Scaling the Garden Wall

By Mike McHugh

Beyond reducing expenses, SPs are aiming to carve a niche themselves by offering value-added services through IMS — all in the quest of driving higher revenues and higher Average Revenue per User (ARPU). The real question is as follows: How can SPs make money from IMS and IMS-based services while protecting their traditional markets?

It is well understood that mobile service providers in particular have been sensitive to the loss of revenues, and thus favored a “walled garden” approach. However, such a model is no longer sustainable. Instead, SPs are dropping tIMS and IMS-based services continue to gain traction among service provider (SPs). The IMS architecture provides a compelling solution that allows them to quickly meet growing customer expectations for rich, innovative, and highly-personalized services across any IP network and location while reducing capital and operating expenses.hose walls and reinventing themselves, adding value to transactions in a variety of ways to help both themselves and their business partners. Only by adding new value will SPs continue to grow revenue and profits.

IMS has a unique ability to open up the value chain while simultaneously allowing the SPs to retain control of their subscribers. By transforming its network into a platform capable of delivering highly-personalized services, they will no longer be merely a provider of network access and a small range of technology-specific services. Successful Communications Service Providers (CSPs) will become trust and security providers, aggregators of content, integrators of the subscriber’s increasingly rich and varied communications options, and reliable managers of the end-to-end communications fabric that underlies an always-on and on-demand communications capability.

However, SPs have their work cut out for them to achieve this reality. There has been such an intense focus on the anticipated rewards of IMS, like transaction monetization, that the realities of implementing IMS are only beginning to set in. Industry focus is finally shifting to delivering innovative applications that will use the NGN as a foundation to create and drive new services that attract subscribers, driving up ARPU.

But who’s in the driver’s seat? It is not entirely clear if SPs see themselves as the main driver of new services or a channel partner for third-party service providers. Historically, new services development has not been a large or consistent part of the CSP’s core business. So some big questions remain:

· Where will the new applications come from?

· Where are service providers in developing the business models, processes, and the enterprise infrastructure that are needed to get   third-party providers on-board?

· Where are CSPs in the process of ramping up their ability to do in-house development and rapid roll-out of new services?

Currently SPs see infrastructure vendors, along with professional services and consulting groups, as one of their primary sources for new applications. However, this is a relatively small community that needs to be expanded to drive true innovation. As that group expands, this will enable OSS/BSS technology providers to play a larger role in the delivery of IMS-enabled applications. By creating an abstraction layer between applications and networks, SPs are better enabled to use any commercial software firm and OSS/BSS technology provider that can write mainstream Java-based software to deliver new services — all through a service development model including both a rich J2EE and SIP Servlet-based platform and an easy-to-use, secure Web services exposure and integration layer. The requirement for an abstraction layer enables SPs to make internal network capabilities and system resources broadly available to OSS/BSS technology providers and application developers. “How can service providers make
money from IMS and
IMS-based services
while protecting their traditional markets?” At the same time, it is paramount for them to be able to protect its infrastructure from third parties in a secure and controlled manner. Having a platform that abstracts and simplifies access to the SP’s infrastructure attracts developers since the effort to develop, deploy, maintain and operate their applications is minimized. This enables them to have full control and protection of their network. The end result is reduced time to market for new services, lower cost of development, and higher revenue per subscriber. As discussed, IMS technology transforms a service provider network into a platform capable of delivering highly personalized multimedia services that blend voice, text, video and content seamlessly while providing a rich, yet simple user experience. However, in the end, SPs must look to their subscribers to answer the question of how to make money. We know that the consumer actually wants an integrated experience — one identity, one mailbox, one source to access all the applications and services they need. Consumers want common applications, which is why GoogleTalk Blackberry and GoogleTalk PC, for example, are such a powerful pair. But do they want these applications all from one provider? Only if it’s better, cheaper, and faster than what they can get separately.

Mike McHugh is vice president and general manager, BEA WebLogic Communications Platform, at BEA Systems (news - alert). For more information, please visit the company online at www.bea.com.

[Return To The Table Of Contents ]