Next Generation Communications - ng Connect Archives

Together We Can Go Far: Alcatel-Lucent's ng Connect Program Drives Innovation for New Communications Technology Concepts

2012-03-19T17:40:39Z

By Mae Kowalke

Thanks to significant advances in broadband communication technology in the past few years, people from many industries and disciplines are coming up with some pretty innovative ways to work, play and do business. These often-disparate innovations represent growing opportunity for even greater changes, and greater rewards, if devices, applications and infrastructures were more effectively brought together.

With that vision in mind, Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) founded the ng Connect Program, intended to create an end-to-end ecosystem for rapidly delivering next generation services and applications, by combining the resources of industry, business and academic leaders. Enterprises, consumers and service providers all stand to benefit.

The ng Connect Program rightly claims that, “The opportunity is unprecedented. “ It has eight main goals:

Bring together companies that would not otherwise be linked to drive innovation
Blur the lines between wireline and wireless broadband user experiences
Foster concepts for innovative applications and devices
Integrate and validate new service concepts
Deliver new services, revenue models and applications to enterprises and service providers
Enable deployment of simple, innovative applications and services for consumers
Improve time to market for new concepts
Address key issues around early adoption of LTE and other broadband technologies

Connectivity, ALU points out, is rapidly converging in ways transformative to business, daily life, entertainment, and other areas. Individual companies, however, do not have the resources or expertise to rapidly deploy innovative services, create profitable new business models, or remove barriers to mass adoption.

The ng Connect Program addresses five main areas that represent barriers to success: innovation, connectivity and distribution, digital media management and QoS, applications and service integration, and business models and cases.

Addressing these barriers to success requires driving top line revenues, increasing competitive advantages, lowering OPEX, reducing churn, leveraging assets across networks, creating new business models, accelerating time to market, and speeding up resolution of standards and regulatory issues.

The ng Connect Program is driving innovation through three main elements:

Innovative Ecosystem – community of pioneering organizations and individuals
Innovative Environment – physical and virtual innovation spaces and leading edge tools and techniques
Concept Development – help for service providers to agilely create, evaluate and validate service concepts

The programs summarized below exemplify how various technologies and services are being brought together in innovative ways through ng Connect.

Acquisition – interactive mobile game that allows users to check in at physical locations, own locations virtually and rent out space to friends for a small fee.
Avatrainer – a fitness experience build on Microsoft Kinect, using personal avatars for virtual group setting workouts.
Connected Classroom – application that allows students to locate classes on a campus map and locate friends in real-time, and educators to provide lesson plans and collaborate with other teachers.
Connected Service Vehicle – suite of cloud-based services for commercial vehicles using tablet-to-care linkages, speech recognition for secure login, high definition video surveillance, and other applications.
Connected Shopper - combines online and in-store shopping through tools like QR codes and 3D kiosks.
Fan Cam – allows spectators and fans in sports venues to live-stream the view from their seat to editors who can then select from the content to display on the big screen.
GameTime Media Table – network-connected table for retail and hospitality environments, giving customers a chance to try-before-they-buy.
Next Gen TV – interactive TV experience for video calling, e-health services, home power monitoring using RFID, and other tools.
Striker – public safety vehicle with built-in communications platform featuring push-to-talk radio, iPad integration, high definition video over LTE, and other capabilities.
TeleConsult – healthcare application that allows consumers to ‘visit’ healthcare professionals using video conferencing, Bluetooth, and text apps.
Virtual Concierge – LTE-connected digital platform for 2-way video interaction, easily deployable in airports, hotels and other locations.

Want to be part of helping create the future? Participation in the ng Connect program is a way to explore how working together with other innovators is the path to accelerate your progress on the road to success.

LTE Service Provider Solution: Reduce Cost, Increase Efficiency with Evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (eMBMS)

2012-02-06T18:06:24Z

By Mae Kowalke

Mobile network operators are always looking for new ways to more efficiently use their existing infrastructure without making large capital expenditures. With the explosion of tablets and smartphones, which will increasingly be used for a variety of video applications, streamed as well as interactive, use of a 4G LTE channel for delivering multicast services such as mobile TV is viewed as one way to do so. The reason is simple. It enables network operators to offer mobile TV without the need for additional expensive licensed spectrum and without requiring new infrastructure and end-user devices that might be required to unicast content.

A recent Alcatel-Lucent TechZine article, “eMBMS for More Efficient Use of Spectrum,” describes the enhancements to LTE specifications that have been standardized to accommodate rapidly changing user demands and concomitant network requirements. Evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (eMBMS) is now a multicast standard for 4G LTE precisely because it allows one-to-many distribution of video content.

“For example, during live streaming of major sports or news events, unicast must send the same video to every user individually,” explain RJ Vale, Network Architect for Alcatel-Lucent’s corporate CTO technology advisory group, and Harish Viswanathan, CTO advisor on devices and machine-to-machine (M2M) technology for Alcatel-Lucent. The authors state that eMBMS makes licensed spectrum usage more efficient by leveraging multicast capabilities. These capabilities, “take advantage of the inherent broadcast qualities of wireless networks to send video only once to reach an equal number of end users.” This reduces the cost per bit sent.

The authors’ detail why the underlying structure of eMBMS is what makes it more efficient.

The example given puts the numbers in stark relief. “In one-to-many transmissions, a large number of mobile devices can tune in and receive the video from a single transmission…So, if eight mobiles within a sector all want the same content, multicast can transmit it just once. But unicast would have to transmit it eight times — using on the order of eight times the resources that would be required in multicast.” In addition, eMBMS sessions can be set up dynamically to share resources using unicast sessions, operating on a single frequency across a group of cells to improve reception.

