Mobile

The Quality Imperative - From Carrier Ethernet to VoIP and IPTV

Brix Networks — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:50:25 GMT

Pulver Media has just created a new Web 2.0 community called PulvermediaCommunity that is designed to bring the company and people who are involved in Pulver events together to discuss the future of the industry. Carl Ford created this community on the social networking platform ning (www.ning.com).

On the site, Carl started a discussion called "Is Ethernet our only landline future" which asks:

With so many home and enterprise networks adopting WiFi, is it logical to expect that the future interface to fixed line network will be Ethernet?

In the discussion, he references a presentation from the Fall VON given by Charlie Baker, Director of Product Management at Brix Networks that goes over the need for quality of service (QoS) to be implemented from the Ethernet core all the way through to advanced applications such as VoIP and IPTV.

The presentation is available on the site, but you'll need to register. But don't worry... registration doesn't start a flood of spam messages to your email inbox. And, there's some great information about assuring services from the core all the way down to the individual user.

Wireless Carriers Getting Out of the Network Business

Brix Networks — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 15:44:44 GMT

During the recent Fall VON show in Boston, I was asked an interesting question while serving as a panelist on one of the panel discussions: "If you can help monitor the quality of a network, what advice do you have on building a high-quality network?"

I thought of various ways to answer the question, and then I had a mini-revelation (at least for me):

Wireless network operators are actually getting out of the network business as their services evolve.

Peering aside, the outsourcing arrangements for long-haul transport -- Ethernet, microwave, or other -- are just the beginning. The real innovations are coming from the wireless carriers of the world as their services evolve and they realize that profits come from service differentiation and not providing the network.

Wireless backhaul over Ethernet is all the rage, as wireless operators switch mobile traffic from their TDM backhaul networks to Ethernet networks. This switch involves replacing the T1 lines they are currently using to connect the Mobile Switching Centers (MSCs) to their cell towers. This switch to backhaul Ethernet delivers lower operating costs and the ability to quickly and easily add bandwidth on-demand for their revenue generating applications, like mobile video, mobile data, and VoIP. By getting out of the network business, wireless operators are truly concentrating on their network core and the radio connections needed to deliver next-gen services.

Want further proof? Think about the recent picocell/wi-fi announcements from Sprint and T-Mobile. The T-Mobile HotSpot @Home service takes full advantage of wi-fi service whenever possible: your mobile phone will switch to your home broadband connection, a T-Mobile hotspot in a Starbucks, or any open hotspot. And Sprint's AIRAVE service takes a slightly different path, automatically connecting your mobile phone to the Sprint mobile service using your home broadband connection without switching the phone to the wi-fi network.

What does this mean for the consumer? It means that a lot of these customers will be tempted to ditch their landline phones and have a single phone number via their mobile carrier. If their phones switch to their home broadband connection, the quality increases immensely over having to get their service from a distant cell tower. For example, I have trouble at home connecting to my Sprint service, but the AIRAVE service will allow me to have reliable access to my mobile service at home.

For the mobile operators, however, this essentially removes the "controlled" world of Carrier Ethernet from the equation and introduces the wild and wooly Internet into the mix. Now, mobile carriers cannot enforce a Service Level Agreement (SLA) with the backhaul provider because they are not paying for backhaul services. Customers can connect to their mobile provider on any type of broadband connection, which means that customers will complain about voice quality to their mobile operator when, in reality, the operator doesn't have complete control of the quality of the connection. It's a good thing we've been trained to expect lower quality mobile phone calls these days because mobile operators will be at the mercy of broadband home network providers.

In addition, the wi-max deployments in the last mile will bring even further confusion to the mobile service equation, as not all mobile operators will be managing wi-max deployments in their network. Some will outsource the entire wi-max operation and some will connect their wi-max extensions to their Ethernet backhaul connections and finally to an MPLS core. This combination of network layers introduces a number of complexities and interdependencies that increase the risk factors for delivering a quality user experience.

In the end, wireless carriers are choosing to lose control of their network infrastructure to save on capital costs, and are now looking for creative ways to validate and troubleshoot their next-generation revenue services. Deploying additional layers of software and hardware, or rolling trucks to manage this environment, is highly impractical and cost-prohibitive. In response, operators and equipment vendors are developing new standards to measure and troubleshoot across these network domains and quickly trying to adapt to an unpredictable environment for mission-critical applications.

