By
Phil Britt
Cloud developments were a focus of many telecom providers during the past month and are likely to be a major focus for some time to come. As telecom providers look to cloud services as a source of necessary and largely untapped business, there are several revenue opportunities, according to Karl Whitelock, senior consulting analyst for Stratecast, a division of Frost & Sullivan.
“Cloud offers a lot of interesting possibilities,” Whitelock said. “There could be a huge impact on billing. Service providers could bill for different times of day and could impose different usage limits. They could charge a higher rate for providing high availability.”
Online storage could provide another cloud-based revenue stream for telecom providers, Whitelock said.
New Cloud Initiatives
Numerous telecom companies are coming out with cloud-based services or are working to advance services unveiled earlier.
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Numerous telecom companies are coming out with cloud-based services or are working to advance services unveiled earlier. |
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Netformx, which provides telecom design and proposal generation platforms is working with Salesforce.com to help communications service providers (CSPs) improve the efficiency and profitability of selling, deploying and fulfilling complex, dynamic network solutions, such as MPLS and unified communications, to enterprise customers.
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NTT Communications, the international and long distance service arm of NTT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation), in June began jointly field-testing a network-based PC desktop environment on a cloud platform that NTT Com expects to launch within the current fiscal year, ending next March of 2011 The test is planned to last until August. The envisioned cloud platform is named Setten, the Japanese word for "contact point" or "interface." Fifteen organizations, including logistics companies, educational institutes, non-profit organizations and other global operators, are jointly testing the platform as an alternative to conventional PC-embedded desktop environments. The aim is to provide a globally accessible, network-based desktop environment for greater efficiency, convenience and system availability.
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The catalyst project will explore how CSPs can create more accurate and orderable sales quotes by integrating sales management and Operations Support Systems (OSS) to improve data sharing and version control management, while automating end-to-end processes throughout the Order-to-Cash lifecycle. Netformx will provide DesignXpert, an integrated desktop platform for discovery, design, configuration, quoting and proposing of integrated communications network solutions. Salesforce.com will provide its enterprise cloud computing platform for application development, Force.com, and its cloud computing applications for sales, customer service and collaboration.
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