Initial deployments of eMBMS, a standard supported by 3GPP R9, are slated to begin this year (2012). As the article highlights, eMBMS can be used to expand the capabilities of LTE networks by using the same frequency layer for multicast, broadcast and unicast. This goes to the heart as to how and why operators can not only save money and but also provide an improved customer experience because of better reception and throughput.

eMBMS deployments, Vale and Viswanathan note, involve a somewhat complex interplay of network elements:

Broadcast/Multicast Service Center (BM-SC) – schedules and manages MBMS services
Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service Single Frequency Network (MBSFN) Area – group of cells that coordinates MBSFN transmission
Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Services Gateway (MBMS-GW) – sends IP multicast packets, performs session control
Evolved Node B (eNB) and Mobile Management Entity (MME) – existing elements in LTE
Multi-cell/Multicast Coordinated Entity (MCE) – function that performs admission control, radio resources allocation and session control signaling
SYNC Protocol –identifies radio frame transmission timing, detects packet loss
M2 and M3: signaling interfaces

With these elements rolled together into a solution, eMBMS provides a valuable alternative to unicast for distributing a variety of preloaded and live multimedia content.

In addition to the inherent cost savings derived from content delivery being one-to-many instead of one-to-one, as stated above the fact that eMBMS sessions can be set up dynamically — and share resources with unicast sessions — eliminates the need for dedicated spectrum. Lower cost of using a scarce and expensive resource and a better customer experience sounds like a solution that is likely to be in the future of many of us.

Alcatel-Lucent's ng Connect Program Names New Members

2010-04-09T18:57:04Z

The ng Connect Program, co-founded by Alcatel-Lucent and a multi-industry organization committed to the development and rapid deployment of the next generation of broadband services based on Long Term Evolution and other ultra high bandwidth technologies, announced that 10 new members have joined the program.
The 10 new members who have joined the ng Connect Program are: CoolSign, a provider of enterprise-class digital signage software solutions; Desktone, a provider of virtual desktop hosting platform to facilitate desktops to be delivered as an outsourced subscription service; EON Reality, a provider of interactive 3D visual content management; K12 Inc., a provider of online education programs; LiveCast, a provider of streaming live video; Mobideo, a provider of wireless application software; Movial , a company enabling rich user experiences; NCR Corp., a provider of assisted- and self-service solutions; Optical Crime Prevention, Inc. , a provider of Video Security as a Service solutions; and Vidyo, a provider of videoconferencing solutions.

Alcatel-Lucent Scores Another Key LTE Win in the U.S

2010-02-12T03:13:20Z

A year ago, Alcatel-Lucent, which has been a key promoter of LTE technology as the most effective migration path from 2G/3G to 4G wireless networks, came away from Mobile World Congress 2009 with a significant feather in its LTE cap when Verizon named it a key supplier of Verizon's 4G network buildout.

Alcatel-Lucent had already been promoting LTE as a key component of its mobile broadband strategy for wireless operators looking to provide an optimal combination of speed and performance required to deliver the next generation of mobile content and applications.

Since then, Alcatel-Lucent has won several LTE contracts internationally, including Bouygues Telecom in France, SingTel in Singapore, and China Mobile, but with the intense competition in the American market, the world waited in anticipation for AT&T to announce its 4G strategy.

Now, a year later - on the eve of this year's Mobile World Congress - AT&T has announced it, too, has selected Alcatel-Lucent to build out its 4G network. The win solidifies Alcatel-Lucent's dominance in the LTE space, now playing a pivotal role in the LTE deployments of the two largest American wireless operators.

Though AT&T is well behind its largest competitor - Verizon plans to begin rolling out its 4G access later this year - AT&T's strategy rests largely with device availability. Specifically, it believes that, by the time it's next generation network is ready for activation, device manufacturers will have already made a large number of 4G handsets available, and judging from AT&T's penchant for making a splash with groundbreaking handsets.

Alcatel-Lucent already provides equipment for AT&T's 3G network - that which delivers content and applications to the iPhone - and the new deal provides for a seamless migration of new equipment to 4G technology, allowing AT&T to upgrade its current technology rather than undertaking a major rip-and-replace project.

Among the LTE components Alcatel-Lucent will be supplying to AT&T are its LTE base stations, its Element Management Systems, and its 9900 Wireless Network Guardian, which provides visibility into the network for effective management of applications and services on the network.

Whether AT&T's strategy will allow it to catch up to Verizon, which will leverage its LTE network primarily for wireless broadband access at the outset, or not, remains to be seen. What is certain, however, is that Alcatel-Lucent has cemented itself in the global market as a dominant LTE supplier.

In addition, the fact that Alcatel-Lucent will be working behind the scenes with both major U.S. carriers only underscores the fact that the network will soon no longer be the differentiating asset. Rather, carriers will have to separate themselves from their competition through the applications, content, and services they deliver, a theory Alcatel-Lucent has also been promoting for some time, and was a key consideration when it launched the ng Connect program.

Best practices for cost effectively supporting the explosion of intelligent applications and wireless devices

2010-01-04T03:42:29Z

The new year is upon us, and with that comes the hope and expectation of a number of live LTE-based network rollouts, particularly from Verizon Wireless, which is expected to turn up LTE in as many as 30 markets by the end of the year.

Phillip Marshall of the Yankee Group noted in a video commentary on the state of LTE at the end of 2009 that the turning of the year brought with it a real sense that the industry is really getting much closer to the commercialization - particularly in North America. Of course, in order to make that vision a reality, Verizon had to ensure it signed on the best possible vendors for its LTE network.

