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Voice SMS Mobile phone communication has rapidly evolved from direct, real-time voice interaction to a suite of non-voice and indirect means of wireless communication, including Short Message Service (SMS), Multimedia Message Service (MMS) and Instant Messaging (IM). However, many people are not comfortable with these methods and prefer to use their handsets only for direct, spoken communication. A new feature, Voice SMS, fills the gap between voice and indirect/non-voice communication by combining today's newest indirect interaction with the advantages of speech. Multimodal Applications for the Mobile Generation Don't Call Me a Phone. The number of mobile phone users continues to grow steadily. According to International Telecommunication Union (ITU), there were over 2 billion mobile subscribers in 2005, or approximately 30 percent of the world's population. Beyond the sheer numbers, the other fascinating aspect is the evolution of the phone. It can still handle calls, of course, but even the low-end phones now come with many additional features. It all started with SMS (Short Message Service), which still dominates mobile messaging despite its extreme limitations. Now phones are advertised as multimedia mobile computers and provide various connectivity, productivity and entertainment functions. IVR Consolidation IVR Consolidation will allow network operators to pool their aging and expanding inventory of IVR applications into a contemporary, more easily managed operation. An Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system provides automated access to information via the phone system. An IVR integrates computers and communication, allowing people to ask and answer questions and receive replies using Touch-Tone (DTMF) and/or voice. IVRs provide fast and accurate answers to caller inquiries 24 hours a day, seven days a week. IVR systems began in the 1960s running on large IBM mainframes, initially being used for call routing and simple announcements. At first, they were standalone systems but over time were added to PBXs and central office switches. Fixed-Mobile-Convergence FMC is one of the most discussed and misinterpreted (or perhaps just variously interpreted) concepts in telecommunications today. Most people, when referring to FMC, envision "dualmode" handsets, automatically switching between cellular and WLAN/IP networks. There are two main drivers of this approach: the poor in-building coverage of the U.S. cellular networks (a problem virtually non-existent in Europe) and the promise of cost savings ("cheap" WLAN/IP vs. "expensive" cellular). The latter argument is losing weight as cellular prices continue their steep decline and flat rates become increasingly common. Mobile Messaging 2.0 The mobile messaging market, like many others, is in a perpetual state of change, with phenomenal growth that has taken directions few could have predicted. What started a few years ago as the emergence of groundbreaking market shifts is now coalescing into a new vision for using and enabling mobile messaging technology -- Mobile Messaging 2.0. This newest addition to the world of 2.0 is surfacing in many areas and has the potential to provide a win-win for mobile operators and subscribers alike. ip media servers and ims in voicemail and unified messaging Messaging is a fundamental requirement of modern-day communications, and voicemail, the decades-old service that launched the world's love affair with messaging, is evolving. Voicemail has been joined by other types of messaging including fax, email, short message service (SMS), multimedia message service (MMS), instant messaging (IM), and videomail, and doubtless more are to come as technology and users' expectations evolve. Unified Messaging, or UM, integrates these messaging services into a single solution that gives consumers and business users access to all types of messages on any type of terminal, including POTS phones, PCs, mobile phones, and smartphones. Application Session Controllers Market conditions directly impact how service providers operate: as dynamics change, so does business planning. From a business standpoint, the higher level of competition has led to an increased commoditization of voice services. Consequently, operators began to look for ways to leverage their core capabilities in order to benefit from increasing convergence of their products. In addition, carriers are also looking for ways to curb their operational expenditures, including network operation, service maintenance, and setup and teardown, among other costs. Competitive Threats? Think Applications! Next-generation networks are driving radical changes in the content delivery value chain by spawning disruptive business models and enabling players such as Internet-based portals. The Internet Protocol (IP) has given birth to a number of applications like search engines, voice over IP (VoIP), instant messaging, and information services, as well as the advent of e-commerce. In addition, the migration to IP has led to some weakening of control over end-user data and network access by communications service providers. How to Speed Time to Market in a Next-Generation World This paper takes a close look at the existing development processes of today's communications providers. It offers statistics on current time-to-market timeframes and discusses real-world strategies for improving them. Finally, this discussion strives to help organizations ensure that processes having an impact on time