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Cover Story - Chain Reaction
 May/June 2005

Asia Watch - Going DTH in India
May/June 2005

Broadband - The Long and Winding Road
May/June 2005

US Cable Operators: It's all about the Bundle
May/June 2005

Review - Content to Travel
May/June 2005

IPTV - Telecom Video
May/June 2005

Wireless Watch
May/June 2005

 

Making Broadband pay
Sanjay Swamy,
Sr Director, Broadband Market Development, Portal Software

During the early days of the Internet, it was often considered that content was becoming more and more of a commodity.

Network operators seemed consumed with the challenges of making Internet connectivity available and signing up subscribers for their Internet Services. As broadband connectivity becomes more of a reality, network operators are faced with the harsh reality that broadband connectivity in itself has limited value to end users © in the United States for example, the price-point for broadband Internet access to the home is pegged at approximately $40 per month.

Service Providers can improve customer loyalty and increase revenues per subscriber by offering personalised, content and services both for entertainment and business applications. Examples of such applications include music, video-on-demand, live streaming, video conferencing, and interactive games. These services along with customer-centric business models such as subscriptions, pay-per-use, volume discounts, value-based pricing and quality-of©service based pricing models, are only a few of the options that can fundamentally shift a broadband service provider's value proposition from that of a nameless utility to a provider of high-value, personalised premium content.

Service Provider Challenges
The biggest challenge for broadband service providers today is that their current network and business infrastructure cannot efficiently support new, revenue-generating, value-added services. Both from a hardware and software standpoint, most service providers have traditionally invested in customised infrastructure, typically intended to support a specific service in an optimal manner. In order to offer personalised services and content, service providers need to have an infrastructure platform that will allow them to:

Efficiently manage their subscribers
Rapidly introduce new products and service bundles
Support appropriate business models in a customer-centric manner
Deliver these services in an efficient, reliable manner

The Broadband Service Delivery Platform

Inktomi, Portal Software, Redback Networks and Sun Microsystems have created what they believe is the world's first integrated broadband service delivery platform (BSDP) for broadband service providers. Combining industry-leading technologies, the solution enables broadband providers to add, rate, bill, manage, and deliver content and services from the network, using a flexible range of pricing models. Highlights of the broadband service delivery platform include:

Efficient content distribution and streaming media. 'Inktomi Traffic Server' network cache platform, Inktomi Media Products and InktomiÊ Content Delivery Suite software solution provide the core caching and content distribution capabilities that enable the delivery of content and services at the network edge. Through its extensible software platform and streaming media technology, Inktomi products provide the deployment foundation for personalised, rich media services.

Automatic provisioning and authentication. The Redback Network Subscriber Management System is a hardware-based system that automatically provisions new user accounts, provides user authentication services and offers high quality of service levels for provisioning by performing dynamic bandwidth allocation. Subscribers can select a variety of service levels.

Integrated, flexible billing. Portal Softwareßs Infranet platform for managing next-generation services enables the monetisation of all services (currency and non-currency/loyalty programs) delivered to the subscriber. With Infranet, service providers can move beyond 'one-price-fits-all' pricing models to new options such as value-based, subscription-based, usage-based or quality-of-service-based billing plans. Infranet also supports royalty calculations and remittances/settlement, facilitating partnerships in broadband value chains that can extend customer reach and revenue.

Scalability and reliability. Sun servers with the Solaris operating system provide a scalable and reliable platform for service providers.

Key Business Benefits

In addition to providing robust functionality for deploying, managing and tracking premium services, this integrated broadband service delivery platform also offers:

Rapid deployment of differentiating, revenue-generating services: The pre-integrated solution shortens time to market with new services such as video-on-demand, software rental, online games and many other services.
Support for new revenue models: The broadband service delivery platform allows service providers to easily introduce services with a variety of payment plans, including prepaid, monthly subscription, pay-per-view, usage-based, and value-based pricing. This flexibility can give service providers a competitive edge by allowing them to easily fine-tune pricing plans to best suit customers' needs and innovate new business models as markets evolve.

These key benefits enable broadband service providers to react quickly to market changes and new technologies as they develop, and even proactively drive the pace of the market with new services and ways of doing business.

Conclusion
To stay ahead of the competition, broadband service providers must create smarter networks that offer the following advantages:

flexibility to offer differentiating, revenue-generating content and services scalability and superior performance to justify the network cost premium 24x7 availability and solid reliability to ensure customer satisfaction

The integrated broadband service delivery platform from Inktomi, Redback Networks, Portal Software and Sun Microsystems can help service providers create this kind of network. It provides functionality, scalability and reliability to maximise return on investment through value-added, revenue-generating services.