When visiting a friend in the UK in my student days some decades ago, he asked me at one point in time if I had some coins to keep the electricity meter going. This was the first and last time I saw a coin activated electricity meter. In my mind, prepaid electricity now essentially belonged to a distant past when Scrooge like landlords would make sure renters did not disappear without paying their electricity bills.

On a recent business trip however, I realized that prepaid electricity has rather adapted well to the modern age with electronic readers and even prepaid cards, just like for telephony.  In India, prepaid metering is in fact quite common as is also the case in a number of former British colonies including South Africa. Not only that, the popularity of prepaid electricity is growing as the Times of India reported recently, citing the city of Pune.

Smart grids are a hot topic everywhere including here in Canada where our ITAC  Smart Grid Committee is quite active and participation proves interesting. International standards that govern smart meter data exchange are more advanced than widely assumed.  A closer look at the PLC G3 spec for example, shows 6lowpan and compressed IPv6 on the network and transport layer. On the application level, we find the data exchange formats with electric meters defined by ANSI C12 in North America and IEC62056 in Europe.  

This is not just talk. In a North American first, BC Hydro announced that they would deploy IPv6 smart grid architecture as an element of its Smart Metering Program and started to replace its 1.8 million electromechanical meters. They had looked at Smart Grids since 2005 but the 2010 BC Clean Energy Act mandated smart meters and thereby provided the impetus needed. Canadian Big Telco ices the IPv6 puck and Big Hydro scores.

The e-age incarnation of the old electricity coin eater even finds renewed respect in the marketplace. A recent study by Pike Research forecasts a growing market with the number of prepaid meters growing from a current  20 million worldwide to 33.7 million by 2017. Another study in the US shows that consumers actually like prepaid and save more than 10% on their electricity bill. In an age where going green and browsing for the best deal are fashionable, the Pike Research forecast might even turn out to be conservative.

Nowadays, my long lost British friend might even be reloading his electricity counter by m-payment.   He might shiver if his prepaid voice account ran out and his phone battery was about to die while the lights went dark and the heater turned silent on a damp and humid London winter night.

As a global telecommunications provider, Tata Communications is strongly committed to the Voice business. This commitment is reflected by the significant investment in our people, systems, tools, network and our customers. Tata Communications’ Global Voice Solutions team have realigned its resources, products, and assets to support your customers’ needs and the products you develop to support them.

Our ongoing goal is to enable success for service providers in the US region. We have focused our in-region resources to best understand your needs, enabling us to co-create solutions anchored on each party’s core competencies, while understanding and addressing the challenges partnerships face when making a commitment. But to truly partner means much more than that. The partnership is built on a foundation of trust, integrity, transparency and understanding. Understanding not only each party’s strength, but ensuring dependencies are addressed with confidence.

We empower service providers to leverage our scale, globally deployed expertise, and investments to drive an improved return on capital, enhance focus on core capability and harness the ability to meet today’s technological advancements.  Our strategic sourcing (win-win) partnerships adhere to the following philosophy; to enable our partners and ourselves to tap into each others’ strengths, and to always provide a tailored solution to meet each partner’s unique needs.

Creating a solution with a partner is the new “merger”, one that leverages strengths enabling each partner to focus on its core business versus the acquisition of a capability.

Our partnership with Vonage clearly illustrates the advantages of this approach. Both sides communicate freely, sharing issues and solutions to achieve the best possible result for the end user. Click here to see how Vonage and Tata Communications were able to work together to ensure brilliant performance during the Festival of Lights.

We are very excited about the success we have had, the relationships we have built, and we look forward to the opportunities that will be presented in the future.