to market adequately support investments made in next generation technology. IP Unity IP MultiMedia Subsystem (IMS) White Paper With communications technology and competitive pressures expanding at a rapid pace, service providers need increasingly reliable, scalable, and extensible systems to deliver the applications that their markets demand. The range of services is expanding to include not only telephony, but also text, video, streaming data and mixed mode/media applications. Service providers need network architecture and standardized solutions that can be developed and deployed rapidly and cost-effectively. They have embraced the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) suite of standards in large numbers, to help them accomplish these goals. IP Unity recognizes providers' critical needs for faster services deployment, and has added a progressive set of IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) functionalities to its portfolio of IP services to address them. This white paper is intended to detail the major goals and functions of the IMS architecture, and to relate how IP Unity, a leading provider of enhanced services delivery solutions, is implementing IMS within its Mereon Media Server and Application Server solutions to support carriers and their evolving needs. Application Services in an IP MultiMedia Subsystem (IMS) Network Those of us in the messaging business have heard the acronym IMS. Many however, do not have a clear understanding of what it is and what it can do. In a competitive environment where carriers must bridge wireline, wireless and IP networks IMS is a flexible standard that allows development and deployment of new services independent of the underlying networks. This whitepaper will help the reader understand what IMS is and what it may enable in a next generation messaging environment. Videomail Is Here Video calling is a key service to drive users towards using 3G networks and services. However without videomail being offered as part of an overall video service, many video revenue opportunities are lost. As well as improving the efficiency of communication, videomail services enable many exciting new capabilities to subscribers. Network operators can further enhance the video user experience and their own brand value through the use of virtual characters to guide users around these new services. The Medium is not the Message - The Evolution of Messaging to IP Canada's communications soothsayer Marshall Mcluhan (co-authored with Quentin Fiore) once titled a seminal work 'The Medium is the Message'. The contention of this paper is that the medium, the transmission technology, in our view, rather than 'being' the message, is now an impediment to messaging growth. Media have been discrete universes - they have been isolated, each in its own sphere; no interaction has been possible. The message, by contrast, is medium independent. A messager merely wishes to communicate. It is the communications that is important, not the vector, not the transport mechanism. Messaging, in its current implementations, has not been particularly useful to its users - an SMS message, for example, generated on a mobile phone, has only recently been deliverable to a mobile phone on a competitive network - and not deliverable at all to an alternative network (such as email, or the display on your landline telephone). The medium has restricted the utility (usefulness) of the technology - and, without utility, is it surprising that messaging adoption and utilization has been slow? The technology is now available that can remove the obstacle of the discrete network from the messaging metaphor. The engine for this change is IP. That the move to an IP platform is inevitable is widely understood - it is the how, and the when that are less clear. This paper will suggest that it is incumbent on the carriers to re-examine their messaging platforms and their messaging product as they migrate their messaging functionality on their wireline, wireless and legacy voice/data networks to IP. Everything needs to change. Even if it doesn't seem to be broken, it needs to be fixed. Your customers want to connect to other people - they do not want to (and shouldn't need to) keep a map of which of their friends and contacts subscribes to what network. If your customer is an enterprise customer with a secure enterprise system - why can she not also communicate to the broader world? You can make it happen and you should. The new messaging fabric will direct, transport and store messages of many types; SMS (or text messages), MMS (or multi-media messages which includes video and audio) and voice-mail will all run across the new integrated IP platforms. This paper will look at some of the challenges in establishing and running an integrated IP network - and we will look at some of the vendors who will try to assist you in making the transition. Note that this paper was provided by Brian Sharwood of the Seaboard Group for TMIA Member Companies only. If you are not with a TMIA Member Company, please contact Brian at bsharwood@seaboardgroup.com or www.seaboardgroup.com Open Systems - Getting Beyond the Hype "Next Generation." "Open architecture." "Open system." These are the buzzwords of today's IT and telecom industries. There's no denying that an open system approach is what vendors are using to create platforms that are expandable in both capacity and features. There's also no denying that because of this approach, flexibility in the use of hardware can be