Next Generation Communications - Wireless Archives

The Operational Imperative in the New Era of Mobile Data Personalization

2013-02-24T18:49:36Z

Pat McCabe, Marketing Director - Policy Solutions, Alcatel-Lucent

The growth of mobile data is driving significant revenue at various Internet and Over-the-The Top (OTT) companies such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook not to mention with various VOIP, video and content providers. The mobile service provider, who provides mobile Internet user’s connectivity to these companies, has yet to capitalize on this growth. To make this situation even more challenging the service provider’s voice and SMS revenues, historically representing over 70% of their total revenue, are flattening and are being slowly replaced with OTT versions of these services as found by mobiThinking.

However, there is a clear market demand to empower mobile users with a simplification of the mobile broadband experience while offering data usage transparency. There is also a demand to provide data services that are specifically tailored to the individual and their particular lifestyles and usage patterns. This is where the opportunity lies for the service provider. They need to “transform” their business to take advantage of this new ”mobile data frontier” by meeting consumer driven requirements while creating new and innovative streams of revenue.

The service provider will need to re-invent the way they do business and flip their existing model. This will include renovating their existing policy and charging infrastructure to allow the service provider to interact with the subscriber, while offering services that consider real-time contextual information (e.g. location, time of day, subscriber preferences and loyalty, customer and network analytics), to add personal meaning and value to their data experience.

Technically service providers can achieve this but the challenge is to do so in an operationally viable manner. Ultimately they will need to deploy a next generation integrated policy and charging solution that will help to streamline their operational model across the entire lifecycle of data service delivery including conception, deployment, service creation, service modification and evolution, and network growth and evolution.

Conception - remove functional and operational barriers

Service providers should evolve their thinking when planning the next generation of personalized “revenue-generating” data services. Some of these services could include capitalizing on trends such as the latest mobile gaming phenomenon, a new mobile video conferencing application, a new social media site, the list goes on. By offering mobile data services to a specific demographic of interest based on a specific context to take advantage of these trends is key. To do this, service providers need to deploy a solution that is flexible and broad enough to break down the functional and operation barriers so the “go to market” plan will overcome technical obstacles that could stifle the ability to meet their business goals.

Source: Alcatel-Lucent

Deployment - smoothly interoperate into existing environments

Service providers need a pre-integrated solution that is also adaptable to any multi-vendor environment. Every environment is different and will have multiple systems (e.g. PCRF, OCS, SPR, etc) that need to be leveraged to maximize their value and sunk cost. As such, the solution needs to include “pluggable” capabilities that will mediate from a host of third party elements. This gives service providers the fastest path from conception to deployment while reducing integration costs along the way.

Service Creation - quickly and easily create new services

The new generation of personalized data services needs to be created and offered quickly and easily without long lead times. The solution must enable the service provider to create these services themselves in-house (marketing/product staff) without the need for costly third party consultation from the original vendor. This puts the service provider in complete control of their business goals.

Service Modification and Enhancement - modify and enhance your services with ease

The world of mobile data is ever-changing and ever-evolving and service providers will need to evolve their data service offerings at the same speed. Service providers require an environment where existing services can be modified quickly and easily – often in minutes without new software, and without any third party dependency or intense scripting requirements. This level of service velocity puts the service provider in a position to capture new opportunities before the competition and without a heavy operational burden.

Network Growth and Evolution - update, upgrade, and add new network elements with operational efficiency

The solution will also have to allow the service provider to grow and evolve their network with operational ease and efficiency. Upgrading/updating network elements within the solution ecosystem has to be done quickly and easily without impacting other elements. Having a solution that is adaptable and “pluggable” certainly helps to accomplish this. Plugability also allows service providers to add new elements as the ecosystem evolves.

Service providers should seek out solutions and vendors that offer the ability to transform their business but in an operationally efficient and sustainable manner with an easy path for network renovation and upgrades. Service opportunities in the new mobile broadband environment are fleeting and thus service providers need to be equipped with the tools to act on these opportunities with agility. At Alcatel-Lucent we strive to make mobile broadband more accessible, personal, meaningful and well … smarter. Service providers that take this approach and build this type of infrastructure can offer a new breed of personalized tools and services that will be positioned to compete with the OTT vendors by creating new streams of revenue while building lasting relationships with their subscribers.

EARTH Consortium Shows the Way to 70 Percent Energy Savings on Wireless Networks

2012-08-06T13:52:36Z

By Mae Kowalke

They wanted to reduce the energy consumption of mobile networks by half. Instead, they developed a framework that cut nearly three quarters of energy consumption.

Led by Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson over the course of two and a half years, the EARTH (Energy Aware Radio and neTwork tecHnologies) consortium of 15 telecommunications providers, vendors and academic institutions developed everything from more efficient components in radio base stations to solutions on the radio network level, according to a press release from Alcatel-Lucent. The research was partially funded by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Program (FP7).

In the process, the consortium demonstrated how operators could save up to 70 percent of energy consumed in their networks using a holistic energy efficiency approach for 4G radio communications.

The consortium came to the conclusion that a holistic approach could save energy through:

Limits and metrics such as better deployment scenarios and traffic patterns
Better deployment of relays and overlay macro cell towers
Network management such as EE adaptive capacity
Radio technology and components like power-scalable transceivers and adaptive matching networks

Because the EARTH consortium was made up of operators and vendors, key components of the system were implemented, validated, experimentally analyzed and tested under realistic operating conditions in many cases. As Alcatel-Lucent noted this proved that the efficiency claims of the approach are more than just theoretical.

“We have taken Green to the heart of our research programs,” said Tod Sizer, head of access research at Alcatel-Lucent’s research arm, Bell Labs. “Our commitment to initiatives such as EARTH is a prominent example of how Alcatel-Lucent is driving sustainable innovation. We know it cannot be accomplished alone, and we need models of action like EARTH.”

“We were glad to have a leading role in the EARTH project, and to contribute to creating a broader understanding of trends in network energy consumption over the next ten years, added Jan Färjh, vice president and head of Ericsson Research. “It will be crucial for telecom companies to work even more actively with implementing the best practice concepts developed in the project into reality.”

The consortium also developed a framework for evaluating wireless energy efficiency. The EARTH Energy Efficiency Evaluation Framework (E3F) creates an objective and fair rating of wireless network energy efficiency. Major operators have long desired a global standard to measure wireless network energy efficiency, as part of their efforts for eco-sustainability and they now have one with E3F.

The EARTH consortium was composed of project coordinator Alcatel-Lucent, technical manager Ericsson, NXP Semiconductors France, DOCOMO Communications Laboratories Europe GmbH, Telecom Italia S.p.A., CEA, University of Surrey, Technische Universität Dresden, imec, IST- Technical University of Lisbon, University of Oulu, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, TTI and ETSI, according to the Alcatel-Lucent press release.