Meet the US team

Tony Sgroi Regional Vice President, US, Global Voice Solutions Tata Communications

Todd Rydzynski Director, Business Development With Tata Communications since 2003

Andy Mendola Business Development Manager With Tata Communications since 2008

Dave Vaccaro Carrier Relations Manager With Tata Communications since 2004

David Farrance Business Development Manager With Tata Communications since 2004

Rob Lemmers Carrier Relations Trader With Tata Communications since January 2003

Mark Dupont Business Development Trader With Tata Communications since April 2004

David Burdulis Business Development Manager With Tata Communications since 2004

Denise Von Carlowitz Business Development Manager With Tata Communications since January 2003

This year’s edition of International Telecoms Week will take place from 14 to 16 May, 2012 in Chicago.

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Our ongoing goal is to enable success for service providers in the Middle East. From win-win partnerships to providing educational sessions for local operators, we are committed to supporting the development of capabilities required to gain a competitive advantage in this exciting, evolving market.

We empower service providers to leverage our scale, expertise, and investments to drive better return on capital, enhance focus on core business and harness the ability to leapfrog to meet today’s technological advancements. Our strategic sourcing (win-win) partnerships in the Middle East adhere to the same philosophy as those in other emerging markets: to enable our partners and ourselves to tap into each others’ strengths, and to always provide a tailored solution for partners to meet their unique needs.

Meet the Middle East team

Gaurav Anand Vice President, Middle East and Africa Global Voice Solutions

Muzamil Shaikh Sales Manager – MENA, Gulf With Tata Communications since 2004

Varun Pandey Regional Sales Director – MENA and Turkey With Tata Communications since 2004

Hurcan Sutlu Sales Consultant – Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Jordan With Tata Communications since June 2011

Rishiraj Gupta Strategic Trading and Business Development – AM MENA and Turkey With Tata Communications since April 2008

Source: CircleID, January 10, 2012

In June 2009 we mused in these columns about Long Term Evolution standing for Short Term Evolution as wireless networks started to drown in a data deluge. 
 
It is January 2012 and we keep our heads above the mobile data deluge, even if barely, thanks to a gathering avalanche of LTE networks.
 
Even the wildest prognoses proved conservative as the GSMA was betting on a more “managed” progression through intermediate steps of gradual increases reasoning that the use of existing investments should be maximized while price declines and threats to existing roaming and SMS revenues also had to be “managed”.  Continuity implies to postulate that transitions should be gradual, not chaotic or highly disruptive. The last two years, however, turned out to be rather disruptive after a plateau of relative tranquility powered by a steady traffic and revenue growth in the wireless data world.  But over the last year we have rather unexpectedly seen industry pillars including Microsoft, Nokia and RIM heaving and creaking under the mobile broadband gusts. Once unassailable Symbian now fades away and Android dominates the charts. Cloud computing combined with ever more Intelligent and versatile end devices is likely to further upset a relatively stable decade when some dominant computer and handheld operating systems were revenue and profit gushers with every new version they issued.
 
It still holds that faced with deluges of data and floods of  handsets and applications, a drought of IP addresses might be perceived as a rather minor issue in the scheme of big things that would be resolved in due time anyway. As address depletion became a reality, the excitement was limited to the circles of digerati and cognoscente but went largely unnoticed by the vast majority. Not so when broadband networks fail to deliver enough bandwidth to provide a satisfactory user experience.
 
Back in June of 2009 there were no LTE networks operational. Ten of them were forecasted to go live by the end of 2010. The very first to become commercial was Teliasonera in Norway and Sweden on December 14th, 2009. In the US, MetroPCS was first of the mark on September 21st, 2010 followed by Verizon Wireless on December 5th of the same year.  In Canada, we saw Rogers Wireless start LTE service in July 2011 with Bell following in September 2011, the same month as AT&T Mobility.
 
Latest GSM Association figures show us that as of January 5th, 2012 we have 49 operational LTE networks in 29 countries and 229 deployment commitments in a total of 79 countries.  And obviously LTE networks have to be able to talk to each other.  This in turn is generating furious activity to deploy IPX exchanges to provide data and voice roaming in an all IP environment, a topic by itself, and keeping a number of us quite busy over the last six months.
 