"The selection of Alcatel-Lucent and [Ericsson] for our LTE network requirements was really based on a lot more than just price," explained Dick Lynch, EVP and CTO of Verizon Communications. "It was based on a variety of factors."

Lynch explained that Verizon had to ask a few key questions as it sought out its technology partners for LTE back in February:

Who had the technology under best control?
Who had the hardware ready?
Who had the software ready?
Who had integrated it well enough to demonstrate a level of confidence they could deliver it at the end of 2009?

What gives vendors like Alcatel-Lucent an edge over others is its longstanding history in the wireline network space, which, as Stephane Teral from Infonetics Research notes, is not unlike what is now going on with the transition to IP-based wireless networks. Alcatel-Lucent is able to look back at what worked with wireline transition to IP, and what didn't, and is able to leverage that to drive the migration of wireless networks.

The move to 4G wireless, of course, is being driven by the increase in wireless data services and applications, and the need for higher-throughput infrastructures and devices to support those services. To take advantage of that trend, service providers are beginning to understand that they need to become much more than dumb pipes, or connectivity providers, and leverage their core assets in a way that allows them to better monetize their network resources by focusing more closely on the applications and content that is driving the wireless industry today, including personalized and location-based services.

Alcatel-Lucent, in addition to having proven expertise in the network technology required to build out LTE networks, has also looked to build an developer ecosystem through its ng Connect program, which brings together developers from various industries to collaborate and bring new and innovative services, applications, and devices to market that leverage 4G technologies.

"Through the ecosystem that ng Connect brings together, there is really the opportunity to accelerate the availability and applicability of end user experiences, content, services, that really leverage the 4^th generation set of technologies," says Omar Khan, SVP of Samsung, which is part of the ng Connect ecosystem.

The idea is to provide a forum for representatives from various industries to come together to discover opportunities to create intelligent wireless applications for both specialized markets as well as general the subscriber base. Programs like ng Connect allow vendors from different industries to work collaboratively in a way that will allow network operators and developers and content providers to all benefit from the LTE networks that will soon become commonplace.

By providing such an open forum, Alcatel-Lucent is also encouraging ng Connect members to embrace the need to operators and developers/content providers to work more closely and more openly to benefit each other, as well as the subscriber community.

As Tune Wiki Chairman, CEO, and Founder Rani Cohen accurately notes, "You need to get a group of innovators that will pull the industry ahead of its current position."

That's what Alcatel-Lucent's ng Connect program is doing, enabled by Alcatel-Lucent's own network technology heritage - bringing together the most innovative minds to work towards a common goal and deliver best practices for a new generation of wireless technologies.

Technical, product leadership and the ability to test solutions prior to deployment: Why these attributes are key for LTE deployments

2009-11-30T03:22:12Z

The growth of the global wireless broadband has created immense pressure in a highly competitive market to quickly introduce new, innovative services to attract and retain subscribers. We've seen the impact on the mobile device market already, and the explosion of mobile services and applications. But, this is merely the beginning. Most of these devices and applications are designed for 3G wireless networks - but network operators are well on their way to creating a 4G world, with the intent of effectively creating a wireless network infrastructure that mirrors today's wireline broadband capabilities.

Though the debate continues to rage between proponents of LTE and WiMAX technologies, and there likely is more than enough need for both, the true mobile network operators are leaning heavily towards LTE. Why? It's a natural migration from their existing 2G and 3G networks, rather than a completely new network buildout. In fact, nearly all GSM, W-CDMA, TD-SCDMA, and CDMA operators have embraced LTE as the model for their next phase of evolution.

Nevertheless, operators need a solid strategy for evolving to LTE, including not only service and subscriber migration, but well before that, testing of the new networks and services to ensure their reliability, stability, and or course, effectiveness, meets expectations. After all, nothing will cause subscriber churn faster than poor service. With the variety of providers available today, subscriber loyalty is very fragile, and network operators must take the steps to ensure, when they roll out their new LTE services, it will happen seamlessly.

Alcatel-Lucent is helping network operators migrate to LTE in a phased approach that meets their needs technologically, financially, and with subscriber management. For instance, Alcatel-Lucent understands that while a quick migration to LTE might be desirable, it is not the prudent strategy. For instance, supporting existing CDMA subscribers with a portion of their available spectrum, allowing them to remain competitive through the development and migration process. In fact, a recent Alcatel-Lucent white paper, CDMA and LTE: Making the Most of Wireless Broadband, describes several potential migration paths CDMA operators can employ as they move eventually to LTE-based networks.

By supporting any number of transition strategies and technologies - including leveraging 1x circuit voice, 1x enhanced voice, EV-DO VoIP, and IMS - Alcatel-Lucent helps its customers manage the risk inherent in moving to LTE. Alcatel-Lucent's broad range of wireless network technologies also allows them to manage the introduction of new technologies into the network as well as the migration of spectrum and subscribers, in a way that helps reduce risk and ensures a user satisfaction.

In addition to its own expertise, Alcatel-Lucent is a strong proponent of LTE ecosystems to help facilitate the growth and acceptance of LTE as the next wireless standard and drive the development of chipsets, devices, and infrastructure, as well as the applications and services that will follow.

By promoting collaboration within the LTE community through structured programs like the ng Connect program, Alcatel-Lucent believes it can drive open innovation, build new business models, and accelerate the development and adoption of LTE technologies and services globally.

Combined with its technology, the shared experiences of the ng Connect community will help create a more effective migration path to LTE, not least because it will allow for easier, more cost effective, and more substantial testing of services and equipment prior to deployment.

