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symbiosis between content services and bit-carrying. It seems logical. One reason is that, especially for real-time services, the network must “know” what is being carried to deliver QoS to the high standards that customers expect. The other reason is that customers have a long-term relationship with their CSPs; they trust them and look to them for all the services that cross the threshold. However this natural pairing is not so natural, and not necessary.
The first assumption is, in fact, somewhat valid. For real-time services using today’s technology, delivery of QoS implies a type of prioritization that requires the network to know about the different types of services it is carrying, and that implies that only the operator of the network gets full QoS management. But perhaps this is only true because CSPs never conceived of the Internet as being a common carrier network that could reliably deliver the services of a proliferation of third-party service providers. Nevertheless, many real-time and close-to-real-time third-part services, including voice, video, and media streaming, can be delivered very well using a combination of today’s Internet, reasonable-sized access pipes, and smart edge technology. How much better would it be if the bit-carriers designed it for that purpose in the first place? (This has to be the topic for a further article.)
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The business model to adopt and adapt is surely the credit card system, not the telecom billing machine. |
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customers, too. They have no hesitation in signing up for services, providing their credit card details, and happily consuming their selected service.
Which brings us back to SDPs. Why spend millions of dollars on systems to orchestrate subscription management, billing, and complex revenue settlement when the credit card companies have been doing it quite well for a very long time and show little interest in changing their business models? There may have been (and perhaps still is) an opportunity for the telecom industry to be the channel for a plethora of customer payments and transactions, but the business model to adopt and adapt is surely the credit card system, not the telecom billing machine. And the technology that will support it is not an intelligent network linked to a complex and expensive billing system, but a smart hand-held device with wide-area plus near-field capability. (Another article due on this.)
Being a great CSP is still a noble calling, and a profitable one too. Staying profitable will
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The second point is even more suspect. Even recently, we have heard CSPs claiming that they somehow have a special place in the hearts of their customers. Their customers trust them. The reality is that most customers are perfectly happy to buy services from whoever is selling what they’re looking for. Sure, some customers may be more comfortable buying from a large, stable, and reliable brand than from some relatively unknown upstart, but there are lots of large, stable, and reliable brands that are not CSPs. Companies like Amazon, Google, Barnes and Noble, Microsoft, Disney, NBC Universal and many, many more are well known by
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require making intelligent choices. Not just (as always) choices about network technology, OSS/BSS applications, robust operations, but also underpinning it all with the right business organization and business models, enabling innovation and creativity. Investing in SDPs should be considered an interim measure for some CSPs while they get their real next generation networks on line and develop pragmatic business models, relationships, and ways of doing business that reflect the reality of the new generation of consumers and businesses they have to serve.
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