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Telenity (News - Alert) provides next generation converged services platforms and applications for communications networks. Telenity’s IMS compliant converged services solutions include: reusable service delivery and content components enabling rapid service creation, deployment and execution functionalities across multiple services and applications; location servers; integrated messaging solutions; and value added services. Nitin Patel is Telenity’s vice president of Strategic Marketing. I asked Patel several questions about the state of the industry and what interesting trends he sees developing.

 

 

NP: I’m seeing several trends in the market.

 

NP: Better than expected. Financially, we met and exceeded our goals. We expanded our geographical coverage with wins in CALA and APAC regions, added Telefonica as a Tier-1 customer. We expanded our partner list, adding HP, Oracle, BEA, IBM and Alcatel. We also increased our channel sales percentage. Also, the increase in our repeat sales proves Telenity’s value as a trusted vendor.

 

NP: Telecommunications market may have a tough year, impacted by the troubled financial sector. Vendor consolidation presents opportunities as well as challenges. All in all, Telenity is poised to have a better year than 2007, as 2008 will be a harvesting year for the company in the SDP and Location space, very timely with the increasing market demand.

 

NP: Penetration of SOA into the Telecom space, especially in the OSS and VAS domain altered the Services related outlook of many operators. Video and 3G also had some impact, but not as much as originally predicted.

 

NP: Skype’s biggest impact has been as a proof of business model viability. However, after the e-Bay acquisition, it did not perform as well as before. Skype’s disruptive service and technology has resulted in incumbent Telcos to accelerate their VoIP deployment plan with end-to-end quality of service. Skype has made VoIP very popular in telecom market. Its cheap voice service (PC to PC or PC to Mobile/Landline and vice versa) has slowed down international traffic for the telecom service providers. Skype is generating enough call volume to have considerable impact on the growth of international calling. According to TeleGeography, Skype has generated about 14 billion minutes of international traffic throughout 2006.

 

In addition to consumer users, enterprise users are also increasingly using Skype to gain productivity. Skype and other VoIP providers are now focusing on offering mobility and Value Added Services (e.g., Voicemail, SMS, and Video). Such IP based VAS services inter-operate with Telco network and potentially bring SMS and VAS revenues.

 

NP: They will be filling the gap between the internet and telecoms, each targeting a slightly different space — Apple at the consumer, Microsoft at the enterprise, Google probably both. Apple’s iPhone and Google’s open platform initiative (Google’s Android (News - Alert) Wireless) will enable many 3rd party applications and media rich services delivered directly to end-users with rich user experience. Telcos will either directly compete or partner with the big brands by opening up their network (walled garden model) through standardized service delivery platforms (SIP and Web Services based). Open networks will simulate the development of new services and applications (mobile 2.0) linked with Social networks and internet community. These changes will enable new business models and increase value-added services revenues to the Telcos.

 

NP: The consumer demand and significant growth in VAS revenues as percentage of overall ARPU result in new service delivery infrastructure. Endorsement of the Telenity’s Canvas SDP in various business models and range of operator sizes is a bright spot. We had installations both as a one-shop vendor, and also as a team player on a 10 vendor integration program, proving compliance with open standards. We worked in a business model where the operator acted as an enabler and in other business models where the operator was also a VASP.

 

Demand for messaging (e.g., third parties leveraging SMS for new applications) will result in increased capacity need for Telenity’s SMSC and other messaging products. Multimodal blend of call media, audio/video-ringback tones, and location-based services on unified SDP will enable bundled service provisioning and personalization of triple/quadruple play packages to subscribers.

 

NP: While there appears to be a large number of bidders in the auction, Google seems to be in a unique position with a wide array of major incentives and advantages to win the auction. Among them are Google’s enviable financial strength, their determinism to challenge the incumbent cable/telco companies, their unorthodox business culture and values, and their technological superiority and creativity in the Internet domain, especially in comparison to competing bidders. Whether Google wins the auction or not, and if they do win, whether they intend to turn into a wholesale vendor or become a new service provider, it is our hope that the 700 MHz auction will result in a more competitive and challenging battle field especially for the incumbent service providers whose sole interest these days seems to overcharge their customers for marginal quality of service yet have very little (if any) incentive to offer innovative, dependable, and affordable services. Real winners of the auction are bound to be consumers.

 

NP: Established players in Tier 1 market, Softening of Telco spending resulting in longer sales cycle, new entrants and price sensitive market, changing business model of customer outsourcing VAS as managed service to third parties Tier 1’s.

 

NP: Latest technology trends in the value-added services area, the promise of IMS as a new value-added service enabler, real-life examples of innovative services for IP networks, means to increase new services related revenue stream, and the role of standardization.

 

NP: Service providers who are interested in understanding how SIP/IMS networks may help drive their value-added service revenues; Service providers investing in their NG network infrastructure in an attempt to meet the increasing bandwidth demand by next-generation value-added services but are uncertain about potential return on their investment.

NP: Examples of video-based value-added services recently deployed in 3G circuit-switched networks, technology challenges faced, ongoing SIP/IMS network trials for these services, lessons learned from collaborative work with IMS core network, application and media server vendors toward an IMS micro-edition demo setup, unique experience gained from service level IOT with an array of IMS core network vendors.

 

NP: Industry will shift towards more open access, open technologies such as 3G, WIMAX will enable cool services such as Video Ringback, GPS, Unified Communication, TV Broadcast IPTV & MobileTV, IMS Services, Instant messaging and Presence.

 

NP: SMS will again surpass Instant Messaging both in growth and revenues.