More information about the findings of the consortium can be found at the EARTH website.

Motive Mobile Device Manager Key to Better and More Cost-Effective Customer Experiences

2012-07-16T00:55:36Z

By Mae Kowalke

The customer service challenge for cellular providers is clear.

Numerous research firms have recently published studies estimating that smartphones currently make up half of all mobile phone purchases globally and that number is expected to reach 75 percent by 2013. This is context for what is a vexing industry challenge. It turns out that more than half of all customer service calls to mobile service operators now deal with the difficult technical problems that can come from smartphones, such as mobile internet, and 63 percent of returned phones are not actually faulty.

In fact, a recent Yankee Group study notes that technical difficulties now represent a bigger percentage of call center volume than billing issues. They also represent a huge financial drain on operators. A single support call, for example, can cost a provider roughly a month’s worth of customer profit. This means finding ways to effectively address device configuration and service provisioning is more crucial than ever.

Alcatel-Lucent has just released the latest version of its new Mobile Device Manager (MDM) to address this type of challenge, as part of its Motive Customer Experience Solutions package. MDM provides over-the-air detection, configuration and provisioning of a wide range of mobile devices including Apple and Android operating systems, and it works across 2G, 3G and 4G wireless networks.

David Stevenson, VP and General Manager of Motive Customer Experience Solutions at Alcatel-Lucent noted at the recent MDM introduction that, “With Alcatel-Lucent’s portfolio of Motive customer experience solutions – of which the Mobile Device Manager is a fundamental building block – we can reduce average handle times of service desk calls with at least 10 percent and increase successful software updates with a factor of 10.” He added: “This translates into less operational costs for mobile service providers, and happier and more loyal consumers.”

In addition to MDM, six other components make up the overall Motive Mobile Device Manager solution:

Motive Mobile Device Support Template

WDS Automatic Device Detection Manager
WDS Mobile Device Content Subscription
Motive Self-Service Console
Motive Service Management Platform, and Motive Customer Service Console

The Motive Mobile Device Support Template performs over-the-air diagnosis and resolution of mobile device service issues by using data from MDM, while the WDS Automatic Device Detection Manager lets mobile service providers detect and identify mobile devices when they appear on the network.

The Motive Customer Service Console is a robust customer care interface for customer service reps, and Motive Self-Service Console is a web-based subscriber-facing tool that lets customers self-diagnose and resolve mobile device issues. This is tied together with the Motive Service Management Platform, which is a service management platform that connects MDM, the self-service console and the customer-service console with the operator’s OSS/BSS framework.

Alcatel-Lucent also offers the WDS Mobile Device Content Subscription, which is a subscription service that “ensures access to up-to-date device configuration settings that have been tested against the Motive MDM server to effectively activate and manage the mobile devices on their network, accurately.

Time is money, particularly in the case of the efficient and effective management of customer interactions by mobile service provider contact center and technical support people. Ensuring that customer conversations are compelling as well as economical requires a combination of things including proper training, skills-based routing and ensuring that the right tools are used to measure those experiences so that data can be turned into knowledge and knowledge into actions that create value. Managing devices is a critical part of this equation which is why a comprehensive approach to device management such as the Motive portfolio is something that is already drawing industry attention.

Wi-Fi Roaming Takes the Stage --Get Ready for ANDSF and Hotspot 2.0 Capabilities

2012-07-02T19:39:43Z

Mae Kowalke

The next major cellular technology advancement is on its way. Here comes Wi-Fi roaming.

Cellular users often switch between 3G or 4G networks to Wi-Fi to access the internet, especially as cloud services continue to grow in importance. The switch from a cellular service to a Wi-Fi network is not always seamless, especially when it requires first finding a network and then getting through a login screen.

But a group of new cellular technologies, in particular the 3GPP Access Network Discovery and Selection Function (ANDSF) and Hotspot 2.0, will change that with what amounts to Wi-Fi roaming, according to a white paper, “Wi-Fi Roaming – Building on ANDSF and Hotspot2.0,” jointly produced by Alcatel-Lucent and BT.

A definition in terms is in order:

ANDSF is a cellular technology standard that allows an operator to provide a list of preferred access networks with policies for their use up to the granularity of a single IP address or all traffic for a given public data network.
Hotspot2.0 is a new Wi-Fi technology standard that allows devices to more easily discover Wi-Fi roaming relationships, determine access point capabilities and loading conditions, and more easily connect to Wi-Fi networks securely.

As the white paper notes, Hotspot 2.0 builds on the recently ratified IEEE 802.11u specification, and also incorporates the long ratified IEEE 802.11i based WPA2 Enterprise security specification, which enables secure authentication and encryption for Wi-Fi data using a variety of user credentials including (U)SIM, digital certificates and username/passwords.

“The combination of ANDSF and Hotspot2.0 is a particularly powerful enabler for a pain-free user experience across Wi-Fi and cellular networks,” Alcatel-Lucent and BT explained.

Mobile providers looking for the cellular technology already have an offering from Alcatel-Lucent with its lightRadio Wi-Fi, which has been available since February.

“LightRadio Wi-Fisimplifies this process by allowing people to switch automatically from a cellular service to residential or public Wi-Fi networks and hotspots without having to login, worry about payments schemes, or even be aware of the shift,” Alcatel-Lucent stated during its announcement of Wi-Fi going mobile. They added, “This is done in three ways by using software that identifies and connects people to a ‘trusted’ network automatically; by introducing new capabilities into service provider networks to manage the transition between Wi-Fi and cellular networks; and by integrating Wi-Fi directly into small-cell base stations and cellular networks.”

The cocktail of ANDSF and Hotspot2.0 in lightRadio Wi-Fi simplifies the cellular-to-WiFi experience with its introduction of Wi-Fi roaming, but it also scratches the itch of another user concern: security. With lightRadio Wi-Fi, the device always find the most ‘trusted’ network.

Ken Rehbehn, a principal analyst at Yankee Group said that, “Delivering secure, seamless access to Wi-Fi networks is a key requirement in the market right now…Alcatel-Lucent's lightRadio Wi-Fi provides operators with a comprehensive solution that smartly draws from the company's strengths in radio access technology and IP routing. The result is an offer that lets operators leverage existing network assets while delivering demanding smartphone users an outstanding customer experience.”

Imagine a time when you can get off a plane in a remote place, turn on your smartphone and be connected effortlessly to a Wi-Fi network that is supported by your home operator as an option to connecting to a cellular network and ringing up substantial roaming charges. Sounds pretty good! Better yet, it is likely going to be offered by the service provider of your choice and in the not too distant future.