achieved, eliminating the past fears of lock-in, high costs and obsolescence. But among the voices extolling the virtues of this approach to system design, are there any with words of caution? Voicemail as a Competitive Weapon Voicemail is a must-have feature in every telecom network. After basic dial tone in wireline networks or airtime in wireless networks, it is one of the most important features in terms of revenue, subscriber retention, and cost of operation. Clearly, treating voicemail as a competitive weapon makes sense. The question is...how? An Advanced VoIP Migration Strategy for CLECs, ILECs In a turbulent telecom environment, traditional carriers will always face ROI challenges. Increasing competition, evolving customer needs, and increasing costs make operating profitably more difficult. Voice over IP (VoIP) presents both more challenges and more options for CLECs and ILECs: more competitors on the one hand, but the potential to significantly lower operating costs on the other. While service providers have large investments in legacy technology, new IP-based services are gaining traction as the business models of the future. As a result, these carriers are looking for sensible and cost effective ways to make the transition to IP. Integrating Voicemail Systems A history of mergers and acquisitions in the telecommunications industry has left many large carriers with voice messaging networks and systems from multiplevendors and with differing generations of technology. Carriers are looking for waysto offer broader messaging capabilities to subscribers without losing the investment in these legacy voicemail systems – but these systems were rarely designed to operate in a heterogeneous environment. Their lack of interoperability means that it is often difficult to offer even basic inter-system messaging. Integrating wireline and wireless voicemail systems presents a similar problem. As individual carriers increasingly play a role in both wireline and wireless arenas, it becomes important to present a coherent messaging interface in both spaces to present a consistent identity, and simplify the user experience. Carriers need to find ways to reduce operating costs. It may not be viable to migrate all users to a single voice messaging system, but by integrating the current, disparate systems, the carrier can simplify the administration of the combined platforms, and this reduces the costs of administration. Shareholder value Analysis: Call center and directory assistance applications clearly are creating shareholder value for investors, while limitations in current technology are suppressing growth in other areas of network-based speech solutions. This analysis looks at the value-drivers in speech, the levels of investment required, and the levels of revenue and demand required to generate attractive returns on speech investment. Voice mail offload: boosting mobile network subscriber capacity Voice mail plays an important role in the wireless world. Some industry experts predict that up to 40 percent of all mobile calls would never be completed without voice mail. Loosely translated, that means a significant amount of network capacity is utilized for the deposit and retrieval of voice messages. Today, the prevalence of broadband wireless IP access, in conjunction with packet-switched networks and handheld units that support applications such as mobile e-mail and push-to-talk, has created a platform on which select voice mail functions may be performed. This effectively creates an opportunity to offload voicemail retrieval traffic from the wireless digital voice network in favor of the wireless packet network. With the growing demand for mobile phone services, carriers are facing sever congestion pr oblems in their narrowband cel lular networks. Capacity problems have been a major issue for mobile network operators (MNOs). For MNOs, the most immediate reason to select voice mail offload is to liberate network capacity associated with carrying voice mail retrieval traffic on the digital voice network (GSM or CDMA). While MNOs are motivated by a short-term need to implement capacity improvements to existing mobile networks to accommodate the growing customer base, some form of cost-effective, easy-to-implement voice mail offload enables the MNO to recover capacity from the exi sting narrowband cellular network. Offloading voice mail retrieval onto broadband wireless IP networks, such as GPRS, EDGE and CDMA 1XRTT, enhances the capacity of the voice-centric narrowband cellular network. This capacity boost ultimately increases the subscriber capacity of existing spectrum and network investments. We can expect "Voice Mail Offload" to become to the wireless world what "PRI Offload" has become to the wireline world. Consumer Speech Solutions This document examines speech solutions in the consumer market, with examples taken from both Europe and the United States. Having seen tremendous success in the call centre market, speech technology has now arrived at the door of both wireless and wireline operators who are looking to speech as a method of reducing churn and generating new revenue streams in an already saturated marketplace. The document considers examples of speech solutions in the consumer market place, identifying what makes these particular solutions successful or unsuccessful and what other operators wishing to launch speech solutions can learn from them. All case studies referred to are correct at the time of writing. |
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