By Ken Lee and Liam Maxwell

In a world of growing competition and declining voice revenues, communications service providers (CSPs) are continually looking for ways to increase revenue. Further, as services proliferate and converge, the line between the traditional telecommunications industry and Web-based/Web 2.0 services is becoming increasingly blurred. To drive innovation and grow revenue, CSPs are looking to “blend” Web-based applications — from simple Web portals to advanced social networking tools with Web 2.0 features – with telecommunications network services, such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), messaging, location, presence, and conferencing.

These blended applications, which enable converged Web-telecom services, allow CSPs to unlock the differentiating capabilities in their telecom networks – such as messaging, presence, location, and call control – to offer unique services that help them compete for subscriber mindshare and share-of-wallet against other CSPs, broadband operators, and Internet service providers (such as Google, Yahoo, and Facebook), as well as drive new business models.

Today, social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, and other Web 2.0 services boast advanced Web features and high user rates, but do not have the telecom capabilities required to integrate features like click-to-call, presence, instant messaging, location, conferencing, or mobile messaging. It is precisely in this space that CSPs have a real opportunity to showcase their unique value to the Web world. For example, CSPs can blend social networks and online portal communities with telecom capabilities, such as the ability for online community members to send SMS messages, find each other’s locations, view presence information, or initiate calls to various devices. CSPs can allow users to access these services on their PC, their mobile phone, their television, or even the dashboard of their car.

Service Exposure Platform Approach

Today, many CSPs have launched service delivery platforms (SDPs) to roll out new telecom services. However, most SDPs are lacking an SEP, which allows the provider to actually open up its networks to third parties to benefit from the innovation of millions of Web developers and bring those rich capabilities into their networks to increase revenue and drive customer loyalty. Most SDPs that do have a SEP lack the ability to offer converged services, because they only support telecom services. Therefore, a SEP that combines industry standards and protocols from both the Web world and the telecom world will enable CSPs to deliver blended applications.