The War Will be Won over Customer Experience

2012-07-02T19:14:49Z

By Mae Kowalke

The battle for the best mobile device portfolio steals the headlines with its flashy array of smartphone offerings. However, increasingly it appears that the war will be won by the mobile broadband operator who provides the best customer experience as enabled by overall quality of experience (QoE) on their network.

“To thrive in today’s competitive mobile broadband market, service providers must deliver superior QoE and enrich the customer experience,” noted Greg Owens, director of marketing for customer experience at Alcatel-Lucent, in a recent Enriching Communications article, “Customer Insights Improve Business Performance, stated that, “With growing pressure to reduce churn and increase revenues, service providers need to have a better understanding of how customers use their services.”

Churn and cost reduction are key drivers in the mobile broadband provider’s push for improved QoE. It costs U.S. service provider about $400 to acquire a mobile customer, and churn rates average between 30 and 50 percent, according to Owens. That means spending roughly $120-200 million each year to replace 300,000-500,000 customers for a provider with a million customers. With that kind of money on the table, one of the best ways to grow is clearly to find ways to reduce churn, and improving QoE is critical.

But what exactly is QoE? It can be difficult to define. The standard definition is network quality and performance, which do still count. That said, network quality is only part of the equation for mobile broadband providers seeking a more competitive QoE. It is not just about network metrics it is also about how customers actually experience the network.

That’s where increased analytics and services such as Alcatel-Lucent’s Motive Customer Experience Analytics (CXA), part of the company’s larger suite of Motive Customer Experience Solutions for mobile broadband providers, come into play.

The CXA solution helps strengthen the QoE and customer experience by enabling providers to extract real-time QoE data from many different sources, including network elements, customer relationship management tools and operations support systems; correlate, analyze and transform customer experience data into relevant business intelligence; generate actionable reports and dashboards from the data; and realize the full value of churn through making the data available to other system applications.

“Analytics can be used to identify a faulty cell where a large number of high value customers are located,” Owens said. “The engineering or network operations group can then put priority on the resolution of that network fault because it has a large financial impact. They can even take an additional step to message those customers impacted by that issue.”

He added: “Proactive support helps customers enjoy a better QoE while reducing their propensity to churn.”

Owens recommended three strategies mobile broadband operators should employ when seeking better QoE and customer experience.

Adopt a holistic approach: Use big data from across the company to gain a more complete understanding of customers and how they interact with the services and the network.

Break down internal barriers: As a corollary to the first point, a cultural change needs to take place where service providers eliminate the lack an ability or willingness for internal groups to share customer experience data across networks and organizational domains. The silos need to come down.

Develop a clear vision: Success can only be achieved if there is buy-in and direction from the executive level. The good news is that more and more service providers recognize this need and are putting senior executives in charge of customer experience programs.

At the end of the day, in a world where services are becoming more and more of a commodity, it is clear that to those who provide compelling experiences —how customers interact with services as well as service people and business processes and practices —win. It is equally clear that those who do not choose to make improved customer experiences a top priority do so at their own peril.

The Mobile Customer Experience Imperative

2012-06-25T15:57:10Z

By: Susan Campbell

Mobile service providers throughout the world are in an interesting competitive situation. The service provided is becoming a commodity by consumers. This means that true differentiation in this market going forward will be driven by customer experience transformations, such as those enabled by Alcatel-Lucent’s portfolio of Motive Customer Experience Solutions, as traditional approaches prove to be increasingly ineffective.

Market realities today are that consumers tend to avoid brand loyalty when considering services delivered and even price points when there is little differentiation. As a result, mobile service providers by competitive necessity must pay particular attention to establishing exceptional customer experiences if they hope to achieve business success. The focus must be on building trust with customers over time and increasing customer perceptions of the value of the customer experience, rather than leveraging services and products.

Alcatel-Lucent s recently shared its view on this in a piece entitled, “Customer Experience Transformation: The Mobile Customer Experience Imperative.” It highlights these market changes and what service providers need to be thinking about in order to be correctly positioned for success.

The situation is clear: potential new mobile subscriber rates are declining, consumer willingness to pay is changing, price points tend to vary little among dominate players and few advantages exist among different networks, devices or applications in terms of operator abilities to provide meaningful and sustainable differentiation.

With these challenges established, service providers cannot rely on traditional marketing strategies and tactics. The reasons are clear, new and more advanced handsets and advances in network capabilities no longer offer true points of differentiation, and complex offers are too difficult to understand and manage to be effective. At the same time, unique market positions have failed to emerge from the applications and services provided by third party developers.

But what does improving the customer experience entail? For starters it means having a comprehensive and deep understanding of:

The different key customer segments
Each customer touch point location and interaction opportunity
Perceptions of these touch points and interactions
The metrics behind customer transactional behavior
The ability to discern the overall value of the customer experience in the context of buying decisions.

What this translates into is that service providers hoping to dominate the market will need to implement a strategy of continuous improvement that is built on actions that are designed to deliver the improved customer experience all the way through the customer experience transformation.

As mentioned above, such a strategy needs the types of tools in Alcatel-Lucent’s Motive Customer Experience Solutions which enable service providers to use an extensive set of subscriber management data products. The goal of such solutions is to retrieve, integrate, consolidate, unify and provide access to key customer data.

In an era of big data, where business insights are gained from breaking down silos of information across operations so that multiple client applications can use the resulting data for actionable insights, the benefits are be substantial by providing:

Increased service personalization
Simplified customer interactions
Improved business relevance
Reduced development and integration costs for solutions and services

All of these leads to happier and more loyal customers, along with the reduction in costs resulting from business process automation, and ultimately increased profitability.

It might be possible given all of the financial constraints of today’s challenging competitive environment to focus time and attention on incremental approaches to improving what has worked in the past. However, reality is that the marketplace is dictating that it is imperative for service providers to use emerging solutions to get a handle on what will be the major way of increasing sustainable differentiated value in the future, and that is an intense attention to the transforming the way they deliver services and interact with customers.

With customer experience transformation now on service providers’ critical path to success, having the right and best information for using business intelligence to rapidly adapt to changing market conditions and exploit new opportunities to their fullest is key. This is not just about asking the right questions, it is about getting actionable information that enables companies to be both fast and best in the market.

Customer Experience Management Key to Mobile Services Differentiation

2012-06-03T22:41:46Z

By Susan Campbell

The mobile broadband services market has become almost hyper-competitive globally. And, it has become increasingly clear that providing superior quality of experience (QoE) to customers, end users as well as third parties, will likely be a (if not the most) critical element in creating sustainable and profitable differentiated value. As a result, mobile service provider investment attention needs to be focused not just on delivering speeds and feeds but also on all aspects of QoE. A holistic approach for concentration on customer care¸ such as the Alcatel-Lucent portfolio of Motive Customer Experience solutions, fits the needs for making sure the best possible user experiences can be provided, monitored and constantly improved.