Deploying end-to-end converged service solutions at strategic points throughout their network that can provide visibility of core transport, backhaul transport, and access availability is the best way to retain customers who have switched from their landlines to next-generation mobile services that take advantage of the cost savings of wireless Ethernet backhaul.

Charlie Baker
Director, Product Management
Brix Networks

IPTV Will Require Creative Marketing

Brix Networks — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 14:36:06 GMT

IPTV brings a host of benefits to service providers, including another competitive service offering to add their converged service bundles. However, uptake for IPTV services in the United States has been slower than expected.

So, IPTV service providers are starting to get creative. There is a post on the Daily IPTV blog by David Cotriss titled, "Ice Cream Trucks, Freebies and... IPTV?" that discusses the innovative ways that IPTV service providers are trying to get the word out about their offerings. Here's an excerpt from the blog posting about local guerrilla marketing using an ice cream truck:

“Because Verizon's and AT&T's services are still available in very limited areas, they're focusing on locally-targeted advertising and promotion,” said Len Feldman, director of IPTV analysis at Multimedia Research Group, Inc. “For example, in Connecticut, AT&T is using an ice cream truck that's equipped with a large flat-panel display to introduce U-Verse to potential customers.”

This is an example of innovative word of mouth at work. This gem comes via a story in the New England-based Hartford Courant, which explains that the truck circles “Little League fields, train stations and suburban cul-de-sacs” showing U-verse programming. AT&T is also using wine and cheese parties and movie nights, among other methods, to lure customers where service is available. There’s no indication of how effective these methods are so far.

This type of localized marketing can create a grass roots momentum shift for IPTV service providers, as customers in these communities see local involvement and a willingness to participate in the community. In fact, sometimes the community will get involved if there is a local champion:

The most outrageous example, however, comes by way of the “Bobby Choice” campaign, in which a Norwalk, Connecticut man is using the fictional name Bobby Choice to campaign against Cablevision’s monopoly in the city, hoping to give residents more choice of cable providers. His web site, www.bobbychoice.com, documents his activities as he embarks on the campaign. He has the backing of AT&T, and the campaign is aimed at generating buzz about U-verse. While it’s unclear whether the campaign will extend beyond Norwalk, the man “Bobby Choice” received a year’s free subscription to U-verse as part of the campaign, and is now holding a fictional contest to award five other residents the same prize.

Part of the reason that IPTV providers are using these innovative tactics is the uphill battle they are waging against incumbent cable providers. Digital cable quality is excellent, and subscribers are happy with their service.

One way that IPTV can start to compete is offering bundles of converged services, which include IPTV as well as voice, data, and mobile services. When bundled at a very competitive price, consumers are more willing to try new services in order to save money and simplify their billing.

But in order to survive and retain new subscribers, these bundled services need to be solid - i.e. provide a quality customer experience. And, they all need to deliver at the quality level of existing services. The IPTV service needs to be at the same quality as existing digital cable, or customers will leave, often taking all of their service dollars with them.

Converged service assurance is now essential to competing for triple play and quad play dollars in an increasingly disruptive market. When all of the elements of a successful converged service offering deliver a quality user experience, customers are happy and continue to subscribe month after month.

Service Quality and the Telcos: Why Good Enough Isn't Good Enough

Brix Networks — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 14:52:46 GMT

Dr. Matthew Lucas posted this editorial in the July issue of Billing World and OSS Today magazine. The editorial gives Dr. Lucas' thoughts on service quality and why telcos must go beyond the "good enough" mentality that pervades Web 2.0 applications. In this editorial, Dr. Lucas gives his Top 10 reasons why compromising quality is a bad idea for telcos rolling out new IP-based services.

Here is a summary of the Top 10 reasons:

Service providers aren’t Web 2.0 companies - Most Web 2.0 companies make money from advertising - telcos require paying customers.
New service adoption - Customers are willing to give a new service one or two chances, but three strikes and you're out.
Margins collapse - Support calls cost $6 - $22 per call and truck rolls average $200, killing already tight margins.
Productivity applications will fail - Productivity applications - email, web access, etc. - that are not integrated properly will fail and cause a poor customer experience.
Entertainment services will fail - Unless telcos manage the rollout of entertainment services properly - with good quality - these services will fail.
IPTV will fail - Television service is extremely sensitive to quality, and IPTV requires a service quality framework before rollout or customers will leave.
Churn - The lower the quality of a service, the higher the churn.
Confidence erosion - Poor quality erodes confidence in not only the new service, but your entire brand.
Quality commands a premium - Companies that can deliver quality (like Apple) can demand a premium price for their products and services.
Political capital -Politicians trust telcos, but rolling out services with poor quality will cause politicians to lose confidence in the telcos.

