IN THIS ISSUE
Hi, eNews readers!
In this issue I would like to introduce Gary Kim, editor in chief of IP Business
Magazine, as our new front man for eNews. In each issue, Gary will be contributing
his reflections on the state of the industry to enhance the eNews publication.
Gary has worked closely with Metaswitch for a number of years now and is helping
us develop our online community via eNews & Facebook. That being said, I will
continue to oversee newsletter operations and invite your emails on topics of interest,
feedback and anything else for that matter! I hope you like the change and will
join me in welcoming Gary to eNews.
Cory Boller
By Gary Kim
Editor in Chief, IP Business Magazine
Most of us think that wireless substitution is a big deal. But the problem might
not be as big as some think, says Patrick Monaghan, Yankee Group senior analyst.
"We find that switched access telephony in the United States has decreased
by 17 million lines from 2005 to 2008 and is expected to continue to lose another
10 million by 2011, but wired voice lines overall have only dropped two percent
year-over-year from 2005 to 2008."
Competition is a very real issue. But wireless substitution is not the bigger part
of the line loss picture, Monaghan argues. The issue is less "cord cutting"
and more "switching". That’s a provocative notion, as it suggests line
loss erosion primarily is a matter of competitive pricing, rather than wireless
substitution.
There are other contributors, to be sure. Some second lines have been disconnected
as users switched from dial-up Internet access to broadband. And some lines have
been abandoned in favor of mobile services. About 15 percent of respondents to a
recent Yankee Group survey reported that they no longer have wireline phone service.
But it is market shares to cable providers that represents the big driver of ILEC
line loss, Monaghan says. Introductory triple play offers that essentially give
away, or deeply discount the phone service, have proven attractive. Up to a point,
it still is going to make sense for most telcos to suffer through some line loss
rather than drop prices across the board. "Letting your competitors take some share"
still makes business sense.
Nor is it clear that that will change. A rational observer would still argue that
telcos will continue to provide a majority of consumer lines in the U.S. market
in the future (the situation in Europe is different). Whatever technology underpins
those lines, it might remain the case that lost share is a lesser evil than across-the-board
price matching. At least up to a point.
There is sound thinking behind the tactic of "merchandising" video to
protect margins on voice, as there is logic for a cable operator to merchandise
voice to preserve video margin. Maybe more thinking needs to be done about ways
to create VoIP services that likewise can be merchandised to protect legacy voice
lines as well. Does anybody have ideas on that score?
Contact Gary Kim at
Gary Kim, Editor In Chief, IP Business Magazine
There is a perceptible shift in the telecom industry's focus away from cost reduction
to business model transformation and revenue growth, say Stuart McIntosh and Ekow
Nelson of the IBM Institute for Business Value.
Where in 2002, 34 percent of telecom providers said business model transformation
was a source of value, 69 percent of polled telecom industry executives in 2007
said it would be the primary driver of value in the industry going forward. Not
so long ago, the top issues were challenges such as revenue growth, operating expense
reduction, capital expense reduction and even debt loads. Now, an overwhelming majority
of polled telecom executives (72 percent) say business model transformation requires
extensive collaboration with external partners. That is a stunning change for an
industry that historically has had a "not invented here" approach to innovations.
Read more about Business Model Transformation Now
The migration to next-generation IP networks has been a gradual one, as carriers
have balanced new service deployment with the reality that the IP world lacked comprehensive
and cost-effective quality management systems and standards. This has been especially
true of voice quality management, with adoption of VoIP moving rapidly ahead of
efforts to diagnose problems.
VoIP actually has emerged as a popular service at a time when the very meaning and
markers of voice quality are fluctuating. The great success of wireless services
is believed by many people to have created an environment in which something less
than the extreme reliability and high quality of voice calls on the landline network
is acceptable. If that is true, VoIP thus far probably has both benefited from that
notion and helped strengthen it.
But when VoIP is delivered over a wireline connection - typically a broadband service
with multi-Megabit per second bandwidth - shouldn't users have a right to expect
traditional wireline-like quality from VoIP services? And shouldn't carriers be
able to deliver that level of quality on a consistent basis?
Download the Voice Quality Management
in a VoIP environment whitepaper to learn more.
Business Voice And Beyond: How Bresnan Communications Utilized The Metaswitch Platform
To Enter The Commercial Voice Business
Bresnan is the nation's thirteenth largest MSO, serving over 320,000 customers in
Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, and Utah, including nearly 7,000 data and telephone
business customers. Bresnan had been very successful providing both residential
and business video and data services and had recently begun selling residential
voice services.
Bresnan saw its next opportunity in providing voice service to the business community.
This meant selecting a next-generation switching and applications platform that
would simultaneously be transport and access agnostic. In addition, due to the rigorous
terrain of the region and distributed nature of their subscriber base, Bresnan needed
a solution that provided Emergency Stand Alone functionality to ensure business
voice service would remain operational in the event of transport outages.
After a process of extensive research and RFPs, Bresnan selected Metaswitch as its
strategic platform for converged voice services to business customers. As a result
of this selection, Bresnan Communications was able to rapidly enter the business
voice market with a flexible and extremely reliable platform.
Read more about Bresnan Communications
and how they entered the commercial voice business (PDF - 525KB)
Learn how Metaswitch can give your network an energy boost by visiting us at NXTcomm
in Las Vegas, June 17-19, Booth #SU6726. And don't miss out on our NXTcomm speakers:
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Topic: |
An SDP for the Telco 2.0 World |
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Speaker: |
Martin Taylor, VP of Product Management and Technology Strategy |
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Date / Time: |
Tuesday, June 17, 4:00pm - 5:15pm |
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Topic: |
UC, The Service Provider Business Model |
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Speaker: |
John Lazar, President and COO |
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Date / Time: |
Wednesday, June 18, 1:45pm - 2:30pm |
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Topic: |
Building a New NGN Network on IMS Foundations |
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Speaker: |
Martin Taylor, VP of Product Management and Technology Strategy |
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Date / Time: |
Thursday, June 19, 12:10pm - 12:55pm |