Yes, it's still all about the applications and content, but in order to effectively introduce the next generation of bandwidth-intensive services, operators have to take the time and effort to ensure success. Alcatel-Lucent not only provides the technology expertise to support an intelligent migration strategy, but is providing a forum for ongoing collaboration that will benefit the entire community - from network operators to end users.

For more on Alcatel-Lucent's vision for the migration to LTE, read its white paper, CDMA and LTE: Making the Most of Wireless Broadband.

Enabling the Application & Content Provider: Collaboration for Innovation

2009-11-18T05:14:29Z

Alcatel-Lucent's application enablement strategy, which focuses on network operators' ability to effectively develop, deliver, and monetize new applications and services relies on two distinct components: the operator's network and the relationship between the operator and the application and content provider community.

In the second iteration of Alcatel-Lucent's online publication, Enriching Communications, which focused on the strength of partnerships and ecosystems in today's competitive communications environment, Carrie Hydro, Senior Director for Solutions Marketing at Alcatel-Lucent, and Patricia Hargil, Head of Global Strategic Programs, focused on the latter half of the application enablement proposition. Specifically, they considered the implications of recent research by Alcatel-Lucent regarding how ACPs (application and content providers) view the opportunity to collaborate with network operators.

Working on the understanding that network operators are going have to rely on third-party applications and content to drive sustainable growth and revenues, it's evident that their ability to do so lies in their willingness to provide value from their networks to their existing and future partners. However, while operators are in a position to increase the pace of service innovation, to date, the single greatest obstacle has been their ability (or willingness) to deliver a winning proposition to the ACP community.

According to Alcatel-Lucent's research, however, the opportunity for network providers to collaborate with ACPs is very real - as long as they are willing to expose their network resources to benefit their partners. In fact, network providers were named as the second most valuable partnership opportunities by the ACP respondents, behind hosting/utility providers - and that's only because hosting providers have been a traditional resource for cost-effective, scalable capacity.

Network providers, however, have potential to move to the top of the list because of the potential value that rests in their networks. Their ability to leverage that value rests not in capital investment, but in accepting that allowing access to network resources, like subscriber data, Quality of Service, security, bandwidth, and more.

By offering their partners access to their network intelligence, network operators can foster a more trusting, more equitable relationship with ACPs, prompting them to not only develop more applications and content faster, but to tailor them to targeted subscribers, creating a more viable and predictable revenue model.

That's not to say that infrastructure investment will not be required - moving to what Alcatel-Lucent calls high leverage networks will enable network providers to scale effectively as they cultivate new relationships, add new subscribers, and introduce new applications and services. Alcatel-Lucent pegged the ACP market in 2008 at about $800 billion, with double-digit growth expected, so naturally, some infrastructure enhancements will be required (that much is, perhaps, self evident based on the growth of the global smartphone market and the increase in data-intensive applications resulting from the introduction of the iPhone and other similar devices in the past two years.

Thus, in order to offset infrastructure costs, network providers will have to collaborate more effectively with their ACP partners to ensure they have access to a wide range of sticky services and can deliver a differentiated, high-quality user experience.

For more on the evolving relationship between network providers and application and content providers, read the complete article, Application/Content Provider and Network Provider Cooperation Drives Innovation and Value for All.

Competition vs. Collaboration: Strategies for New Revenue Generation

2009-11-17T04:34:09Z

The question of which approach - competition or collaboration - is best in a competitive business landscape is hardly new. The natural instinct is to lean towards competition. After all, collaborating with other industry players can expose your business. However, collaboration breeds innovation, especially in the communications space, where most technologies are based on accepted standards, so there is little risk to intellectual property - your competition is leveraging the same technology.

Gary Iosbaker, Principal Technologist in the Office of the CTO for Communications and Media Solutions at Hewlett-Packard, recently discussed this issue in his article in Alcatel-Lucent's online magazine Enriching Communications, noting that HP prides itself on its extensive industry partnerships. In fact, he claims that, because of the standards-based technologies driving the communications market, and the rapid rate of evolution today, it is imperative that businesses be willing to share their information and experiences for the benefit of the industry.

Because today's communications experience depends on a broad range of vendors - devices, clients, access, transport, support systems, and more - the only way to truly succeed and deliver a quality experience to the end user is to work through partnerships, "rather than wasting limited resources chasing the same goals," as Iosbaker says.

It's the old strength in numbers theory: "By pooling the rich complementary capabilities of a broad range of players, the collective expertise and experience benefits everyone," writes Iosbaker.

The idea is that working in tandem with other industry experts facilitates more rapid development of products that will be more widely available, more reliable, and more cost effective to develop. In addition, market acceptance is increased due to the collaborative nature of the product(s) - there is less hesitation resulting from the perception of single-vendor bias.

The same ideal of bringing more innovative revenue-generating products to market more quickly drives the Alcatel-Lucent initiated ng Connect program, which is designed to foster the very kind of collaboration between vendors Iosbaker promotes. In fact, according to Iosbaker, HP didn't hesitate to become an ng Connect member because, quite simply, it made good business sense.

Ultimately, with the growth of broadband communications and the pace of evolution of communications technology, it is impossible for any single vendor to keep pace alone - they simply lack the resources. Si, the logical alternative is to rely on mutually beneficial partnerships that help achieve existing goals, but are also likely to unveil new opportunities as well.

For more on how HP leverages its partnerships to drive its business success, read Iosbaker's article, along with several others in an entire issue of Enriching Communications dedicated to how collaboration is driving innovation in the communications market, enabling new, revenue-generating products to be introduced more efficiently and cost-effectively.

