Innovation used to come from the service provider, who defined connectivity services and brought them to market. Not anymore. Both consumers and businesses now are driving innovation, demanding more from providers. This is both a challenge and, for the forward-thinking provider, an opportunity.
On the residential side, the catalyst for service innovation is video, according to a paper by Alcatel-Lucent (News 
- Alert) (ALU), 7750 Service Router: Your Edge In Service Evolution.
“Driven by the freedom and flexibility of video-on-demand (VoD) services delivered over the top (OTT), the high-quality viewing experience delivered by managed IPTV (News - Alert) services, and an explosion in consumer electronics devices (such as tablets and Internet-enabled TVs) that consume content, subscribers are demanding a more flexible and personalized broadband experience, one in which they can consume any content on any device, anytime, anywhere,” noted the paper.
ALU notes that service providers (SPs) can benefit from the VoD lust by offering plans that providing guaranteed quality of service levels for VoD. They also can leverage the opportunity by giving customers the option of enhanced linear TV services with:
- High video quality and fast channel change capability
- HSI plans with application-aware metering capability to personalize the service
- Application-aware zero rating and usage-based billing to monetize OTT traffic
- Wi-Fi access that seamlessly extends the home connectivity experience
On the business size, the catalyst is cloud computing, storage and applications. ALU suggests that SPs can take advantage of the demand by including:
- Cloud access VPNs and business Internet services that restore application visibility
- Network-based distributed denial of service (DDoS) mitigation services
- End–to-end SLAs that guarantee performance for applications hosted in the service provider datacenter
- Rapid service provisioning for cloud VPN access
To turn the service demands into opportunities, however, operators need to energize the IP edge.
“The extent to which SPs can transform these opportunities into new revenue streams will often hinge on their ability to overcome challenges at the IP edge of the network that stand in the way of service evolution,” the paper explains.
The Alcatel-Lucent 7750 Service Router helps SPs literally energize the IP edge. It helps providers deliver on four key areas: higher performance, more services, integrated intelligence, and greater operational efficiency.
The 7750 Service Router provides high-density 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GE)/40GE/100GE networking, a path to 400Gb/s networking in the future, and the ability to scale performance and services concurrently with no compromise, according to ALU. And, it does so consuming 50 percent less power per bit transported.
Unlike single-purpose edge routers, the Alcatel-Lucent 7750 SR contains a comprehensive set of IP-based services across the residential, business and mobile domains. It also has integrated intelligence, including MS-ISA applications and subscriber-aware monitoring and control capabilities.
The 7750 Service Router also brings operational efficiency. A common management platform for services, network elements and applications allows service provider to reduce service provisioning times by up to 97 percent and virtually eliminates provisioning errors during reconfiguration, according to Alcatel-Lucent. Further, the integration of new services into IT and OSS/BSS systems is greatly simplified, accelerating time to market for new services.
With innovation now driven by the user, service providers must take advantage of the opportunities or their competition might, and energizing the edge is a way to do so.
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Edited by
Peter Bernstein
