Multimedia Feature Editorial

Building a Multi-Screen Foundation to Offer High Value, Scalable Services

By Erin Harrison, Senior Editor

Enterprises are forever looking to improve consumer loyalty and, to that end, network providers want to extend the reach of profitable multimedia services to their end users – making these services available on any device, anytime, anywhere.

 

Users today expect 24/7, any place, any device access to media. This is confirmed by the success of new types of multimedia services that are appearing at an increasing rate and are providing a high level of convenience for accessing content and information.

 

In the quest to win and retain customers, multi-screen services can give network providers a competitive edge: They help network providers generate significant revenue, increase consumer loyalty, or “stickiness”, and enhance the ability to reach new demographics, such as the millennial demographic – the generation born 1979 though 1994 – which is a key target for advertisers.

 

In 2008, Alcatel-Lucent tapped into consumer markets in North America, Western Europe and Asia to gauge consumer adoption of and willingness to pay for integrated multi-screen video services. According to this global consumer research, the addition of multi-screen services is likely to improve consumer loyalty to network providers by up to 40 percent.

 

According to Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert) company officials, multimedia services are characterized by “the ability to capture the attention of end users for fairly long periods of time, or span of attention.” The longest span of attention today is still achieved through video services. To help network providers benefit from multi-screen enablement, Alcatel-Lucent has investigated the technical design of several high-volume, video-based services, including web multimedia services, mobile multimedia services, and IPTV (News - Alert) services.

 

Alcatel-Lucent’s multi-screen foundation is part of the multi-screen service delivery environment. It consists of four major groups of common enablers, each of which supports a different set of functions required by multi-screen solutions.

 

Globally, Alcatel-Lucent has deployed more than 60 IPTV solutions and more than 40 mobile entertainment solutions. To date, revenue flow in the traditional TV industry has been equally split between the two main sources of revenue: subscription and advertising. Global revenue from these two streams is estimated to be approximately $170 billion per stream, according to Strategy Analytics (News - Alert).

 

To help network providers benefit from multi-screen enablement, Alcatel-Lucent has investigated the technical design of several high-volume, video-based services, and identified a set of common enablers that are essential for network providers who want to create compelling multi-screen end user services.

Another benefit of a multi-screen experience that addresses end user desire to access content on-demand at a time and place of convenience opens up a new advertising avenue for the $170 billion TV advertising industry. It gives advertisers a new way to reach viewers with more relevant, targeted advertising, rather than just addressing groups of households through TV-based, mass market campaigns.

 

Alcatel-Lucent officials said network providers who want to expand multimedia services with the aim to increase the reach of media gain differentiation through innovative services that increase ARPU. And they can benefit from the multi-screen foundation to deploy new services and solutions and reach profitability faster.

 

To learn more about Alcatel-Lucent’s foundation to deliver and monetize multimedia services across multiple screens, listen to a video interview with Basil Alwan, “Strategies for Monetizing IPTV.”

Erin Harrison is a Senior Editor with TMC. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Erin Harrison