Why customer care, and why a comprehensive approach?

The reason is that a holistic approach to customer care is a fundamental tool for reducing vital churn rates. The bottom line is the bottom line here. Service providers (SPs) have the opportunity to make better use of the subscriber and network data to help not only make customers more loyal but also improve average revenue per user (ARPU) based on establishing a relationship that customers view as more “trusted.” In fact, if done correctly, they can leverage the provisioning of compelling customer experiences into a powerful tool for making satisfied customers enthusiastic brand advocates.

All of the elements of a holistic approach to QoE and the benefits it is capable of providing are highlighted in a recent Alcatel-Lucent Enriching Communications article, Managing the Mobile Customer Experience.

Let’s face it. Customers today expect their mobile networks today to deliver a high-performance and secure always on/all ways connected experience to their legacy and new bit-hungry personal devices. Everywhere, every time access to rich multimedia services and advanced applications is table stakes.

This presents a huge challenge and opportunity of mobile service providers around the world. Did you know, for example, that smartphones now account for 27 percent of all phones throughout the world, according to VisionMobile. Projections are they will represent 75 percent in the near future and certainly the vast majority of new phone sales. Plus, the explosive tablet market is driving a revolution in interactive multimedia apps which all need to themselves provide end users quality experiences if they are to succeed. They in essence will live or die based on the ability of the networks they rely on to deliver what they promise.

Reality is that it is not enough to simply recognize the fact that traffic in general is exploding as more devices are attached to the global networks. The nature of that traffic is also radically changing. Multimedia apps, and the use of streamed and real-time interactive video, presents a rising storm of data that already is straining mobile networks capacity in many places as well as the signaling networks that enable them to manage the new complexity.

As the article points out this is the proof case for why SPs, especially in the face of strong competition, need to invest now in efficiently and effectively managing the customer experience with solutions like Motive in order to set themselves apart in a world that is changing very rapidly.

SPs offering mobility are currently struggling to find their place between over-the-top (OTT) providers and customers. As the industry grows and evolves, complexity is bring added to the mix with new operating systems, configurations and applications. As a result, complex technologies are being made available to inexperienced customers, increasing the challenge of delivering a satisfying experience at a reasonable cost.

Management of QoE means improving such things as: first call resolution, the provision of self-diagnostic and self-care solutions, the clarification of offered services and how they are billed, and the delivery of a consistent experience across every customer interaction.

In taking the holistic approach to the customer experience, can target their position in the value chain and reinforce it in the mind of the consumer. Leveraging a holistic approach to customer experience management helps in the process by extending QoE to every touch point throughout the entire customer experience.

At the end of the day, value creation and competitive sustainability are based on trust, and trust is engendered by improved relationships between buyers and sellers which can only be the result of how buyers experience and SPs people, products, services and processes. That is what a holistic approach to QoE management is all about. It is the path to growth and profits instead of to commoditization .

A New Conversation Experience: Alcatel-Lucent's 4G Consumer Communications Solution

2012-05-14T14:15:32Z

Beecher Tuttle

Subscriber demand for more innovative, bandwidth-hungry services has driven most every service provider to build a 4G LTE network capable of providing greater capacity, reduced latency and improved pricing. But to unlock the power of a 4G LTE investment – and to continue to deliver revenue-generating voice and messaging services – carriers must look to embrace Voice over LTE (VoLTE), a core component for a new set of rich media and collaboration services that also enables operators to deliver voice without having to rely on legacy 2G/3G networks.

In short, VoLTE helps service providers capitalize on their new 4G investments. VoLTE enables operators to offload legacy infrastructure and to deliver data simultaneously with crisp HD voice. By blending mobile voice with video, converged IP messaging, the web and social networking, service providers can create new revenue-generating communication services that differentiate them from competitors. The technology is also proven to harmonize conversations across disparate providers, devices and apps.

But perhaps more than anything, VoLTE provides operators with the flexibility to respond to ever-changing technologies, market conditions and user demands. The competitive freedoms of VoLTE allow operators to experiment with and deliver new communication features for broad markets and even strategic industries like mobile healthcare.

VoLTE also provides an avenue for operators to partner with application developers to deliver the best user experience at the lowest cost per bit, solidifying their position in the value chain.

"Regardless of where technology, regulation and competition take the industry in the coming years, VoLTE operators’ investment enables them to act decisively," say Alcatel-Lucent, a leading provider of VoLTE technologies.

Voice

In addition to providing a pathway for new converged services, VoLTE acts as a business necessity for delivering voice services via 4G networks, rather than continuing to deliver voice and messaging over legacy 2G/3G networks – an interim solution that doesn't take advantage of the power of LTE.

VoLTE is the long-term industry-designated solution for delivering voice and SMS messaging – two revenue-generating services that have stringent requirements that all-IP mobile networks can't meet.

Unlike temporary solutions such as circuit switched fallback (CSFB) and simultaneous voice and LTE (SV-LTE), which can't enable all-IP communication services like video calls or WebRTC, VoLTE tightly links the voice application to the LTE network, assuring the best subscriber experience in terms of performance, reliability, interoperability and global roaming.

With VoLTE, operators can provide new revenue-generating services such as video-communications and converged IP messaging while still delivering key mobile features like global roaming, global interoperability and a global ecosystem of smartphones and tablets, says Alcatel.

How does VoLTE optimize LTE investments?

Unlike 2G and 3G networks, VoLTE provides seamless IP connectivity between a subscriber’s devices and the Packet Data Networks (PDNs), resulting in improved spectral efficiency, higher bandwidth, reduced latency and Quality of Service (QoS) for new and legacy communication services.

The VoLTE application provides industry-leading reliability for conversational voice, real-time gaming, IMS signaling, and buffered and live streaming video. Other service differentiators include:

Graceful handover of in-progress voice calls from VoLTE (packet) to 2G/3G (circuit)
Emergency calling (for example, a subscriber’s call for help to police)
Intelligent Network (IN) service migration
Short message service (SMS) over IP
IMS centralized services

These features give application developers reason to partner with service providers and gain a share of their revenue. For more technical information on how VoLTE enables these functions, check out Alcatel Lucent's most recent addition to its white paper library, Voice Over LTE: The New Mobile Voice.

Path to VoLTE

Enablers like Alcatel-Lucent acknowledge that the path to VoLTE is a serious undertaking that relies heavily on the readiness of an operator's 4G LTE network as well as their competitive situation.

