Network and service virtualisation is starting to accelerate and it will change how customer and service providers interact in important ways. Here are three examples that are likely to become notable in the near term and which will have long term effects and benefits.
Virtual customer premises equipment (vCPE): You know the old story where the installer comes two hours late and tracks mud all over the new rug? Virtualisation can make that irrelevant. As virtualised customer premises equipment (vCPE) becomes common, it will change and in many cases eliminate site visits by technicians, says Edward J. Finegold, director of Content Strategy of Netcracker Technology.
This can accelerate service activation time, allow customers to add features and services on-demand that previously would have required a truck roll for a new equipment installation and free customers from the inconvenience of scheduling, hosting and sometimes cleaning up after site visits to homes and office environments.
On-demand activation of dynamic services: Let’s not understate the power of virtualisation to enable on-demand access to dynamic services. In a small business setting, for example, this means the new sports pub that wants to kick things off with a major event can stream the big final match in 8K with every angle shown on a different screen.
Sports organisations like Formula One Racing are already rolling out services that allow fans to view the race from overhead, from any turn, or from inside any race car. Virtualisation makes it possible to change classes of service on-demand, making the 8K view of the F1 Championship just a click, tap or voice command away.
One stop shopping: More practically, virtualisation is already enabling service providers to roll out network as a service (NaaS) models with libraries of commercialised, VNF-based services that move service providers up the value chain to offer not only network services but also cloud-based IT services and applications.
This one-stop-shop approach, combined with the ability to create custom bundles and access new services on-demand, massively simplifies service procurement for businesses and shifts a complex ordering and integration process across multiple vendors into an easy digital shopping experience with a single, trusted provider.
Ultimately, virtualisation can remove many of the barriers and inconveniences customers have faced in accessing and procuring communications, IT and entertainment services. This not only improves the customer experience but also reduces cost, complexity and support effort for service providers.
The key to it all is implementing it correctly with a partner who has demonstrated the ability not only to create and deliver solutions, but to do so extremely fast while offering tested, commercialised services out of the box that service providers can launch in weeks or days.
The author of this blog is Edward J. Finegold, director of Content Strategy of Netcracker Technology
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