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Advanced Carrier Services: Taking Communications to the Customer

By Susan J. Campbell, TMCnet Contributing Editor

Traditional voice telephony providers are facing very real threats from wireless and Over the Top Providers. Consumers today want rich content and bandwidth draining applications to get the full mobile experience on their smartphone, tablet, handset or any other portable device. As this demand continues, providers need to get on board to be able to deliver the solutions consumers want if they hope to stay relevant and profitable.

In a recent presentation in New York City, Al Cook, Product Marketing, Metaswitch Networks, highlighted that this threat is very real. Users value mobility and flexibility and are demanding a common set of features integrated across the many devices they rely on throughout the day. Everything they access should be available through every device they use to access it.

As smartphones continue to proliferate throughout the global market and bigger wireless broadband pipes are needed to keep up with the consumer trends and demands, cable companies and telco service providers have the opportunity to inject their brand into these end-points with a variety of capabilities that customers actually want and that can drive revenue for the providers.

The emerging capability that is key to driving relevance in this market is the Communications Client as it puts the “you” in UC (Unified Communications (News - Alert)). The Communications Client provides a common interface and set of capabilities across devices, networks and end-points that will integrate IM, Presence, Address book capabilities and more.

There is no denying that we are now in the digital age and consumers use a full range of digital products, including a PC, phone, smartphone, TV, mobile devices, tablet computers, etc. Voice providers have to bring the services TO the customer on whatever device they are using. A failure to do so eliminates the company’s relevance in the marketplace.

As a provider of advanced carrier systems and software solutions powering the migration of communication networks to open, packet-based architectures, Metaswitch is helping hundreds of network operators to develop reliable, scalable session control, media gateway and application/feature server solutions that will enable compelling revenue-generating services.
Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMCnet and has also written for eastbiz.com. To read more of Susan’s articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Stefanie Mosca