Dr. Lucas concludes his editorial with this:

There is no question that telcos have to get more aggressive rolling out a broad spectrum of new service, and do so at a lower cost and very quickly. That is what IMS and SDPs are all about, and one reason why OSS/BSSs are so important.

In my opinion, though, innovation and speed should not come at the expense of quality. We should not aspire to become a dot.com industry where companies come and go looking for the short buck. If anything, the telecom service provider community should be putting service quality first and investing in quality user experience in every possible way—network, care, billing, applications, devices and services.

Here at Brix Networks, we couldn't agree more with Dr. Lucas. Over the past 12 months, activities around IPTV and mobile services has taken a leap from trial deployments to staged roll-outs to thousands of paying customers. And as the competition increases, service quality will be the deciding factor in retaining customers and selling bundled services over the long term.

To get Dr. Lucas' full explanation for his Top 10 reasons telcos need to roll out new services with quality from the beginning, visit the article on the Billing World and OSS Today web site.

Mobile Phone Quality… It’s Not Just the Handset

Brix Networks — Tue, 29 May 2007 20:57:39 GMT

As someone who needs to stay on top of the service assurance market, I need to keep up with the latest news. As I cruise the major news sites, somewhere between the story of a bear vs moose tangle and the latest American Idol update, I came across a commentary about the quality of mobile phones from Sascha Segan at PC Magazine.

The article focuses on the sound quality of mobile phones as perceived by the user and takes the angle that the phone itself is to blame. I'll come at the problem from a little different perspective - it takes a lot more than a high quality handset to make a high quality phone call.

Making a phone call is not as easy as it used to be. The old days of direct connections between two people on a pair of wires and always-available service are being replaced by IP-routed backhaul and service interruptions during power outages (check out the latest Verizon commercials about how reliable the old phone network is).

To further complicate the matter, we are untethering our devices from the network and relying on over the air radio transmissions to carry time-sensitive voice traffic. Add to that the ability to
untether the microphone and speaker from the device via bluetooth, bandwidth competition from email and data downloads, and multiple hand-offs between network elements like routers, switches and gateways, and you have a lot of places in the transaction where voice quality can be degraded.

What is a network operator to do? Well, they are promoting quality based on the percent of dropped calls, network reliability and the speed of the network. One network operator is even publicizing the ability to kick the tires for 30 days. But, at the end of the day, all of the network operators are all looking to provide the highest quality experience to a customer, no matter how that customer is accessing the network.

A lot of work is going on in the background to migrate infrastructure to higher bandwidth and higher speed connections to the base stations, create and enforce service level agreements (SLAs) between network providers and network peers, and subjectively measure the customer experience across the network.

Of course, voice is the most time-sensitive traffic carried across the network, and now there are a wide range of services being added to the mix. Comcast and Sprint recently announced Pivot, a new service that links your Sprint mobile phone to your Comcast digital services, such as high-speed Internet and mobile TV. And more converged services like these will continue to tax the bandwidth that network operators currently offer. How these high bandwidth services directly affect the quality of voice is yet to be seen, but a significant investment is being made to architect a network that can handle converged services simultaneously.

In the end, the network operators who take quality seriously (as well as customer satisfaction) are starting to roll out converged service assurance solutions for voice that address the user’s quality of experience two different ways - actively sending traffic between network segments to isolate disruptions before they affect the user's perceived voice quality, and passively assessing voice traffic across the network to discover quality trends before the problems become widespread.

The combination of active and passive testing provides a host of benefits, not the least of which include reduced truck rolls and tighter SLA enforcement. Right now, not everyone is confident enough to drop their landline completely, but with great service assurance coverage, that day is rapidly approaching.

Charlie Baker
Director, Product Management
Brix Networks

New CompTIA Convergence+ Certification Now Available

Brix Networks — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 14:53:50 GMT

CompTIA (the Computing Technology Industry Association) has released its newest certification, CompTIA Convergence+, which, according to their press release, "is designed to help information technology (IT) and communications professionals expand their skills beyond data-only or voice-only capabilities so they are qualified to support and maintain the new methods of communicating made possible by convergence technology solutions."

