Next Generation Messaging:

Faced with globalization, a shifting marketplace, and regulatory and competitive pressures, todays telecommunication carriers must continually differentiate products and services to increase the average revenue per user (ARPU) and actual margin per user (AMPU), all while improving customer retention rates. Next generation messaging (NGM) services offer carriers an opportunity to dramatically differentiate themselves from competitors and to target offerings toward specific market sectors. However, as traditional voice mail systems evolve into IP-based next generation messaging systems, carriers also experience a tremendous amount of digital data growth that must be managed and stored for customers. As a result, carriers will need to dramatically enhance their information management and storage technology to support the systems capabilities while improving the efficiency of customer-facing business activities, such as billing and customer service.

Trends Towards Next Generation Messaging
The next generation messaging evolution will assimilate all other message types to enable users to send a compound message without really knowing or caring about the capabilities of the recipient. So, when one user sends a message to another, the message will be groomed by the network so it can be delivered to a device irrespective of the client type. The network may also be able to add value elements, such as predictions based on past behaviors, current location, or even link to calendar sensitive issues, such as travel schedules or holidays. In that scenario, the network is pivotal in making decisions concerning format delivery, timing, and all other message parameters. In other words, the network continues to add value.

However, this presents some challenges. The growing trend of implementing IP-based communication at the core of the network will affect functions and operations at the edge of the network. Consequently, all message format and presentation could be handled on a peer-to-peer thick-client basis, ultimately eroding the need for network-based components and gateways. In addition, the advent of the IP network breaks down boundaries between what is mobile and what is fixed line.

The carrier then has to manage the transition towards convergence while still adding value above and beyond the capabilities of a client-based communications service.

The ability of the network, particularly the mobile network, to add presence, location, and preference information, while offering a guaranteed storage location for sensitive and valued data, should be central in the network-centric value proposition.

NGM and Content Storage
In addition to evolving messaging technologies, telecom operators will require other technology enhancements to drive revenue. The explosive growth of customer digital media in the form of photos and music files will be a potential area of revenue generation, both as a value-added service, as well as with additional bandwidth utilization.

For instance, offering online photo albums and music facilities requires back-up and storage as well as other capabilities such as sharing, printing, jukebox, and more. It is unlikely that NGM content stores and my photo, my music, and my video will exist in isolation. Rather, a customer receiving a complex message may well elect to store components of the message in different ways, moving a photo to the online album, for example. Similarly, the online stores will offer the user a rich choice of data to compose and enhance their messages.

Challenges
Todays IP-based voice mail systems typically plan for one to ten MB per user. This is a function of the volume and relatively transient nature of the data with a typical voice mail being held for three days. However, a trend towards rich data will result in both an increase in data volumes and likely, an increase in the duration for which messages are held. Future messaging systems will typically have a requirement of 10100MB per user. However, as noted above, adding the online photo/music/video store to the environment could well drive storage requirements to the multi-GB level. This will likely increase memory capabilities of the network storage devices used to access the messaging system.

While the ability to handle data volume alone is important in the storage layer, the input/output performance of the system is also a critical factor. This can be seen in the requirements for todays voice mail systems. Clearly, as the volume of data increases, this factor becomes even more important, particularly when the real-time nature of messaging is considered.