Next Generation Communications Blog

Next-Generation Communications

The Impact of Instant Access on Go-to-Market Strategies

In today's consumer-driven data consumption, quality in delivery is no longer enough to drive customer loyalty. Users now want instant access, full security and privacy all while demanding the ability to continually access services on any display at any time. Before network operators can bring anything to market, they must be able to meet all of these demands.

Massive content demands are only expected to increase and network operators must be able to deliver all services to mobile devices over a network that can handle the demand. To maintain quality and security, network providers must also be able to merge content and networks - a challenging task when the desire is to keep this change seamless for the user.

Next Generations Conference to be Held This Month

By Alice Straight 

The International Next Generations Network and Basestations conference is set to be held in April in Bath, England.

Prominent speakers from leading operators Vodafone, Telenor Telefonica, O2, BT (British Telecom), Orange, SFR, Virgin Media, 3UK, Vimplecom, Digicel, Mobilkom Austria, Elisa, Globul, will share a platform with industry analysts from Ovum, ABI Research, Analysis Mason, Heavy Reading, Arete, and senior management from GSMA and Ofcom.

"Whilst there are many conferences (on wireless networks), the International Basestation Conference is exceptional both for its clear focus and the high-quality of attendees," said Rupert Baines, vice president of marketing at picoChip, who will be addressing architectures for next generation networks at the conference.

One of the topics slated for discussion is the deployment of home basestations/femtocells with growing numbers of operators around the world introducing products into service. Kenny Graham, head of new technology for Vodafone, which is marketing the Sure Signal femtocell in the U.K.

Streamlining the Challenges of a Multi-Vendor Network

For network operators, streamlining the complexity of managing and maintaining a multi-vendor network is both daunting and full of opportunity with the mobile data explosion of 3G and long term evolution coming to fruition. As TMCnet reported, Alcatel-Lucent this week unveiled a variety of solutions aimed at addressing that mobile data explosion on both 3G and LTE networks. New is 2G and 3G Gateway GPRS Support Node functionality on Alcatel-Lucent's 7750 Service Router-based mobile packet core gateways. That means this gear can now be used in GPRS/EDGE, HSPA, HSPA+ and LTE networks. The 7750 SR has been in global LTE trials since 2009 and becomes generally available in the second half of 2010. Alcatel-Lucent also introduced the Wireless Mobility Manager this week, which enables service provider packet cores to support HSPA and HSPA+ as well as LTE. Lindsay Newell, vice president of marketing for Alcatel-Lucent's IP activities, tells TMCnet that the WMM delivers high performance signaling. As Paula Bernier reported,  smartphones generate a lot more signaling load on the network than do traditional cellular handsets because "they're a lot more chatty with the network," according to Newell. Also, where today mobile subscribers usually have one connection to the network - either using the phone or Internet capability, in the future people will have multiple sessions per device, so that will increase the signaling load as well, adds Newell of Alcatel-Lucent, a key supplier of next-generation wireless gear to industry leaders AT&T and Verizon Wireless. For organizations throughout the global infrastructure, the network is constantly evolving to keep up with the progress of innovative technologies. At the same time, subscriber user patterns are changing and wireless operators are searching for effective strategies for evolving LTE networks. The opportunities in harnessing the right solution are abundant.

Network Providers Can Monetize Subscriber Data Within the Advertising Ecosystem

By Susan J. Campbell

In traditional subscriber-based systems, network providers drove reliable revenues through consumer contracts. To increase revenue streams, providers needed to offer more services to the consumer that they would opt to purchase. Now, with the evolution of the advertising ecosystem, network providers can monetize their subscriber data in a whole new way.   Gone are the days when network providers would aim to "sell" information on their subscribers in order to drive additional revenue. In some industries this is now illegal and the increase in privacy consumer laws has virtually eliminated the potential to derive revenue from such methods, not to mention the fact consumers hate the process.

Bucking the Status Quo

Businesses across industries today cannot stay in business if they simply maintain the status quo. Network operators in particular must innovate to keep pace with user expectations for services and quality.    To satisfy the ever-growing demand for high-bandwidth content and enhanced services, service providers today must evolve not only their networks but also their business models. To increase profit margins and bolster bottom lines while continuing to meet customer expectations - and while contending with a variable, often unpredictable global economic environment.   Examples of this can be found in crossover competitors such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN. Each has been quick to take advantage of media convergence and non-traditional business models to get their piece of an increasing market share.

Keeping Pace with User Needs: Five Trends for Telco Providers

The days of status quo service are long over. Today, network operates need to stay innovative to adequate meet user expectations when it comes to services and quality. As consumers and end-users, alike, increasingly crave high-bandwidth content and better services, service providers need to evolve their strategy and change their business models to meet those needs.

Network Providers and Partners: A Perfect Marriage

Service providers looking for a way to boost their business initiatives often have a balancing act to perform. They need to keep maintaining their investments and services while trying to keep costs down.

Hey Network Operator: Wanna Focus on Strengths, Partner?

By David Sims

If you're a service provider today you have something of a conundrum: You want to maximize revenue, of course. This means keeping your network infrastructure delivering services reliably and cost effectively, which means investing in new access and delivery improvements.   And you have to do it without "alienating existing subscribers and applications, including those running on existing legacy systems," as TMC's Erik Linask has noted.   A recent paper from Alcatel-Lucent recommends considering partnerships, to allow you to focus on your core business competency, or strength. "Delivering the experience that end users and ecosystem partners want requires a shift to open business models. This evolution creates opportunities to develop partnerships with new revenue models and shared risks and rewards as well as opportunities to outsource some parts of your network or operations."   Generating revenue in a cloud computing environment is tricky. Industry analyst Jeff Kaplan wrote last June that the cloud computing industry "will borrow some of the best practices of previous generations of tech partnerships to solve today's revenue sharing challenge.

A New Opportunity for Network Operators

Given that the past 18 months have seen an explosion in the number of applications that are available to end users - mobile applications, widgets on TVs and PCs, as well as enterprise applications of all types - network operators are compelled to reconsider their business models and look for new streams of revenue to succeed.   As people continue to vigorously adopt a mobile and social lifestyle, it is increasingly important for service providers to move beyond traditional models and embrace an application enablement vision, according to the experts at Alcatel-Lucent.   Finding new sources of sustainable, profitable revenue isn't an option for service providers, but rather a strategic and financial necessity. Working with application and content providers - or ACPs - can give network operators leverage and new capabilities that will increase the relevance of their value chain.   According to Alcatel-Lucent, new partnership structures and business models allow network providers to achieve several common goals: 1) offering greater efficiencies in serving the demand for long tail applications; 2) allowing network providers to tap new sources of innovation spawned by broader development communities; 3) offering improved scale and speed in application delivery and; 4) establish new revenue opportunities both directly and indirectly associated with greater application adoption.

Changing Strategies with Open Development

As the fast-paced communications technology market continues to evolve with new products and announcements, network providers often face challenges in how to better address their audience's needs. As end users' demands increase for more applications for their connected devices, network operates need to shift their strategy to fulfill those needs and learn how to capitalize on effort

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