"The VoLTE operator must have purchased 4G LTE spectrum that covers critical markets, and they must have deployed or have a firm plan to deploy 4G LTE’s radios, mobile backhaul, packet core and so on," says Alcatel. "The VoLTE deployment is comparably small when compared to the rest of 4G LTE, yet it too must be done well in order to assure subscribers’ service and win their business."

Before deploying VoLTE, service providers must first consider:

IN Services: Operators must develop a plan to migrate their IN services from legacy networks to 4G infrastructures. For more information on this topic, check out the IN Services Migration white paper from Alcatel.
Consistent roaming: Without standards, business agreements and interconnections being finalized, operators need to employ an interim roaming strategy. The most optimum path available is the circuit switched copycat method, which relies on Local Breakout (LBO) to expeditiously route voice traffic.
Voice call continuity: The majority of operators use SR-VCC or eSR-VCC. Click on this Alcatel white paper for more information.
Device ecosystem: With the help of early VoLTE adopters, Alcatel-Lucent has been testing and preparing for the launch of VoLTE-capable devices.

The Alcatel-Lucent advantage

As described above, VoLTE deployments hold tremendous value for service providers that rely on 4G LTE infrastructures to drive their business into the future. But to take full advantage of VoLTE, operators must first analyze their current competitive situation and assess their technical assets to ensure an efficient and cost-effective deployment.

Service providers need a partner with the technical expertise to help them with a smooth execution, especially considering commercial VoLTE rollouts are only just beginning. Alcatel-Lucent and its 4G Consumer Communications solution have been at the heart of most every major VoLTE trial, assuring next-gen voice, video and messaging services with the highest level of performance, reliability and service interoperability.

The graphic below illustrates Alcatel-Lucent’s end-to-end approach to LTE.

Alcatel-Lucent's New Conversion Experience enables operators to deliver:

A better user experience: Mobile subscribers can enjoy video, voice and messaging using any combination of device, screen and network.

Connected communities: By harmonizing communications across telecom and web-based networks. Users can easily contact friends and family over social networks. And, through WebRTC, operators can extend their services to anyone with a web browser.

Open for innovation: The solution has easy to use, open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to attract application developers with additional features that inspire and accelerate new conversation services and collaboration.

Click here to learn more about Alcatel-Lucent's "New Conversion Experience." And, for additional information, check out the following Alcatel-Lucent white papers:

LTE Wireless Networks -- Time to Deploy

2012-05-07T18:20:17Z

By Mae Kowalke

Wireless operators and those who supply them infrastructure spend a lot of time focusing on the ‘data storm’ and what they are doing to stay one step ahead of it. The goal is to deliver more data, faster, with a better customer experience and greater economies of scale than in the past. Thanks to Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology, these goals are now within reach.

“According to the Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA), 4G LTE is the fastest developing mobile system technology ever,” said Maniam Palanivelu, director of global 4G LTE solutions marketing at Alcatel-Lucent, in an Enriching Communications article, “LTE: The Best Thing to Happen to Wireless Networks.”

Palanivelu cited GSA figures indicating there are now 49 commercial LTE networks in 29 countries, and that is forecasted to reach 119 networks in 53 countries by the end of 2012. Two hundred and eight-five operators in 93 countries are actively investing in LTE. In fact, the evolution toward 4G LTE is occurring in developing and developed markets alike.

“Operators in developing markets are using LTE to cost effectively bring the mobile Internet to areas that previously had no Internet access at all…In developed markets, premium data services, such as mobile video, gaming and business apps, need LTE’s big bandwidth and low latency,” Palanivelu explained.

For operators, the need to deliver more data is the driving force behind LTE adoption. Customers got a taste for data with 3G, and changed their behavior in response. With average consumption per device growing 14-20 fold, it is clear users want more data. They also are indicating they want it sooner rather than later. The advertising push by service providers on who has the best and/or most extensive 4GLTE deployment demonstrates how critical expeditiously deploying not just 4G LTE but also Wi-Fi hotspots has become. Make no mistake about the fact that operators are committing infrastructure dollars behind their marketing claims.

The cellular carriers have it right about the imperatives for acting, Palanivelu says, “Now is the time for operators to seize this opportunity and profit from the growing data storm,” and LTE clearly is the technology they need to meet exploding demand.

The article makes other compelling points about LTE that highlight its attraction. Delivering more data isn’t the only advantage. LTE also provides a graceful migration path to move to a scalable all-IP architecture.

“It no longer makes business or financial sense to run multiple disparate networks,” Palanivelu states. He continues that, “To deliver the massive capacity required to serve the demand, today’s networks must change. Unlike 3G, LTE is all IP. It’s based on IPv6 which supports massive numbers of additional IP addresses and provides other improvements over IPv4. And it opens up access to new market segments like machine-to-machine.”

Although return on investment for LTE varies for each operator the path forward is clear. Deployment is now no longer a question of if, but when, where, why and how. The proof cases are impressive.

“The faster operators can bring LTE to market, the faster they can rise above the data storm to grow profitably and drive new revenues,” Palanivelu concluded. “Once they have the spectrum, there’s no reason to wait another day to invest in LTE and commercialize its vast potential.” He could have added with a 4G iPhone on the way, and tablet sales creating a tsunami of demand for quality user experiences on devices of all shapes and sizes, failure to deploy LTE and correctly architect not just the network but the business model could be hazardous to one’s competitive health.

Building New Zealand's Ultra-Fast Broadband Network

2012-04-30T17:29:54Z

By Erin Harrison

New Zealand is on the brink of a new era in communications. Two major initiatives will significantly help improve the speed and capacity of the country’s high-speed broadband network, as outlined in a recent Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) white paper, “How New Zealand can increase the social & economic impacts of high-speed broadband.”

The Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) project and Rural Broadband Initiative (RBI) are set to improve the network speed and capacity available to nearly 98 percent of New Zealanders, based on a study conducted by Bell Labs, the research arm of Alcatel-Lucent. The goal is, as ALU likes to say about its broadband portfolio, “Get to Fast, Faster.”

The study explored the social and economic impacts for New Zealand of UFB and RBI, and the high-speed broadband applications that these networks will enable, ultimately showing the incremental growth in GDP stemming from the network builds will be $5.5 billion over 20 years, significantly larger than the government’s $1.5 billion capital contribution to these projects.

