A recent piece written for Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert) by Willem Verbiest discusses multiscreen's "multiple opportunities," kicking off with the observation that "consumer demand for multimedia is exploding. It is no longer confined to the home TV and has become pervasive across devices in both fixed and mobile telecom networks."

In fact, Verbiest says, "research suggests that by 2014 video will become the dominant source of global telecom traffic."

Naturally this leads to the desire for constant content anywhere and on any screen. Two major trends are influencing this desire, Verbiest sees: "The emergence of Internet video content and the growth of multimedia-enabled consumer equipment devices."

And increasingly, device quality can keep up with what's available online. In addition to the growth of notebooks, netbooks and mobile Internet devices, "the shipment of high-end cell phones is escalating," Verbiest says, noting that "improved display and delivery technologies have been fundamental to the rise in consumption of mobile devices… In short, the quality of experience enjoyed by multimedia consumers is improving fast."

Verbiest sees three areas of particular opportunity for service providers here:

Reducing device complexity. Industry analysts see no sign of device standards converging soon. This challenge can itself become an opportunity for service providers to offer device abstraction to content providers. This would enable them to focus on sourcing and creating top-class content, rather than on delivery formats and technologies.

The service provider advantage. As video becomes increasingly important to telecom networks, service providers must move from simply being suppliers of data access and transport. They must consider how they can capture a share of the multimedia value chain, improve average revenue per user and increase customer loyalty. They can do this by becoming content retailers, or by providing network and content delivery capabilities to over-the-top branded services.

Collaboration. To address video distribution and retail business opportunities, service providers will need to collaborate with content providers. This relationship will open doors to business opportunities, such as multimedia content retail. In this scenario the service provider purchases content and is responsible for the complete value chain from content management to content delivery under its own brand.

The Alcatel-Lucent open media delivery architecture is able to respond to these challenges, Verbiest says, noting that it is "based on three complementary functional layers, each addressing a particular aspect of the multimedia value chain."