Leveraging Multi-industry Ecosystems to Speed Service Innovation

2009-10-06T01:48:56Z

It's clear that, in order to achieve ongoing success, mobile operators must put in place a plan to evolve to all-IP networks in order to facilitate higher quality and reliability of service. That means either a combination of 3G and 4G technologies, or an all-out migration to 4G.

But, the network technologies they deploy are merely the beginning, and will serve only as a medium for delivering the services, content, and applications that will present the real opportunity for differentiation. Once operators have invested in and deployed their next generation networks, their key to success will lie in their ability to quickly and effectively introduce innovative new services to their subscribers - services that will be in high demand and for which users will be willing to pay a premium. In addition, the innovation must extend beyond the applications themselves, to an ability to integrate these new offerings across multiple networks, devices, and geographies.

Operators that invest in LTE technologies, for instance, will have spent billions, even tens of billions of dollars, by the time they have completed their full deployments. ABI Research predicts that Verizon Wireless, for example, will spend close to $30 billion on spectrum and infrastructure, and while LTE technology will present Verizon and other operators with significant reductions in operating costs, they will still need to find new revenue streams to support their business models to compete effectively.

As Nadine Manjaro, senior analyst, wireless infrastructure at ABI Research, writes in her article, Ecosystems Help Evolution to 4G Services in the latest issue of Alcatel-Lucent's online magazine, Enriching Communications, "Delivering new services quickly will require collaboration across an entire ecosystem. Operators are turning to vendor partners and members of the mobile value chain to assist in developing new services."

The idea of collaborating with other industry participants isn't a new one, and many operators have already successfully developed and launched services driven by such relationships, but there is potential - even a necessity - for more.

That's why Alcatel-Lucent, among others, which of course is a key player in the network infrastructure space, is also pushing the idea of developing ecosystems to help spur innovation, lower time to market, and increase the value proposition of new services and applications.

The idea is founded on the principle that networks can provide valuable resources that can be leveraged by an entire ecosystem to increase the value of new services and applications. Traditionally, however, most network operators have been hesitant to open their networks up to developers and content providers. However, in order to create deeper relationships, many are realizing that, properly controlled and secured, these resources can be an effective way to deliver more enticing services, since developers will have access to data that will help them more effectively personalize services and ensure their compatibility with networks and devices.

An Alcatel-Lucent white paper, Working with Third-Party Services: An Action Plan for Network Operators, identifies several network resources that can easily be leveraged to create compelling services that users will be willing to pay for. They include:

The ability to offer differential QoS;
Demographic and behavioral information on end users;
Information on subscriber devices, location and online status (presence);
Ability to authenticate, identify, charge and bill subscribers;
Exposure of call control and messaging platforms;
Ability to host and maintain services;
Ability to provide 1st line customer support.

By working with third parties to build wide-ranging, multi-industry ecosystems that include infrastructure vendors, device manufacturers, application developers, content providers, gaming and computing experts, universities, and others with relevant expertise, operators can discover best practices, new business models, and new revenue opportunities not possible on their own.

Alcatel-Lucent itself has launched the ng Connect program as a means of bringing together these very types of constituencies in a collaborative environment to develop new services that exploit their network assets to create compelling, sticky services and opportunities for subscriber retention and attraction.

"The ng Connect ecosystem has the power to create a nucleus to showcase what is actually possible when you connect all these devices in a real LTE environment that provides the bandwidth that is necessary to provide an enhanced user experience," said Volker Hirsch, EVP at ng Connect member Connect2Media.

Using Ecosystems to Drive New Revenue and Innovation

2009-10-05T03:42:52Z

As service providers look to feed their subscribers' hunger for innovative services and applications, they have essentially two alternatives: they can work alone to develop them in what amounts to a proprietary environment or they can collaborate with other companies to develop more effective products and that can be leveraged to meet the needs of a wide audience.

In a next generation communications environment, it becomes almost impossible to achieve high levels of success with the former. The need to accommodate to accommodate different means of access and devices and to maintain viable financial models by making services adaptable to multiple user types means providers must facilitate interaction with other companies as they seek to develop and introduce new services.

It's this need for collaboration that drove Alcatel-Lucent to create the ng Connect program, a mechanism for partnering with other companies - not only in the communications space, but other industries as well - to create services that are flexible, interoperable with multiple technologies, and importantly, present a revenue generating opportunity.

According to Derek Kuhn, Vice President of Emerging Technology & Media at Alcatel-Lucent, ecosystems, like ng Connect, allow members to collectively define prospective user groups for services, and determine best practices for addressing the needs of those users.

In his article in the latest issue of Enriching Communications, Kuhn adds that in addition to providing an opportunity to define strategies for developing services, ecosystems create what he calls "living labs" to consider the capabilities of next generation networks to deliver these services and the new business models they enable.

"It's about truly transformational and innovative companies that are willing to collaborate and understand how they are going to use broadband technologies in a way that betters the user experience," noted Kuhn previously. "We can collaborate to benefit the operator community with time to market and time to revenue, and we can innovate and touch industries that traditionally telecom might not reach out to. That's what's drawn a lot of the partners to this program."

The ng Connect program is based on an understanding that the only limitation to innovation is the effectiveness of vendors and developers in delivering new products. By providing a venue where providers, developers, and even users can come together to share ideas and experiences, ng Connect helps increase the pace of innovation, benefitting the entire community, from developers to providers to users.

To read more about why ecosystems, like ng Connect, hold the key to service innovation in next generation communications environments, click here.