According to CompTIA and other industry sources, organizations of all sizes are aggressively deploying converged IP services in order to take advantage of the benefits. Here are some highlights from the press release:

Nearly one-third of the more than 350 small and medium-sized businesses surveyed last fall said they intend to buy new phone systems or make significant new investment in their current phone systems in the next 12 months.
(Source: CompTIA)
The VoIP market for small and medium-sized businesses is expected to reach US $1 billion-plus by 2009.
(Source: Yankee Group)
The total market value for services using VoIP is forecast to grow almost 10-fold in revenue terms over the next five years.
(Source: Juniper Research)
By 2012, there are projected to be 267 million residential VoIP subscribers worldwide.
(Source: ABI Research)
The number of IT and telephony workers around the world will exceed 20 million by 2008.
(Source: U.S. Department of Labor)

This is another clear indication that converged services have reached a tipping point where mainstream adoption - both among service providers and in enterprises - is speeding along at a rapid pace. My question: Will they discuss how to ensure a quality user experience during this certification?

Caveman VoIP

Brix Networks — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 15:26:40 GMT

Garrett Smith, from the Smith On VoIP blog, made an interesting post on the need to simplify VoIP product offerings to gain mass consumer acceptance. The general consumer market for telephony services are looking for one thing - a solution that lets them make a simple phone call. They don't need all the fancy bells and whistles that a lot of VoIP service providers are including with their offerings.

According to Smith, the one thing that consumers are looking for is "Caveman VoIP:"

That is right. Caveman VoIP. Caveman VoIP is simple. Get rid of all the fancy features and functionality, the cool softphone, video and text messanging, the USB VoIP Mouse, everything. Do not offer anything above and beyond what traditional telco’s offer. With Caveman VoIP, you can do one thing - make a phone call.

As a proponent of service assurance, I would add one thing - the ability to make a phone call with traditional PSTN quality. Users will flock to the savings that VoIP services offer when reliability becomes a non issue.

Make sure you check out Garrett's blog at www.smithonvoip.com.

Swisscom Gobbles Up FastWeb

Brix Networks — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 19:53:00 GMT

BusinessWeek reported yesterday that Fastweb, an Italian Internet service provider, has accepted a $4.88 billion takeover bid from Swisscom, Switzerland's state-controlled telecom operator. Fastweb, which has it's own fiber optic network and more than one million customers, is Italy's second-largest fixed-line phone operator and a leader in broadband and entertainment services.

With the acquisition, Swisscom not only gets an entry into the Italian market to expand beyond the borders of Switzerland, but they also have the opportunity to acquire some of Fastweb's expertise in rolling out "triple play" services to the Swiss market. Swisscom has been steadily losing fixed-line customers in Switzerland, and next-generation services such as broadband and video may help increase revenues and draw back customers for bundled services.

For the complete story from BusinessWeek, visit their website.

What is Converged Service Assurance?

Brix Networks — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 21:29:29 GMT

The promise of voice, video, data, and wireless service convergence is finally here and, as a result, service quality matters now more than ever. By improving the efficiency of the delivery of these next-generation, IP-based services, convergence continues to enhance the way the world communicates, interacts, conducts business, and entertains.

In order to deliver these converged services, carriers, cable operators, and content providers are moving to an all-IP and Ethernet world to take advantage of economies of scale and the benefits of IP-based convergence: operational savings, integrated applications, and exciting new services unavailable from the siloed service platforms of the past. Together with the emergence of new service frameworks, such as IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), these bundled offerings are driving fierce competition between all service providers as they strive to meet the demands of quality-savvy consumers and demanding business clients.

However, the addition of these new, interactive applications -- VoIP, IPTV, click-to-talk, interactive gaming, etc. -- creates significant QoS risks based on increased infrastructure complexity and network demands. And because of the competitive nature of the marketplace, if a provider cannot consistently deliver quality services, it will lose customers to another provider who promises and, more importantly, delivers service quality.

Converged Service Assurance solutions uniquely combine active (on-demand) testing and passive (live) monitoring of IP-based services and infrastructures to allow service providers, network operators, and large enterprises to offer their users reliable, high-quality voice, video, data, and mobile services. And, these converged service assurance tools deliver the network visibility required to transition from proprietary, legacy, back-office tools to next-generation, open, and standards-based solutions.

In essence, converged service assurance is focused on delivering quality of experience for today's demanding end users. With an end-to-end converged service assurance solution, carriers, service providers, and large enterprises gain a competitive advantage in delivering next-generation "triple play" services and new mobile service offerings.