The study offers ideas on how New Zealand can positively impact three key variables, therefore increasing the economic benefits stemming from the UFB and RBI networks, and the broadband applications that will be delivered across them. The key variables are:

Availability of relevant applications
Speed of broadband application adoption
Total level of broadband application uptake

While video is one of the key drivers behind the surge, demands go beyond entertainment. Governments worldwide recognize the socio-economic benefits that broadband can bring, and have set targets for universal broadband, according to ALU, which provides high-capacity fiber, copper access and 4G LTE solutions aimed to help service providers, utility companies and governments accelerate delivery of ultra-fast broadband in the most cost-effective way possible.

In fact, Alcatel-Lucent has been in New Zealand since the 1920s, building and maintaining the country’s telecommunications infrastructure. Alcatel-Lucent says that ICT innovation can be a powerful catalyst for social and economic development.

Alcatel-Lucent’s ng Connect Program aims to bring together infrastructure, device, application and content companies to create an end-to-end ecosystem to rapidly develop new services and applications. The company launched the ng Connect Program in New Zealand in late 2011 to help local companies, universities and research institutions collaborate with global leaders on high-speed broadband applications, for use by New Zealand end-users and to generate export earnings.

Under the UFB and RBI initiatives, 75 percent of New Zealanders will have access to ultra-fast broadband. Schools, hospitals and 90 percent of businesses will be connected by 2015. In addition, residences and the remaining 10 percent of businesses will be connected by 2019.

Businesses with large employee bases can help accelerate application adoption and create a so-called bow-wave of high-speed broadband uptake by using UFB and RBI as the basis for large-scale teleworking initiatives. To drive this aggressive level of uptake, the CXOs of large organizations need to champion this massive-scale teleworking and communication effort in New Zealand.

Consumer Demand Drives LTE and Creates Wireless Carrier Success

2012-04-09T19:04:13Z

By Mae Kowalke

In the U.S., it is no secret that there is a substantial customer as well political interest in seeing that under-served areas have access to state-of-the art communications networks. In fact, it can be argued that the data needs of such critical parts of the economy as agriculture and oil and gas exploration are as intense if not more so than those of industries in densely populated areas. Plus, the desires and expectations of families in the areas are no less important than they are to families in other areas of the country.

What all of this translates into is that while fiber optics and WiFi have allowed most Americans broadband access vast parts of the U.S. have remained under-served for broadband. All of that is changing. As the major wired carriers continue to fiber their franchise areas and the national wireless carriers rush to deploy 4G LTE networks, WiFi hotspots, femtocells, etc. Alcatel-Lucent has been leveraging the capabilities of its lightRadio™ portfolio of solutions to help mobile operators who serve less populous areas provide high-seed services to their customers at price points and performance capabilities that enable customers to enjoy the advantages of next generation devices and all the Internet has to offer in terms of content and applications. And, it allows the operators to do so at competitive prices and at a profit.

“While many of these operators are hardly household names among consumers, don’t let that fool you – these carriers are squarely focused on the needs of their consumers, and are committed to providing them with the benefits (and speeds) that today’s 4G networks have to offer,” noted Sandy Motley, VP of Wireless Accounts at Alcatel-Lucent, on a blog from the recent Rural Cellular Association (RCA) Show in Orlando.

Competitive carriers face several unique challenges, different from national carriers: intense competition, wireless spectrum constraints and limited access to the newest devices consumers crave. That doesn’t stop them from continuing to innovate, though. “While this list of challenges might be daunting to some, competitive carriers are a hearty lot – they see opportunities where others see roadblocks – they have a fiercely loyal customer base and they truly value innovation, in every sense of the word,” Motley said.

This trend toward broadband access being a key to success of local mobile operators via 4G LTE was highlighted by regional wireless service providers Sprocket Wireless and Fuego Wireless.

Like other regional carriers customer demand and competition has pushed them to innovate to survive. This includes not just introducing new technology, but also new business models and new ways of collaborating with other carriers.

Sprocket Wireless and Alcatel-Lucent teamed up to develop fast broadband services for business and consumer customers in Eastern and Southeastern Oklahoma. The 4G LTE network they developed expanded mobile broadband access and availability of services like video calling throughout the region. “By working with Alcatel-Lucent to deploy a 4G LTE network in our service area in rural Oklahoma, we are able to meet the fast-growing demand for mobile broadband services,” explained V David Mill, President of Sprocket Wireless, stated in a recent press release announcing 4G LTE service from his company. He continued that, “These services will help to increase the efficiency of businesses in the region, and support a range of consumer services that have never been seen before in these areas.”

In New Mexico and Texas, Fuego Wireless (a Peñasco Valley Telecommunications brand) has been busy—in collaboration with Alcatel-Lucent—rolling out 4G LTE services to people in the region who have never had access to high-speed internet access before. This region encompasses expansive and diverse terrain, metro areas like Santa Fe and Las Cruces, and rural agricultural communities. They like to highlight that the deployment of 4G LTE brings services to consumers and businesses that have been a communications backwater because of inhospitable terrain and the high-cost of serving the sparse and widely dispersed population.

“Our residents often wait years for the best technology to finally arrive,” said Glenn Lovelace, Chief Executive Officer of PVT, stated in the announcement of Fuego’s rollout of 4G LTE. “Now we are on the leading edge, enabling the most advanced and fastest communications technology available anywhere. Working hand-in-hand with Alcatel-Lucent, PVT will deliver 4G LTE under our new brand Fuego Wireless, so that our customers in New Mexico and Texas can benefit from the same high speeds and quality services that customers enjoy in the largest cities in the world.”

It is interesting to not in both cases the emphasis each company has placed on how important 4G LTE access is to businesses in their respective regions. Fuego pointed out that, “For instance, 4G LTE is able to provide real-time video monitoring of remote locations which can be of great benefit to many industries operating in remote locations, such as the many oil and gas and agriculture companies across New Mexico.”

In both instances, ALU provided complete end-to-end 4G LTE solutions, using LTE base stations and its IP-based Evolved Packet Core, as well as project management, installation, integrations and maintenance services.

At the end of the day, as Motley emphasized, now is the time for competitive carriers to leverage 4G LTE to provide profitable services to customers that can meet most if not all of their broadband needs.

A Holistic Approach is Necessary for Quality Customer Experiences

2012-04-09T17:45:37Z

By Mae Kowalke

For the hotly competitive world of mobile communications service providers, it’s no longer enough simply to provide fast, reliable connections for a variety of devices at competitive rates.

A recent article in the Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) e-zine Enriching Communications titled, “Taking Care of the Customer Experience,” co-authored by ALU’s Ben Geller, Senior Director of Marketing and Oliver Krahn, Customer Experience Transformation Growth Program Leader, on this subject is worth a read. They explain how, “Service providers are learning that they cannot differentiate with devices, services or pricing.” This is clearly a dramatic change from the past.

