Dr. Hossein Eslambolchi
January 2012
Cell phone penetration — the factor that generates cash for voice service providers — is asymptotically approaching its limits. Service providers should consider how to adjust their business and product models in order to better monetize their networks and services.
I’d like to share a few thoughts about the future of networks that will help service providers continue to generate revenue through 2012 and beyond.
Here are just a few ideas for CxOs to consider:
- Personalize promotions. One size does not fit all in our congested wireless world.
- Issue day pass roaming service for business travelers. Offer them cheap pricing and unlimited use of a device for one day pass. In Europe, hotels offer 24-hour Internet access for around $20. Service providers have yet to embrace this strategy.
- Institute advanced quota management — Customers need to understand when they’ve exceeded usage quotas so they do not experience massive, unexpected charges on their bills. Advanced quotas can automatically increase the limit for users; but when certain thresholds are reached these same quotas will not surprise customers with the charge. This will help lower churn and increase customer satisfaction.
- Prevent bill shock — Use autonomic models to predict how much users are consuming and automatically increase their quota without massive charges.
- Offer hybrid data plans — New product models must be able to deal with hybrid data plans. The plans should feature strong charging policies to encourage customers to use more data (and generate more revenue).
- Offer bandwidth on demand — Users do not have the option to pay for needed bandwidth for a discrete amount of time. If a user wants to set up a high-definition web conference from Birmingham, Alabama to Birmingham, UK, there should be an application that allows users to do so at a reasonable price. Bandwidth on demand responds to a simple fact of life: limited wireless spectrum.
- Change certain bulk minute plans to an “all you call eat” model. Charge accordingly. Voice traffic in wireless networks uses about 13 kbps coding, so the bandwidth demands on the network will not be heavy.
- Solve problems at the edge of the network, which generates the highest levels of cost with the least amount of bandwidth. Some ideas to consider:
– Policy-driven client based model
– Smart radio management
– Intelligent network selection
– Transport authentication
– Seamless mobility
– Closed-loop analytics on a cell-site-by-cell-site basis
- Use more sophisticated applications at lower packet layers and through DPI applications.
- Make a move toward the management plane. At this level of network architecture, we’re dealing with speeds of 1M transactions per second (TPS). Instead of making every packet count, as we did in our 20th century networks, we should make every hertz of spectrum count by migrating our applications from the data plane to the management plane.
Dr. Hossein Eslambolchi
January 2012