Using Multimedia Content Management Solutions to Drive New Revenue While Increasing QoE

2009-10-05T02:46:42Z

In an age where applications and content are king, and the networks that deliver them play second fiddle, telecom provider, in order to effectively penetrate their target markets, must unsure they are able effectively manage that content. It's not enough to simply develop and introduce new services; they must be able to integrate these offerings across multiple platforms, networks, and devices to create a seamless, integrated, and personalized user experience.

The evolution of networks, content, applications, and devices, combined with user's understanding of the capabilities available to them and their new expectations that result from this enlightenment make it critical for providers to be able to leverage flexible service delivery and management infrastructures.

Alcatel-Lucent's 5920 Multimedia Content Manager (MCM) has been designed for this very purpose - to enable service providers to manage, market, sell, and deliver content and services to any device their subscribers choose to use. The MCM allows mobile, broadband, IPTV, and converged services providers to manage the delivery of their services - including applications, video, music, ringtones, news and updates, and other personalized content - based on unique subscriber preferences.

To facilitate the efficient delivery and management of content, the 5920 MCM includes the following features:

· Service and Delivery Orchestrator - Gateway for coordinating access to and management of core functions, including marketing, rating, charging, digital rights management (DRM) and service delivery;

· Content, Storefront Manager and Subscriber portals - Provides flexibility in managing multi-screen catalogs and storefronts and allow service providers to build custom Web portals;

· Marketing and rating - Enables multi-screen subscriber segmentation and management functions and the creation of targeted campaign promotions based on subscriber activities, including the definition of multiple pricing options and discounts;

· Delivery and DRM - Allows the integration of the latest delivery protocols for both download and push services and offers a complete DRM solution to secure premium content;

· Mediator - Provides a service order activation-enabled distribution workflow that integrates the Alcatel-Lucent 5920 MCM with downstream systems.

By bringing these capabilities to service providers in a single platform, Alcatel-Lucent not only simplified the content distribution capabilities for its customers, but also ensures they are able to focus on growing revenues and increasing operational efficiencies. It also allows them to focus their energies on the kinds of content and application partnerships Alcatel-Lucent promotes through its ng Connect program, while ensuring high quality, reliable services.

If you read the latest edition of Alcatel-Lucent's online magazine, Enriching Communications, you saw a case study explaining how Israeli telcom Pelephone used the 5920 MCM to launch its new music service that includes more than 250,000 tracks and playlists - Israel's largest music catalog. Not only does the Alcatel-Lucent solution allow Pelephone to manage and deliver the content through a friendly interface, it allows it to synchronize multiple user devices, a real advantage in an age where many - if not most - users have a desire to access content on multiple fixed and mobile devices.

"For example, if you use a PC to download a "jogging music" playlist to your private content area, that playlist is automatically available on your mobile phone," according to Pelephone. "You can listen while you jog -- without the need for local synchronization via wires or WiFi."

This is just one example, and providers like Pelephone are increasingly looking to introduce new, innovative, and more personalized services to grow their market presence and subscriber bases using Alcatel-Lucent technology.

To read more about how Alcatel-Lucent is helping the service provider community address growing market complexities on the Next Generation Communications community.

If you haven't read the Pelephone case study, check that out here.

Driving Innovation Through Multi-Industry Ecosystems

2009-10-05T01:18:21Z

The second installment of Enriching Communications, Alcatel-Lucent's eZine highlighting many of the hottest topics in communications today, takes a look at how ecosystems and the business models they promote help businesses leverage a collaborative environment to enhance the opportunities for all members of the communities.

As editor-in-chief Ruth Killeen writes, "Why work alone when partnerships help mitigate risk in a highly competitive marketplace?"

Indeed, ecosystems provide an opportunity for businesses that would have had little cause to work together under traditional business models, to generate added value for the members of a growing number of ecosystems as well as their end users. Taking a deeper look at some of the trends and topics in the LTE market introduced in the previous issue, this iteration looks at how participation in ecosystems helps members create new value from their own products and solutions, while leveraging the expertise of other members.

Ecosystems Vital to LTE-enabled Applications in Both Developed and Emerging Markets

While the ecosystem isn't necessarily a new concept, this is an ideal time to foster long-lasting relationships to help the community as a whole more quickly assess and respond to evolving trends and requirements. Essentially, these ecosystems are the foundation for business relationships between strategic, multidisciplinary companies from a variety of industries, providing an opportunity for them to collaboratively deliver new solutions.

Ecosystems increase the value of products and solutions from each partner by offering input and feedback from a variety of members who have distinctly unique perspectives on what users want, what they will buy, and how much they will use new services and products, adding a new measure of predictability into the value chain.

Partnerships: A Case of Enlightened Self-interest

Real-world experiences often provide a powerful message regarding products and services. The same can be said for the successes driven by participating in collaborative ecosystems. Hewlett-Packard, for instance, continues to expand its partnerships because of the benefit it has seen from the openness and collaboration promoted by ecosystems. These partnerships, in fact, are a key part of its corporate culture.

With the rate of evolution in the communications market, it is more critical than ever for individual vendors to ensure the ability to move equally quickly. Few companies have the resources to successfully respond to changing customers requirements without risking financial stability, making pooling resources and experiences more than a reasonable option - it is becoming a necessity. This article illustrates the success Hewlett-Packard's has seen from membership in ecosystems like ng Connect.

