Experiential services offer variety of revenue opportunities 

By: By Maribel D. Lopez, Lopez Research

Facing new market realities, service providers understand growth will not come from adding subscribers, but from finding new ways to monetize existing relationships...

Marching toward the inevitable 

By: By Carol Wilson

There is no doubt in my mind that, over the next year or possibly two, broadband service providers will begin offering service options based not only on bandwidth but on quality of service...

DPI vs. P2P 

By: By Carol Wilson

A few years ago, peer-to-peer traffic was well on its way to becoming the bane of Internet service providers’ existence. The machine-to-machine nature of the traffic enabled P2P users to be constantly consuming available bandwidth, without paying anything extra, and ISPs weren’t prepared...

Back office on the hot seat 

By: By Rich Karpinski

When I sat down to chat with Kevin Hart, chief information officer for Level 3 Communications, this week at a trade show focused on back-office operations, I expected to talk about SOA, eTOM, CRM and an array of other tech/IT acronyms...

Not satisfied on customer satisfaction 

By: By Carol Wilson

One thing that must be said about global telecom executives is that they aren't overly self-satisfied. At least that's what a global survey, done by The Economist Intelligence Unit for Oracle, would seem to indicate...

Observations on the unified communications market 

By: By Matthias Machowinski, Infonetics Research

We recently conducted research on the Unified Communications (UC) market, and encountered some interesting results that run against prevailing wisdom...

Microsoft, Yahoo! and the myth of the dumb pipe 

By: By Rich Karpinski

So where’s the service provider bid for Yahoo! now that it’s on the market? Obviously, it’s nowhere to be seen. And that’s a good, sensible thing...

Open mobile Web: Progress and delays 

By: By Rich Karpinski

Issuing press releases and releasing beta code was the easy part. Actually delivering products and sorting out the power relationships in a new, more “open” mobile universe – that’s hard...

A refreshing change 

By: By Carol Wilson

MetaSwitch made its name in the early days by being a good supplier to second- and third-tier telephone companies, including many rural operators. The company was employee-owned until just recently, when it decided to seek outside funding to enable a global expansion. To be sure, this is a risk ...

Mrs. McDermott's morning 

By: By Tim McElligott

The house was deathly quiet and chilled. The shades were raised. The sun was up. But the greyest of light was all that penetrated the thick November sky and shadows lingered in the deep corners of the kitchen. Her every move across the room was deliberate, each sound amplified, her mind in search of distraction. ...

I can't see clearly 

By: By Carol Wilson

Spend a few minutes online at sites such as The Consumerist and you'll come away convinced that all service providers -- telco, cable, satellite -- are engaged in an evil plan to defraud consumers and make their lives as difficult as possible...

Growing pangs 

By: By Tim McElligott

Ever get a notion about something only to dismiss it because it's not your area of expertise? Ever been reluctant to open your mouth about something that appeared obvious to you, but stopped because you knew that the experts in that field would scoff and snicker?...

Up to here 

By: By Tim McElligott

When you're full, you stop eating. When you're tired, you sit. When you're through, you cuddle -- if you know what's good for you. But when you've simply had enough -- or as some folks say, “Had it up to here” -- what then? Well, you can do as I did...

Sign sign nowhere VeriSign 

By: By Tim McElligott

I don't know which day VeriSign will come to rue the most: the day it hired Stratton Sclavos or the day it decided to divest most of what they have acquired over the last five years, including its telecom-related assets. Tough call...

The new content value chain 

By: BY KEITH WILLETTS

Major content, service twists help to transform telecom...

From Peterbilt to Optimus Prime 

By: By Tim McElligott

If life imitated art, network and business transformation would be instantaneous, as easy and as fast as transforming from a Peterbilt truck into an Autobot...

Acceptable losses 

By: By Tim McElligott

Governmental (emphasis on the mental) budgets usually provide cushion for the inevitable waste that comes with implementing them. We accept that for some reason, just as we accept the reality that they have to account for acceptable losses in military campaigns. It's astounding what we can learn to accept...

Confessions of a CSR 

By: By Tim McElligott

Yes, I was a customer service rep. And the saddest story I ever heard--one which, in the middle of, I inappropriately burst into laughter--was told by a lonely, old woman who had me on the phone for 20 minutes before telling me the reason for her call...

Circus Circus 

By: By Tim McElligott

For all the talk about being part of the process for the NGN, and all the talk about OSS/BSS being an integral part of IMS by way of service delivery, and all the talk about how, this time, the back office wasn't going to be an afterthought, there sure wasn't much to back it up at NXTcomm last week...

Cityscapes and travelogues 

By: By Tim McElligott

I fell in love in France a few years ago. Just like I fell in love in Dallas and Atlanta and New Orleans, even Chicago...

Al Gore's short tail effect 

By: By Tim McElligott

A peephole closes 

By: By Tim McElligott

My best friend died last night. He was 84. His body, which had never been much use to him other than carrying him around and allowing him to procreate, finally let him down for good...

Izzy… you didn’t! 

By: By Tim McElligott

This principal of wanting to fit in by being able to talk about what everyone else is talking about came up a few times at VON this week. And I think it will have a direct effect on the longevity and business case of this current craze of Internet TV...

Mopping up 

By: By Tim McElligott

One of the more interesting comments I read in the all-around-interesting and well-researched report on OSS in the story below is this from author Patrick Kelly: "If [communications service providers] hope to have any success in the marketplace...

The home stretch 

By: By Dan O'Shea

At TeleManagement World next week, you will see first-hand how telcos are beginning to morph as they are pressured to take on new roles as providers of services ranging far beyond traditional voice and into multimedia content. And these roles begin with better, deeper network and service management--end-to-end...