The Future of Mobile Communications

The advent of 4G LTE mobile networks, which are based on IP and will typically employ IP Multimedia Subsystem architectures for multimedia communications applications, will give mobile service providers an unprecedented opportunity to rethink how they offer services to their customers. The technologies will also give operators a new means to increase the value of their services in the world of Internet communications and a better foundation for competing against pure-Internet firms and even partnering with them.

While it is still early in the mobile network evolution for many service providers to initiate these fundamental changes, companies should begin planning now to move their communications services to the new architecture and prepare to compete in this new business environment. 

"As the telecommunications industry transitions to LTE and ultimately converges networks to all-IP architectures, IMS will serve as a critical service enabling platform for real-time, rich communication services for businesses and consumers," said Brian Partridge, vice president at the Yankee Group.

"Yankee Group views the adoption and innovations on top of IMS as critical steps in establishing a long-term position in the communications value chain." 

The market has of course proven its demand for mobile applications, video and messaging services and its demonstrated eagerness for new and better services will provide the impetus for innovation on the new architecture.

According to research conducted by Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs, more than 70% of Internet traffic will originate from mobile networks by 2014. Mobile video, now recognized as the most important wireless data application, will drive more than half (52.8%) of mobile data traffic by the end of this year according to Cisco Systems. Short messaging services, already a routine aspect of conversations between consumers, have tripled in volume in the past three years, according to the ITU. And soon, consumers will conduct packet-based mobile voice communications as service providers in 2012 begin to deploy the VoLTE standard to offer voice over 4G LTE networks.

Traditional infrastructure isolates each type of service from the others, however, which fragments the communications exchanges between users, creates incompatibilities between services offered by different carriers and between carriers and over-the-top providers, and restricts developer access to network communications assets that can enrich applications and services.

IMS, implemented with the intelligence of a High Leverage Network^TM, can eliminate those barriers, but service providers will need to craft their commercialization strategies carefully so they and their customers benefit from all that IMS has to offer, advised Cassidy Shield, head of global solutions marketing for content, cloud and communications services at Alcatel-Lucent.

"Our industry needs to be more relevant from the consumer's point of view," he said.

According to Shield, Alcatel-Lucent has crafted three strategies service providers should employ to position their IMS-based businesses as essential suppliers of vital communications services for consumers and enterprises.

The first and overarching strategy service providers should employ is to use IMS to harmonize communications services such as voice, video and messaging into a single, integrated experience that includes access to contact lists and social media interactions, he said.

The objective is to make it easy and desirable for customers to seamlessly switch from one service to another regardless of access technology, device or application used. The seamless blending of these services will make it possible to create what Shield calls "a new conversation experience" for consumers and enterprise customers that represents a radical shift in the industry.

"What we're holding here as a fundamental premise is that voice, video and messaging, for example, are not different services, but integrated as one service," he said.

Verizon Wireless in the U.S., which is deploying advanced services via an IMS- and 4G LTE-based network supported by Alcatel-Lucent network technologies, will help pioneer this new type of conversation experience in 2012 when it introduces video chat, voice over LTE (VoLTE), and an enhanced address book that offers presence features.

The second strategy companies should employ is to build and nurture new communities. Service providers should want their new communication services to become indispensible to consumers and businesses so that they participate in the new conversation experience. Mobile carriers can facilitate this by using IMS-enabled rich communications features to bridge communities from different carriers, OTT and enterprise platforms with a unified user interface and user experience that simplifies the conversations that each provider facilitates. The strategy will also eliminate service islands, allow more reliable services to reach more people, and foster application innovation from providers and third parties.

Finally, Shield said that companies need to open up their IMS and mobile network assets to developer communities to spur innovation with these technologies. While the best near-term and large-scale opportunities for application enablement will be found in developer groups affiliated with individual service providers and enterprise customers, third-party developer firms will also play an important role. 

Alcatel-Lucent's joint innovation partnership with DoCoMo Euro-Labs, which is giving developers access to NTT DoCoMo's network APIs to create new social networking experiences for consumers, illustrates the type of open innovation approaches that Shield recommends. Programs for individual developers include the GSMA's RCS DevChallenge, co-sponsored by Alcatel-Lucent, among others.