If the old practices are not the optimal path to success it leads to an interesting question, what really does differentiate a service provider anymore? As you probably have guessed from the title of this blog and the ALU article, the answer is providing an outstanding customer experience based on a holistic approach.

Geller and Krahn believe a large part of creating such experiences involved making things easy. This means easy in the customer’s eyes. They believe there are four main elements to viewing an experience through the eyes of a customer:

Services and devices are simple to start using right away
Network connectivity is always available when it’s needed
Devices and applications work the way they’re supposed to
Problems will be quickly identified and resolved

At the end of the day, service providers are both the creators of the customer experience as well as the enablers for others. This puts significant pressure on them to consistently provide a good quality of experience (QoE) regardless of the type of customer, or their location and to do so according to their expectations, needs and contractual relationships. What it means is the ability to manage these anywhere customers and to use analytics to gain insights into how to constantly improve the (QoE) and their value to the service provider as can be done with ALU's Motive Customer Experience Solutions portfolio. This includes careful attention to the speed and quality of response when problems occur which is a priority for retaining customer loyalty.

The good news is that providers have many assets that support an outstanding customer experience. It’s just a matter of appropriately leveraging those assets.

As Geller and Krahn note, “They own robust, secure and scalable networks that can support an array of services…They have access to innovative devices with open platforms that support application innovation. In short, they have all the components required to deliver a market-leading customer experience.” Indeed, these tools include such things as the ability to optimize bandwidth without sacrificing performance through such capabilities as mobile smartloading, and giving third-parties and internal developers the ability to use open APIs to create new revenue-generating applications and services

The last item about open APIs is crucial for success going forward, especially when combined with the insights gained from leveraging the information generated by customer services management tools. As the authors explain, creative partnerships are important and making sure everybody in the ecosystem is in a position to ensure the end customer has a compelling experience is key. “Service providers with robust infrastructures, networks, billing systems and help desks can essentially become service providers to application and content providers (ACPs),” Geller and Krahn point out. “Collaboration with ACPs can drive innovation in the application space, generate new revenue and influence the customer experience.”

They also explain that part of making things easy for customers means recognizing there is no one-size-fits-all approach or procedure for delivering an outstanding customer experience. New thinking, new strategies and new priorities, applied in customized ways, are critical. They emphasize that, “Every service provider plots its own path to transformation, often starting with a desire to address a specific pain point or opportunity…The right starting point and goals are essential.”

Some strategies service providers are using for managing the customer experience include:

Multi-channel customer care: to ensure the same quality of information and experience across all channels (phone, web, e-mail, IM, etc.).
Analytics: to measure how likely customers are to recommend service to others.
Maximizing network capacity yield: shifting usage patterns and rewarding customers for using the network during off-peak periods.

As with so many aspects of accommodating the dynamics of a changing world where the pace of everything is speeding up, and challenges can arise from almost anywhere at any time, Geller and Krahn present a powerful case as to why a holistic approach to the creation, substance and growth of quality customer experiences rest on service providers knocking down their operationally silos and embracing a holistic approach that is QoE-centric.

It is difficult to argue with their conclusion that, “To compete in the long term, executives must find ways to align departments and ensure that every person in the service provider organization is focused on delivering the best possible customer experience.” What this means is according to them is, “Extending consistency, universality and intuitiveness across every customer contact channel including call centers, web portals, IVRs and retail stores.”

Finally, it should be noted that this idea of a holistic approach must be viewed in the context of understanding that creating an end-user (the front end of the value-chain) quality customer experience can be considered the output of creating quality customer experiences for the back-end as well. Holism means making business processes and practices, and the people who use them more efficient and effective by empowering them with information from across the enterprise. This is not theory. It is best practice.

LTE is Changing Public Transportation Operational Security

2012-03-25T19:32:38Z

By Erin Harrison

Long-term evolution (LTE) is driving many changes in the IT landscape, not the least of which is operational security in mass transit. Railway operators and law enforcement agencies are using a range of CCTV technologies in a variety of situations to improve public safety. Alcatel-Lucent’s TrackTalk e-zine is a great source for information and insights on what LTE can do for enabling a host of capabilities including significantly upgrading in a cost-effective manner video surveillance, IP camera monitoring and what the future of CCTV and surveillance will look like.

In a recent article that takes an expert view perspective, aptly titled, The Changing Face of Operational Security, Jeremy Haskey, Transportation System Integration Division, Alcatel-Lucent notes that, “The hype surrounding the development of LTE is justified…With greater capacity, it has the potential to revolutionize video surveillance by carrying live high-definition video to individual handheld devices carried by security personnel, staff in control centers or directly to the emergency services. The HD images will improve zoom quality making grainy images associated with current CCTV applications a thing of the past.”

Optimization of railway operational security includes design as a major consideration for the effective application of large CCTV networks as well as selecting the right technology from the range of CCTV equipment available to optimize the return on investment. Indeed, once such a system is in place, inevitably all of this information has to go somewhere to be managed and responded to in an effective manner. Multiple voice communications systems, including passenger communications points and security stations also need to be coordinated.

Alcatel-Lucent’s Integrated Communication Management System (ICMS), for example, acts as the facilitator of this information, also providing operators with the tools to respond to a specific incident. It is part of the company’s overall view on providing railway operators with a comprehensive video protection solution such as the one it is providing with France’s RATP to the Paris Metro system.

“With no single standard available for all emergency services’ and transport operators’ communication equipment, these systems are often not compatible with each other,” says Haskey. The ICMS can decode the information from the various communication and security surveillance systems that are in place, providing integrated communication paths between the different organizations.

To summarize, while LTE technology is still in its initial stages of development, as it evolves, it is imminent that LTE will become the platform that the next generation of security can be built on and developed by the technological community. For more information you may wish to check out the latest issue of TrackTalk which not only has valuable insights but links to many useful resources.

The Five "Ps" for Service Provider M2M Success: Prioritize, Placement, Participate, Partners and Persona

2012-03-25T19:14:04Z

By Erin Harrison

The burgeoning of machine-to-machine (M2M) applications in our increasingly connected world — partly characterized as consisting of an “Internet of Things” — has made telecommunication companies look to diversify their M2M offerings beyond what can easily become ones based primarily on commoditized connectivity.

A recent Alcatel-Lucent Enriching Communications article, “The 5-Ps of M2M Key to Service Provider Success,” describes the five “P’s” as:

Prioritize opportunities
Properly place their teams
Participate knowledgeably in the supply chain
Partner effectively
Establish a credible persona

They are based on findings of research firm Analysys Mason’s recently published, “M2M Communication Service Provider Scorecard: 2011.”

