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By Eileen
Haggerty, NetScout Systems
Introduction
We see it everywhere - people are surfing
the web on their laptops over lattes
in coffee shops and participating
in web-based demos over business
lunches in restaurants; doctors
and nurses are using advanced PDA
devices in hospitals and clinics
to review patient EKGs and drug
interactions; airports are filled
with travelers using their mobile
phones and BlackBerries for talking,
sending photos, or checking emails;
and the virtual office is really
here with employees on computers
in home offices participating in
live video conferences with their
corporate headquarters. These are
just a few examples of how individual
subscribers, enterprise businesses,
and government agencies are all
driving demand for XoIP services.
Be it personal interest, recreational
/ entertainment pursuits, or strictly
business, the opportunity for capturing
revenue with the growth in demand
for IP-based services is increasing
steadily. However, the opportunity
brings with it challenges never
before encountered when it comes
to a quality end-user experience.
Opportunities and Challenges
The opportunity for service providers
is to offer competitively designed and
priced services to capture subscribers,
network access, and IP service delivery
for as many of these uses as possible.
Once upon a time, it was easy to identify
the different operators for different
services, such as fixed wire voice,
fixed wire data, cable, and mobile services.
Today, the lines have blurred due to
mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships,
new business models like VNOs, as well
as newly developed and deployed network
architectures like IMS. Any provider
interested in sustained growth must
embrace this chance to attract new customers
by offering combinations of these services.
The challenge faced by these providers
is subscribers’ expectations –
that is they expect a high-quality service
experience regardless of the access
method or which service is in play.
Think about your own personal experiences
with IP-based services over the last
five years – would you say your
tolerance for the quality of delivery
for your cellular phone service has
evolved over time? Perhaps five years
ago you tolerated a slow dial-up connection
from home for accessing personal email,
but today do you become frustrated if
you have slow internet access over your
broadband or if your WiFi connection
at Starbucks keeps dropping? This change
in expected QoE levels has created an
even greater challenge for providers
now wanting to deliver XoIP services
across any number of fixed line broadband,
wireless, cable, and/or metro Ethernet
access methods. As operators move into
each of these new areas of IP service
delivery, they will face what wireless
providers contend with
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Be
it personal interest, recreational
/ entertainment pursuits, or strictly
business, the opportunity for capturing
revenue with the growth in demand
for IP-based services is increasing
steadily. |
|
daily -- subscriber loyalty,
or lack thereof, and the subsequent
ever-present threat of customer
churn.
Service Assurance
The answer to avoiding churn
is to maintain the balance
between service mix, price,
and customer experience. The
IP revolution has certainly
brightened the future for service
mix flexibility, and price
is driven by market conditions.
The greatest remaining challenge
lies in understanding and managing
service quality and customer
experience. New strategies
for customer-centric service
assurance are required to address
this formidable challenge.
Regardless of the access technology
deployed, providers must be
able to monitor, track, and
trend network and service performance.
You’ve probably heard the
adage “you can’t manage
what you can’t measure,”
and in the case of IP, being able
to measure starts with establishing
direct visibility into the IP
service delivery fabric to understand
the activity and behavior of each
customer’s service usage.
Further, that visibility needs
to be available in real-time
so that customer care inquiries
can be addressed without delay
and, better yet, service-affecting
issues can be anticipated and
corrected before subscribers
start complaining. Device management
and signaling management have
a long-standing history in service
provider networks, however the
actual service flows of subscriber
activity are not revealed with
either of these tool sets. Monitoring
and analysis of the metrics and
KPIs, subscriber service flows
and conversations, including
easy access to the packet streams
that comprise the services delivered,
is the missing link.
Performance monitoring solutions
that leverage packet inspection
technology are available and
deliver real-time operational
intelligence spanning from high
level application and conversation
flow information all the way
down to a reservoir of the actual
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