The traditional telecommunications provider in the last decade has had to change a lot about their business model and strategy to stay afloat in the broader marketplace. If they wanted to pull past the competition, they had to pay attention to consumer demand and focus on innovation while delivering optimal support. For many, it was too much to bear and they no longer compete in this space.
Others are bringing value to the digital ecosystem by enabling digital workstyle services. One such provider is Allot Communications (News - Alert), a software company that has successfully adapted its telecom business to current trends since its founding in 1996. In a recent Billing World post, Allot’s Jonathan Gordon, VP of Marketing, shared his insight on the company’s evolution and how it is making its mark in the mobile operator ecosystem.
One core strategy Allot has embraced is that of the chameleon. While it stays essentially the same animal, it changes its look to blend with the times and meet the growing demand in the marketplace. Its core technology is deep packet inspection (DPI), key to performance management to determine the type of traffic traversing the network.
In the early days, Allot served primarily the wireline industry. As such, shaping traffic was the core focus. With the arrival of the iPhone (News - Alert), however, the industry changed. Mobile operators were lacking in their knowledge about data and excited about revenue from MMS and SMS. At the same time, a number of networks were only operating at just 2 percent capacity. Users were paying for everything from wallpaper to ringtones and the idea of getting anything for free was a foreign concept.
Much has changed in the broader marketplace and the goal today is for Allot Communications to help operators to monetize or capitalize on the traffic they have across their networks. To do so, they help operators dive deep into the network to see if one particular cell is congested, how it may be impacting subscribers or other traffic and where on the network the impact is being felt.
So what does this have to do with supporting digital workstyle services? Allot Communications has used its DPI engine to analyze the digital lifestyle with an annual study on trends in mobile. From this process, the company came up with five distinct profiles of the digital lifestyle: Info Seeker, Info Guzzler, Social Monitor, Social Mingler, and Digital Mover & Shaker. The mobile operator hoping to succeed in this market will have to match subscribers to a particular digital lifestyle.
Therein lies the key to optimizing the opportunities in the mobile space. Providers need to understand the user, their wants and likes, the way they use mobile and the direction they’re going in the future. Digital workstyle services do this in tandem with changing trends, anticipating the next shift so opportunities aren’t lost in the process.
Edited by Rory J. Thompson