The potential for the success of M2M for service providers is evidenced also in work done by Frost & Sullivan. They say M2M connectivity revenue in Europe, which was 3 percent in 2010 and 4.2 percent in 2011 of M2M revenues, will grow significantly to more than 20 percent by 2017 as the monetization of M2M data drives the aggressive growth in the forecast.

Prioritize Opportunities

Careful prioritization of these opportunities will yield healthy, profitable businesses, according to Analysys Mason. The emphasis is on the word careful because some of the highest revenue-generating M2M applications can generate low profitability for service providers. Hence, prioritizing which sectors to move into based on profitability is critical. This is particularly true given that by 2020 there will be 2.1 billion network-aware devices with 90 percent connected via wireless networks. However, prioritizing which sectors to get involved in and measuring profitability will not be an easy task.

Proper Placement

The most successful service providers have overall M2M organizations of 50-100 employees with centralized staff for R&D, partnership management and product marketing, according to Analysys Mason. Certain resources will need to be centralized including R&D, partnership management and OSS/BSS support, but variances among organizations means they need to consider, for example, where the technical pre- and post-sales resources should be placed and what the size or headcount of each M2M functional areas should be.

Participation

Based on the Scorecard, there are three ways for service providers to participate in the M2M supply chain, which include: co-selling a partner’s solutions; selling/reselling a service provider’s own solutions; and acquiring solutions

Alcatel-Lucent believe service providers should partner to provide M2M hardware (modems/modules and equipment) and they should sell or resell their own connectivity, platform and integration services.

Partnerships

Due to the enormous number of opportunities in the market, no one single service provider has all of the resources and tools to offer an end-to-end M2M service. Therefore, partners are necessary as service providers develop their M2M market approach, according to Alcatel-Lucent.

Carefully selecting the right partners – rather than having the biggest number of partners – is critical in developing a profitable M2M business. To select the ideal partners, service providers need to consider their options to include geography, market sector and M2M application.

Persona

The fifth “P,” persona, could be the most important consideration for service providers looking to implement a successful M2M product for their business. Associating your company as an M2M provider is critical to market success.

Analysys Mason recommends a two-pronged approach to developing a service provider’s persona. Service providers first need to develop a strategy to determine where they will participate in the M2M value chain, which will help them create their M2M persona and build brand awareness with potential buyers and partners.

Knowing who you are – understanding perceptions and realities

In addition, service providers need to engage in market research to understand existing market perceptions of their M2M persona. As Alcatel-Lucent points out, “service providers that do not create a strong M2M persona may be overlooked in favor of a systems integrator (SI), other IT channel partner or an IT vendor.”

Taking Public Safety to the Next Level with Video Surveillance Using 4G LTE Wireless Broadband

2012-03-19T18:12:33Z

By Mae Kowalke

Situational awareness is the perception of what is happening in one’s vicinity and understanding how information, events and actions will impact outcomes immediately and in the future. For public safety officials, situational awareness is achieved both through direct observations and through information conveyed by technology, often voice communications.

Voice communications is so ubiquitous in public safety, in fact, that one might think it’s the only means by which situational information is conveyed.

In a LifeTalk article, “Video is the Game Changer for Public Safety,” Philippe Agard, Vice President of Business Development at Alcatel-Lucent’s public safety division states that, “With the emphasis on voice radio, it’s easy to forget that voice is only one medium we use to communicate with one another, and not even the primary channel in face-to-face communications.” He adds that, “Most experts will tell you that a relatively small portion of our message comes through in words, the remainder transmitted by tone, inflection, volume and body language.”

Voice communications is so ubiquitous for public safety because, until recently, it was the fastest and most reliable way to convey information to and from the field. Widespread deployment of 4G LTE wireless broadband networks is changing the game. These networks make it possible for public safety organizations to enrich their communications through tools like Alcatel-Lucent’s Striker vehicle communications system, featuring push-to-talk radio integrated with high definition video surveillance for a variety of devices including iPads and notebook computers.

“Data from health-monitoring devices in the Striker vehicle could be transferred through the cloud to a doctor’s office or hospital,” Agard explains. “Using a secure LTE broadband base station in the vehicle, it also serves personnel when traveling in an area without cellular connectivity.”

The video surveillance component of Striker and other next-generation communications systems is perhaps the most transformative for public safety as can be seen in all of the resources available in the recent issue of LifeTalk. No longer are officials limited to communicating via a car radio. And, in fact, to keep pace with the way citizens are using wireless technology, officials must add more capabilities to their own arsenal to keep pace.

“Extended protests and demonstrations such as the current Occupy Wall Street movements in many U.S. cities are not the disorganized crowds of years past,” Agard says. “These groups employ scouts equipped with smartphones and social networks like Twitter and Google Maps to keep tabs on law enforcement units and each other.”

Freeing public safety officials from the limitations of vehicle radios, and adding the richness of video, means it’s possible to stay ahead of crowds, enhancing safety for everyone involved.

Using video surveillance as part of public safety communications, as in the Striker system, employs LTE wireless broadband to make sure everyone is seeing the same picture. This changes the game from ‘what-you-see-is-what-you-get’ to ‘what-I-see-is-what-you-see.’

Systems like Striker, designed specifically for public safety, are made more powerful by integrating consumer devices into the network.

“Smartphones and tablet computers can display the same maps, photographs or blueprints simultaneously to all the users on the network,” says Agard. He amplified this stating that, “When a Police chief says, ‘I need somebody here,’ he can point to a place and drop a pin on a Google Map, everyone will see the same thing without a doubt.”

Access to video, in other words, changes the entire fabric of incident management. It changes how people in the field respond to nearby events, and how remote commanders make decisions about deploying officers. Virtual briefings can be held anytime.

Alcatel-Lucent is working with public safety officials in the U.S. and elsewhere to deploy communications systems that include video. An expanded demonstration project in São Paulo, Brazil, is already having great success.

“With a 20-30 MB/sec LTE connection to a first responder, there is a tremendous opportunity to rapidly communicate a considerable amount of visual information like pictures and surveillance footage to improve their safety and situational awareness,” Agard summarized, describing how São Paulo’s Polícia Militar is using the technology.

The São Paulo system uses an application called First Responder Video to stream video in and out of police cars, over an LTE wireless broadband network. This provides a dynamic, real time user interface on first responders’ laptops, smartphones and tablets.

Portable assets like the Striker vehicle can be used to create a temporary wireless broadband network in cases where permanent LTE installations aren’t yet available.

Increasingly, LTE wireless broadband networks are taking public safety to the next level, and will become even more widespread before long. “LTE is the new generation technology to increase responsiveness everywhere and enhance safety for everyone,” Agard concludes. Enriched communications and broader coverage via a cost-effective solution is the reason, and public safety officials around the world are taking notice.