A recent look by Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert) at the way service providers are losing out even as traffic volume increases finds the three following to be true:

Operators can monetize multimedia services by selectively exposing high value network capabilities. Service provider network assets offer quantifiable value to third-party developers. And application enablement helps operators identify key network assets to deliver multimedia services.

In other words, there's no reason why service providers shouldn't be seeing more of a return on the increases of traffic than they are.

'Service provider returns are diminishing. An increase in traffic volume driven by multimedia consumption and direct-to-consumer application services is eroding service provider value,' Alcatel-Lucent officials say. 'Service providers must increase their influence on the content delivery value chain by adding unique value to it.'

Relevance in this ecosystem can bring new market opportunities in the following areas:

Multimedia content delivery, such as on-demand and catch-up TV, and video on demand. Screen Digest reports that 'in the pay-TV sector, the upgrade of the U.S. cable companies' networks to enable homes to on-demand, combined with migration of customers from analogue to digital services will see the transactional VoD market increase in value in North America to $3 billion by 2014.'

Mobile applications: Since 2007, the iPhone (News - Alert) and other smartphone platforms have created a new application market forecasted to explode to $25 billion by 2014.

But to connect to these potential revenue streams, Alcatel-Lucent officials say, 'service providers need to understand the network capabilities required to participate in the multimedia content delivery value chain. With the right tools, services and expertise, they can unlock the network assets to make it happen.'

And the fact is, 'service providers have network assets that offer a quantifiable value to third parties looking to provide consumers services. These assets can be used to monetize the massive streams of content and application services that traverse the network.'

The first step is to figure out which assets can be used to attract those who design or deliver applications, video streams, and other multimedia services. Check out the article for more.