Ecosystems Help Evolution to 4G Services

Even as many wireless provides are still moving into the 3G world, wisdom dictates that their goal must be to evolve further, to 4G technology, to deliver services with greater quality and reliability. However, the secret is not in merely evolving their networks - they must have a keen focus on the applications and services they bring to their subscribers. They need compelling new services that can cross networks, devices, and geographies - and they must provide enough value so that subscribers will be willing to pay for them.

This article looks at how network operators can leverage ecosystems to quickly develop and deploy 4G services, including eliminating risk through interoperability testing in a standards-based environment. By working closely with their partners, operators will increase their ability to grow revenue and market share in an ultra-competitive mobile market.

Pelephone Mines Value from Content Management

Israeli telecom Pelephone indentified some time what is now common theory - content and applications will be the keys to successfully penetrating the mass market. As such, it knew it had to be able to design new and innovative services for flexible, scalable deployment and rapid launch.

By working closely with its ecosystem partners, it is now able to deploy new services in a fraction of the time it would otherwise take. It has also been able to expand and manage its content and application library through simple, intuitive, and appealing interfaces, resulting in what it calls a "stunning user experience," including location-based services, mobile Internet, and multimedia content.

Application/Content Provider and Network Provider Cooperation Drives Innovation and Value for All

A key part of Alcatel-Lucent's market strategy is its application enablement model, which combines next generation network technology with the ecosystem and partnership theory to create more effective business models and greater efficiency in bringing services to market.

Earlier this year, Alcatel-Lucent conducted a study to gain an understanding of how various members of the communications value chain might be able to better work together to combine network capabilities with the speed of the Web - a key part to its application enablement strategy.

This article provides answers to the questions it was looking to answer, and which will help network providers more effectively partner with content and application providers to create a highly collaborative environment that drives value for both sides and create a win/win/win situation for network providers, application and content developers, and end users.

In this issue, experts from Alcatel-Lucent, Hewlett-Packers, ABI Research, and Pelephone discuss the need for and benefits of technology ecosystems in a competitive landscape. The next issue will delve into to telecom operators can transform their businesses to create more effective, sustainable operational models.

Alcatel-Lucent's "Enriching Communications" - The State of the LTE Market

2009-09-13T03:03:01Z

Alcatel-Lucent recently unveiled its electronic magazine (e-Zine), Enriching Communications, an online initiative to provide an in-depth look at many of the communications industry trends and innovations - including how Alcatel-Lucent is helping its customers achieve business success by leveraging its next generation communications products and services.

The first online-only edition of the publication focused on the migration of 2G and 3G wireless networks to 4G technologies, specifically LTE. The process of network transformation from legacy environments to more agile, flexible, and stable 4G technologies has been a key area of focus for Alcatel-Lucent, including a particular emphasis on consulting customers on how to best approach the Broadband Stimulus component of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).

Featured content in the inaugural e-Zine include:

6 Key Trends Driving the Evolution to LTE

The demand for mobile services in increasing, and will only continue to rise, which is driving the migration to new wireless technologies to support the growth in subscribers and mobile broadband usage. LTE can enable sustainable and profitable business models while supporting the increase in network usage. In fact, LTE subscriptions globally are predicted to grow at a rate of more than 400 percent (CAGR) over the next four years. This article highlights six trends that will drive the demand for mobile broadband.

Georgia Tech Destined for 4G/LTE

As it seeks to enhance its ability to provide the best possible educational environment and prepare its students for the future, Georgia Tech's mission is to ensure its students, researchers, faculty, and staff have access to the latest advanced communications technology, representative of the real-world technologies they will matriculate from the University to use, including 4G/LTE wireless networks. In this article, Georgia Tech's CTO and Director of GT-RNOC, explains how 4G/LTE will enable students and faculty to create a better future and why next generation communications technologies are critical in an academic environment.

Meeting the Enhanced QoS Challenge

Inconsistency in the delivery of services across best effort networks, without QoS guarantees are the reason service providers are bombarded with questions like, "Why is the speed and download rate of my public Internet so variable?" or "Why doesn't TV over the Web look like HDTV?" or "Why do video calls over the Internet have inconsistent quality?" or "Why are multi-user, interactive online games sometimes ruined in an instant by network quality issues?" This article addresses the need for enhanced QoS for reliable, consistent delivery of today's bandwidth hungry services, and how guaranteed QoS turns into a winning proposition for network operators, ACPs, and end users.

Developed and Emerging Markets Readying for LTE

The global LTE market is expected to grow faster than any previous mobile standard, with subscribers predicted o eclipse 136 million by 2014. To help mobile operators prepare for this growth in both developed and emerging markets, this article looks at end user expectations as LTE-based networks become available to them. What applications will they want? How will they use them? Which applications will the pay for, and how much will they be willing to pay? How much will they pay for network access? These are all questions that operators will need to understand before they can successfully migrate users to next generation networks.

Video: LTE Market in 2009: Industry Experts Speak

LTE is representative of the realization by network operators that they need to create and open environment for application and service development and delivery and become much more than merely providers of connectivity. This video, featuring a number of communications industry experts, including Dick Lynch, Executive VP and CTO, Verizon Communications, and Vivek Badrinath, IT Networks and Product Support, Orange, focuses on end-to-end LTE as a means of "IP-izing" mobile networks, as the industry moves rapidly towards the commercialization the technology.

The next issue of Enriching Communications will take the ideas from this edition a step further, focusing on how operators can build and leverage ecosystems to increase their ability to provide quality services and content, and create new revenue opportunities.

Best Practices for Improving Time to Market of New Products and Services

2009-09-12T02:04:23Z

For today's network operators, the key to creating new revenue streams lies in their ability to quickly and cost effectively bring new services to market. It's an accepted fact that future success depends on applications and content that is delivered to the end user, not in the network itself.

