “permanent blackout.”

In addition, the smart grid will enhance control and convenience in the industrialized world while allowing for social progress in developing nations, according to smart grid experts. When and how well these benefits gain traction will depend on how skillfully today’s energy providers manage change.


Posted in Alcatel-Lucent Corporate News, Alcatel-Lucent Technology News, Broadband, Eco-sustainability, Next-Generation Communications, Smart Grid

Neo-Urbanizing India: Inching Towards Prosperity

Edited By Peter Bernstein on December 20, 2011


By Erin Harrison

As Alcatel-Lucent Market and Consumer Insight groups, along with a team from IMRB International, wind down their neo-urbanization research in India, this week we learn that the group landed in an area that is finding prosperity, representative of a larger trend in the country.

The final leg of Alcatel-Lucent’s three-week journey took them from Bhiwadi to Coimbatore, a “town” of 1.25 million people located at the base of the Western Ghats foothills in the Tamil Nadu region of South India.

Posted in Alcatel-Lucent Corporate News, Alcatel-Lucent Technology News, Broadband, Next-Generation Communications, Research
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