Communication services are heading to the cloud. The communication service providers (CSPs) of the future are just as likely to have originated as web-based start-ups as they are to have been traditional mobile network operators.
Successfully competing in the telecoms market will necessarily require selection and adoption of the best practises and best technologies that telecoms and internet have to offer. Accordingly, the service-layer infrastructure that controls voice services, video-calling and other communications must evolve, says Mark Windle, head of Marketing, OpenCloud.
Internet companies like Facebook have the scale of the web on their side. The potential market for their communication services is global and this reach is incredibly advantageous. Access to these services is not restricted by device, method of connection or location – the user experience is incredibly consistent. Operators’ services meanwhile are traditionally restricted by geographic boundaries and the physical size of a network. Vodafone, for example, may have presence in many European countries, but this is by name only – every country has separate network infrastructure and must effectively be considered detached. The service-layer infrastructure, and most of the communication services it delivers, is replicated in each country.
Access all areas
In fact, regardless of whether or not they are parts of large operating groups, this same issue plagues most network operators. Through merger, acquisition or otherwise, some operators offer services via mobile and fixed access networks – each mode of access having its own service-layer. Even within the bounds of mobile access, multiple service-layers have arisen to cater for different generations of technology (circuit-switched vs packet-switched, for example). The painful consequence is that operators are paying to run duplicated service functions (or triplicated, or worse) and differences between the service implementations mean that the subscriber experience varies depending on how they connect.
This needs to change so that a single access-agnostic service implementation can be used regardless of how or where the subscriber is connected.
An evolutionary approach is available for operators, enabling them to take existing, commercially viable functions and adapt them to make them available for every access network. Crucially, flexible adaptation also helps keep things future-proof, enabling service assets defined for a future generation of access network infrastructure to serve customers connected through current technology. This incremental approach of adding a layer of flexible adaptation enables them to build a single harmonised service-layer.
Moving further afield
Like their OTT counterparts, operators may well want to expand beyond the traditional confines put upon them by geography and the limitations of radio access networks. In order to offer services to multi-national markets, they have to establish operations in other territories, and deliver services according to local regulatory and market requirements. A single service-layer may be used across all access networks. It means that operators can deploy a new service once, and make it available across several regions – with obvious cost saving benefits. Flexibility in the service-layer will be critical in order to localise services for regional market and regulatory conditions. Virtualisation will also be important in ensuring operators have the ability to manage the multi-national service infrastructure as a single entity, whilst enabling service delivery to scale-up and down in tune with local market rhythms as appropriate.
With a single virtualised service-layer, communication service providers will be able to bring new innovation to market much more quickly than is possible today. But in the market of the near future every CSP will deploy virtualised services, so this cannot be considered a competitive advantage in the long term. The key is in leveraging the new-found flexibility so that operators have the ability to innovate for themselves rather than depending on others to produce innovation that is also available to the operator’s competitors.
The service-layer of tomorrow will be both flexible and open to enable independent, sustainable, agile service development by CSPs. It will be harmonised for delivering services across every access network including those not owned by the network operator, so that operators can benefit from an increase in scale. It is a journey that operators can start today. Some already have.
The author of this blog is Mark Windle, head of Marketing, OpenCloud.
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