Naturally, the network infrastructure must be in place to make these services available, which is why Alcatel-Lucent is heavily pushing its application enablement strategy, including its high leverage network theory, which will enable faster, more reliable, and more flexible service delivery, while promoting increased collaboration between network providers and their third party partners - the application developers and content providers.

While investing in intelligent network infrastructures is necessary, as they provide the physical foundation for making new products and services available, ultimately, the ability to quickly deliver new services rests largely on operators' ability to build strong third-party relationships. More specifically, they will need to move past mere marketing and branding agreements to include deeper technology integration to increase the value for both parties. This will have the added benefit of shortening time to market of new services, as partners will have greater insight into the network resources to allow them to more effectively build applications that will require less testing and modification.

This change in behavior - to date, network providers have been reluctant to allow access to their resources, and their partners, therefore, have been less motivated to collaborate more closely with them - is key quickly introducing new services. The network capabilities - application enablers - that will drive the creation of new revenue producing services includes, an ability to provide differential QoS, user demographic and behavioral data, end user devices and presence information, billing and provisioning abilities, hosting of content and applications, call control and messaging platforms, and, not least, customer support.

These capabilities, made available to in-house developers or third-party partners, will allow for increased efficiency in the development of new services that can run on different platforms to support a wider user base. They will also dramatically increase the number of partners network operators have access, since they not only promote a trusted two-way relationship, but also provide valuable resources developers and content providers are looking for as they seek to engage targeted audiences that are most likely to want their services, increasing the relevance of the entire value chain by leveraging contextual information to deliver services to users where and when they want them, on whatever devices they want them on.

Of course, there is also the question of identifying the right applications and services, the capacity for which is also enhanced through this sort of closer collaboration and sharing of information - and revenue. While it is nearly impossible to predict which specific applications will have the greatest impact, a few common traits that are likely to deliver the most significant return include:

A focus on multimedia capabilities
Personalization and customization
Leveraging collaboration and social networking
Anywhere, anytime, any device availability with seamless switching between platforms
Automation of installation and maintenance
Integration with other applications and services

What this list really means is that the most successful services will be more flexible and more adaptable to different user environments than ever before. In other words, they will leverage the need to personalization and customization.

For more on how third-party relationships can be developed to improve time to market of new services, read Alcatel-Lucent's white paper, Working with Third Party Services - An Action Plan for Network Providers.

Evolve to a More Stable Business Model and Create New Revenue Opportunities

2009-09-07T21:09:20Z

Today's Internet has evolved into a real resource - perhaps the greatest resource - for business and personal interaction with other individuals, communities, businesses, and information portals. It is typically the first place people look to for information, and the networks that provide access to that information and content are the primary vehicle for all communications today.

The applications that enable these various modes of interactivity, whether person-to-person communication, downloading content, online shopping, or merely gathering information are becoming more complex and more personalized to meet particular needs of each individual user. They are able to do that only by leveraging user data available through network providers.

However, the traditional relationship between network providers and content and application providers, where the network is merely a physical resource for delivering content and applications, has resulted in an unstable business model. The fact is that neither party has the resources to fully provide enhanced services to users, but neither has access to all the resources they need for developing a viable long-term business model.

Network providers are not being compensated for providing the bandwidth to deliver applications, and service and application providers are not being given access to full network capabilities that would increase the value of their services (i.e., location, presence, QoS, security). The challenge, as the demand for applications continues to grow - and features directly tied to these network capabilities with it - is for operators and providers to agree on a business model that benefits both and allows them to deliver optimized services to their users.

Naturally, any mutually beneficial strategy will be focused on delivering an improved user experience and a keen understanding of what services users want, how do they want them delivered, which ones will they pay for, and, perhaps most importantly for long-term success, which ones will they be willing to provide profile information for. Those operators and providers that can collaborate to determine these factors will be on the front lines for successful new product launches.

Alcatel-Lucent's application enablement ideal is built on enabling these kinds of business models and delivering these key services. On the network operator side, it focuses on the need to evolve to a high leverage, all-IP network, which can deliver these services and collect subscriber data - and then recycle that data for delivering even greater value to users.

These new high leverage networks will allow operators and their provider and developer partners to collaborate in a much more meaningful fashion, where the best capabilities of both sides are highlighted to present a more stable business model with new revenue potential. A new, significantly larger market opportunity can be opened up, network providers can open their resources to their partner community in a controlled way, such that applications and services can be optimized and delivered to each unique user anywhere, anytime, on any device.

It presents a new opportunity for operators and providers, where each can showcase their strengths, and leverage each other's assets to enrich the user experience and drive new revenue streams.

For the content provider and application developer, it creates a targeted audience for services. For network providers, it means an offset to network investment through advertising and network access and resources.

By evolving to a high leverage network, network operators will quickly be able to build new business models with partners via a network that is:

Multi-service, to reduce cost and enable both fixed and mobile services that are transparent to the network
Available at anytime, anywhere, and on any device
Application- and service-aware to allow contextual, personalized delivery of content and services
Scalable and flexible in both directions to provide high QoE at all times without increased cost
Open to developers and for service providers to leverage

By embracing the application enablement ideal, and a high leverage network, operators will put themselves, and their partners, well on the path to a sustainable, mutually beneficial business model for the next generation communications environment. And ultimately, both will benefit from the ability to combine to deliver new, innovative, and rich set of applications to the user community.

Read more about application enablement in Alcatel-Lucent's white paper, Application Enablement, Delivering a trusted Web experience to increase revenue.