NGNに必要なのは技術かビジネスモデルかそれとも・・・

NGNとサービスに関するカンファレンス「NGN+S2007 Spring」開催
というイベントがあり、実はセミナーを聞いてみたかったのですが、既に満席だったし、仕事が忙しくて外出できなかったし、駄目。
でも、なんだかあまり魅力的なものを見つけられないような気がするのは私だけでしょうか。
そんな私に届いた TelephoneOnlineの記事。2つともちょっと興味深いものだったので、引用します。

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The eternal challenge
By Carol Wilson

There is one thing that has remained consistent in the 22 years I have been writing about telecom, and that is the industry's search for services that add value--and revenue--over and above the mere transmission of voice or data. When I started writing about telecom, that search was generating ISDN and advanced calling features such as caller ID. Now, obviously, there is much more afoot.

But the basic problem remains for telecom service providers. They must constantly be adding value or risk becoming the dreaded "dumb pipe." If anything, the Internet has exacerbated that problem, since consumers now can use broadband connections--very high-speed dumb pipes--to get voice service and video content as well, with no need to pay more to purchase those from the company selling them the pipe. As wireless data proliferates, and next-generation offerings deliver more bandwidth, there is even a threat to the pipe business.

Where technology taketh away, it also giveth. The transition to an all-IP network promises to give service providers new tools to enable them to offer those higher-value services, and if they do so on a timely basis, and at a reasonable price, they can retain and even expand their customer base. Those are some big "ifs," and there is little doubt that the battle to add value will rage on indefinitely.

This first issue of our "Next-Gen Technologies at NXTcomm" newsletter series looks at what service providers can expect to find at NXTcomm, June 19-21 in Chicago, to help them address this eternal challenge.

E-mail me at cwilson3@telephonyonline.com.
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ブロードバンドで放送、しかこれからの通信業の道はないのでしょうかね。このあたりのヒントが6月下旬にシカゴで開催される展示会に転がっているのでしょうか? もうひとし関連記事を。

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TECHNOLOGY FEATURE (FULL-LENGTH)
Beyond IPTV: IP services at NXTcomm

By Carol Wilson

Despite all the attention being given to IPTV, there is a world of IP services that don't address just the consumer market. In fact, the transition to an all-IP network has created a wealth of possibilities that began with voice over IP and service convergence and now include software as a service, presence-enabled services and more.

The real challenge for service providers has been identifying which IP services they want to offer and developing both the underlying capabilities and the ability to sell these new services.

"We are going through a little bit of a mind shift--service providers have skills around selling core voice service," said Michael O'Hara, general manager of Microsoft's Communications Sector. "They need a little help learning how to sell other things. In our conversations, they are saying they need services that they can get deployed over these networks, and that bridges onto, 'Can you help us sell those services?'"

Microsoft is steering service provider customers to consider selling "live" software packages--Windows Live, Office Live, Xbox Live--as services that the software giant hosts in its data centers. On display at NXTcomm will be those capabilities and Microsoft's Connected Services Sandbox, an environment in which service providers can test out new applications.

"We have some good examples where people are out there in implementation," O'Hara said. "Orange was concerned about revenue loss from SMS. So we combined the Microsoft IM community--which is 240 million IDs--with Orange's 130 million telecom users across the world and created an offering with a client on the PC and a client on the mobile device that lets users click to call people, click to see video. It's funded by subscription and by advertising, which creates a win-win for both companies."

There are also more traditional IP service paths that build on expanded capacity of core, metro and access networks. NXTcomm attendees can expect to see major product releases from companies such as Redback Networks, Juniper Networks, Occam Networks and others.

The goal of much of this effort is to not just add capacity but also to add intelligence to enable more efficient service deployment, said Arpit Joshipura, vice president of product management for Redback. Much of the effort is being driven by IPTV, he added, but the service capacity can also be used for other IP services, including wireless-wireline convergence.

Similarly, core router upgrades are being driven by the need to deliver video but also will take into account the need for more intelligence, said Shailesh Shukla, vice president of service provider marketing and partnerships at Juniper.

"We want to add intelligence in the core so you can do two things -- you can manage traffic cost effectively so you can build networks that are efficient, and you can enable the core to participate in actual service delivery," he said.

As service providers extend the reach of IP, they also are in a better position to deploy advanced offerings such as Ethernet at the edge of the network. Increasingly, business customers--even small to mid-sized businesses or large businesses with many smaller locations--are looking to Ethernet services for greater efficiency.

"There are many ways to offer Ethernet," said Kevin Morgan, director of marketing for Adtran's Carrier Division. "You can put in a DSLAM at every access point in your network that is close to business users that want it. That is expensive proposition."

What Adtran will be showing is the ability to do bonding of T-1s to deliver faster Ethernet-based service using existing T-1s and T-3 links. By changing out the customer premises equipment to a termination device that does bonding at that location, Morgan said, service providers can the "bring all those T-1s through your existing cloud to some intelligent device to bond them for delivery over the IP-MPLS core."

Adtran is one of several vendors showing Ethernet-over-copper services including Actelis, Atrica and Hatteras Networks.

Finally, the IPTV revolution also will reach into businesses, via services such as videoconferencing, video SMS and interactive voice and video response (IVVR), said Bill Bryant, director of marketing for Dialogic. The company will be demonstrating IVVR, which is expected to have appeal among the health care services and the insurance industries, as well as videoconferencing and video ringback tones for mobile phones.

"Any industry that depends on taking pictures or show moving pictures--such as a consumer could do of a car damaged in an accident--could use streaming video over IP to do that," Bryant said.
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まあ、IPTVなりは手段であって、それを医療とか損保業務でどう活かせるか、なんて部分がありますけどね。

でも日本のNTTのように巨大なグループも珍しく、今朝の日経に掲載されていたように
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ドコモ販売店、ＮＴＴ東の光サービス取り扱い
　ＮＴＴドコモは携帯電話販売店で、ＮＴＴ東日本の光ファイバー通信回線サービス「Ｂフレッツ」を売り出す。競争が激化し、光回線や携帯サービスの拡販には、ＮＴＴグループの総力を結集する必要があると判断した。これまでは業界内に過度の刺激を与えないよう控えていた面もある。今後はさらに連携を強める考えだが、高いシェアを持つ同グループに対して、他の通信会社は反発しており、論議を呼ぶ可能性が高い。

　ＮＴＴ東日本、西日本の地域会社を問わず、携帯販売店「ドコモショップ」で固定サービスを販売するのは初めて。
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というグループ丸ぐるみ作戦がとれるのは珍しいかと・・・

しかし、
NTT東日本、ひかり電話対応ルータのファームウェアに不具合
というトホホなニュースがまだ続きます。NTT東日本には、NTT ComあたりのIP技術者は移動しなかったの?