A Single Killer App? Not in Today’s Personalized World

By Hunt Norment

So service providers take heed: rather than scour the sands for buried treasure (in the form of a singThe proliferation of voice, video,
data and wireless products on the
market today speaks to an equally wide range of consumer desires. What is “killer” to Dick and Jane might best be described as deadly boring to John and Susie. Thus, the entire premise of the killer app is rooted in the personal. With that being said, we might accept that the term “killer app” should be used in an all-encompassing manner, describing a platform that spawns personalized, killer apps for each individual.le, targeted killer app), you should plan to launch 40-50 applications that appeal to smaller demographics. By acknowledging that one platform can’t please everyone and by targeting smaller groups, service providers can garner a wide range of monetary and vocal support.The individual applications no doubt will be of high value to the consumers they serve, since the apps are personalized just to them, and consequently should boost up-sells and lower customer attrition.

Acknowledging and Overcoming Technical Challenges

The technically-minded will immediately see the downsides, though, in this ostensibly perfect scenario. In fact, launching 40-50 stove-piped applications would be incalculably expensive and would pose insurmountable obstacles.That is, with a multitude of stovepiped applications — each existing in its own vacuum — interoperability, flexibility and productivity would be severely limited.What’s more, each application would require a stamp of approval from the IT and network operations staff, stating that said program would not crash the network or otherwise interfere with existing operations. Such a process is both time-consuming and costly, and when it comes to service success or failure, it can unfavorably tip the scales.

Enter the IP Multimedia Subsystem (News - Alert) (IMS) specification and the traditional Service Delivery Platform (SDP), both of which effectively rid the service infrastructure of stove pipes. IMS, once a concept reserved for the 3G mobile network domain, now is an integral enabler of fixed-mobile convergence and of growing importance to wireline networks. By decoupling applications from the underlying network structure, IMS makes it much more cost-effective to develop applications that can

traverse many types of networks and devices.Additionally, IMS allows service providers and operators to use different underlying architectures, facilitates the deployment of IP-based services and is access independent — all qualities that point to its linkage with a killer platform. (See figure below)

Similarly, adoption of an SDP infrastructure in the architecture aids in the creation and deployment of converged multimedia services. By providing an IT integration layer between IMS and non-IMS environments, SDPs allow service providers to roll out advanced services in today’s hybrid (TDM and IP) networks and seamlessly transition them as they evolve to IMS. Combining the SDP with IMS provides a secure, high-level system that integrates with IMS without compromising back-office systems.
Furthermore, SDPs decouple applications from the business support system (BSS) and operation support system (OSS), making it infinitely more cost-effective to bind applications with existing billing, provisioning and trouble ticketing systems.

Although IMS and SDPs may be key components in popular, experience-oriented platforms, the somewhat disheartening reality is that the cost of deploying them is high, and the time-frame is long.These systems typically are deployed as piece parts, interworking with legacy equipment, over a period that spans at least several years. In fact, it is likely that the mass deployment of IMS will take years, or possibly decades, to accomplish, and that a satisfactory ROI will not be realized until project completion. However, a converged service delivery platform — one that supports all telephony environments, works with legacy equipment and is IMS-compatible — more than adequately resolves these. issues.Most importantly, such a platform would enable the successful and seamless deployment of technology’s newest treasure: blended applications.

Personalized Killer Apps: Focus on Blending Services

Until now, triple- and quad-play providers have been engaged in a price war that’s headed toward extinction — vying for customers via lowered (and lowest) prices. In technology’s version of survival of the fittest, however, telcos and cable providers will thrive in the future by offering cross-platform and blended applications, tailored to the desires of consumers. But launching services tied to a specific device is tantamount to flushing time and money down the toilet.What’s worse, it puts service providers back at square one in their quest for technology’s “Holy Grail.” Instead, service providers should focus on developing and marketing applications that tie together the myriad of basic services / devices they have already sold to their subscribers: video (TV), voice (telephone), wireless (mobile phone) and broadband (PC).

Gone are the days when these were disparate services.And gone are the days when services shared only one commonality: appearance on the same monthly bill.Thanks to converged service platforms, like the Integra5 C-SDP, these services now can interact and interoperate with one another.Nowadays, we see two prominent classes of popular blended services: blended communications services and blended multimedia services.

Blended communications services unite the communications experience across each part of the quad play. Consumers can enjoy freedom and personalization — choosing which in-home device they would like calls and messages routed to.With an architecture that can support delivery to millions of subscribers and also can support the coordination and delivery of real-time signals within and across voice, video and data networks, all of the following are possible:

• Caller ID sent to telephones, televisions and computers: These services, already available to consumers, have gotten rave reviews. Subscribers can even personalize their address book to include Picture Caller ID.

• Real-time call disposition: This encompasses the ability to route incoming calls from a mobile phone to a landline phone in real time.

• Message waiting indication sent to phones,TVs or computers: Voicemail and email alerts can be sent to a variety of in-home devices, and subscribers can listen to or respond to their messages from those same devices.

• Click-to-call from televisions and PCs: After listening to a voice mail, subscribers can use their television remotes or their PCs to initiate a call from each respective device.This feature has even more potential in the advertising realm — for example, after viewing a pizza commercial, consumers could click the remote control, which would immediately call to order a mouthwatering pepperoni supreme.

• SMS from mobile phones to televisions and PCs: Users can view and respond to Short Messaging Service (SMS) text messages to discuss, for example, their favorite program (especially appealing to teenagers!). And blended communications services across devices quite naturally open up the possibility for the creation of blended multimedia services. Exciting applications on the horizon include:

• Photo sharing to all devices: Baby’s first steps can be viewed and immortalized on consumers’ phones, PCs and/or big screen LCDs.

• MMS to televisions and PCs: With Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), consumers can play and display the sound, images and/or video messages they receive.

• Channel telescoping: In the event of threatening weather, customers could click on a weather alert and be re-directed to their local weather channel. Instantaneously, they’d know whether they need to take immediate cover.

• VoD telescoping: Consumers can receive priority score alerts for their favorite football team. . . no matter what game they are watching. If they want to see a video clip of the score, they can click the remote and watch the highlight stream from the provider’s Video on Demand (VoD) server.

In Conclusion. . .

The benefits — both to users and to service providers — of blending services and applications are overwhelming and compelling. In fact, offering converged applications is a great catalyst for the “stickiness factor,”motivating consumers to stay and pay. . . and even to subscribe to additional services. Because blended services drive up-selling across individual quad play offerings, a key metric to evaluating success will become revenue generating units (RGUs) per subscriber. The lifetime value of individual subscribers increases exponentially, and customer churn — seen so often in today’s triple- and quad-play price war — becomes a far less concerning issue.Thus, with a potentially “killer” converged service delivery platform also comes a business model that is poised to make a killing.

In short, the safest approach to new service development is to target a wide variety of consumers with a wide array of personalized options — starting with the distribution of existing services such as caller ID and picture sharing across devices. By giving consumers the power to personalize and select their content and to divert it to the device of their choice, they in turn will respond with loyalty. With a converged service delivery platform that works with legacy equipment and is IMS compatible, service providers can begin seamlessly rolling out varied, personal and killer apps today. So the hunt for the one killer app — technology’s buried treasure — stops here, and X marks the spot over blended, cross-platform applications.

Hunt Norment is Vice President, Marketing & Business Development, Integra5, Inc. For more information, visit the company online at www.integra5.com.