Heavy Reading White Paper
by Graham Finnie
In the tumultuous service environment now being created by the ever-faster transition to all-broadband, all-IP networks, a radical reworking of telco network & service platforms is essential if conventional telcos are to remain at the heart of the service value chain.
Telcos face a “permanent revolution” in two senses.
• First, the revolutionary changes wrought by the Internet, IP, the Web, broadband, smart devices and app stores are here to stay, and the service environment will never revert back to the former situation in which telcos closely controlled it.
• Second, continual rapid and unpredictable change in the application and services environment is the new reality—and network operators must adapt to it, or become increasingly irrelevant to end users
This report examines the new and emerging service environment. While operators increasingly recognize the need to focus on service packaging and enablement (rather than simply building efficient and cost-effective networks), they must also accept that service creation is largely in the hands of third parties. As a result, knowledge of the future service environment is highly imperfect—and this must be the starting point for selecting the new platforms that are needed to deliver those services.
The paper looks at the technology implications, which center on flexibility, speed and openness: the service revolution requires a telco network and service infrastructure very different from that of the past. The report examines new opportunities opened up by this kind of approach (e.g. M2M), and offers key recommendations on next-generation platform purchasing.