And what about IPv6 in all of this? It is or soon will be under the hood. Verizon announced from the start that their devices would support IPv6 as recommended in the LTE specifications and they kept their word.  Some mobile network operators have been rather discreet but are quietly working on their IPv6 deployment. They consider upcoming IPv6 support as implicit; IP addresses are IP addresses, their format is irrelevant to the general public.
 
Mobile operators often cited lack of LTE ready enabled end devices as a delaying factor.  That argument is now passé.  End of October, the GSA listed 197 LTE enabled devices from 48 manufacturers, up threefold since February 2011 and the list includes 27 smart phones.  And If you happen to be enjoying the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas this week, LTE devices are hot!
 
Now that both voice and data are becoming more widely available as voice over LTE concerns move backstage, competitive pressure should start working its magic. The choice and the application versatility of LTE enabled devices associated with quality of service and adequate pricing is what turns on a mobile broadband hungry public.  
 
We already start to feel the acceleration of the LTE powered mobile broadband bullet train. The art will be to translate this in IPv6 traffic growth forecasts. I have a vague feeling that the most accurate forecasts will unlikely be based on some prudent extrapolations.   
 
Let IPv6 enjoy the LTE ride.

Move past these common misperceptions to see how today’s sourcing models can unlock value for your voice business.

 
Strategic sourcing has become an established feature of the international voice industry landscape. A handful of prominent deals now have multiyear track records, while smaller agreements span segments and services.

But, even as sourcing grows familiar, these five myths have remained surprisingly persistent. A truer picture of the business case for strategic sourcing can help voice managers create durable and profitable international voice revenue.

MYTH 1: Outsourcing helps the bottom line only

REALITY: Today’s sourcing strategies can provide top-line revenue growth with solutions including inbound aggregation and fraud detection.

Traditionally, outsourcing is associated with cost centres, not revenue streams. Voice executives fear that sourcing means giving up on future top-line growth, or even risks shrinking the often substantial contribution of international voice to gross revenues.

In fact, sourcing and revenue growth can be an excellent fit. Through reciprocal partnership with a leading international voice traffic aggregator, providers can augment terminations into their home network footprint, growing top-line revenue, and improving return from existing network assets. The aggregator benefits from predictable quality levels, supply and operational costs.

Sourcing can also reverse revenue leakage from fraudulent activities such as SIM bypass, False Answer Supervision and hacking. Reducing fraud improves the end-user experience, boosts customer satisfaction, rewards high-quality suppliers with traffic growth and improves network efficiency while avoiding risky traffic streams.

MYTH 2: Outsourcing requires giving up control of my business

REALITY: Done properly, sourcing will increase traffic visibility and business control.

International voice touches many divisions within an organisation, supporting retail operations, competitive differentiation, revenue profiles and more. Providers fear that one-size-fits-all sourcing arrangements may reduce control over critical functions.

While careful road map and strategy alignment between partners is an important success factor, sourcing should deliver more traffic and business control, not less. Sourcing can provide access to advanced routing tools, and more efficient, granular pricing, costing and reporting systems.

Many international voice managers struggle to stay on top of pricing changes, currency risks, fluctuating inventories, outages, congestion and other operational complexities.

Meanwhile, lack of visibility can create exposure to fraud, arbitrage, pricing mismatches and supply shortages.

By reducing risk, removing uncertainty and increasing ability to execute, voice sourcing better aligns goals and results, placing managers more firmly in control.

MYTH 3: Outsourcing is an all-or-nothing deal

REALITY: Sourcing solutions can cover specific routes, regions, or functions, as makes sense for your business.

Sole-supplier sourcing deals grab headlines and industry attention, but these agreements are the exception, not the rule. The majority of sourcing arrangements cover just a segment of the provider’s international voice traffic.

Popular strategies include exiting regions with less appealing margin profiles, or taking a partnership approach for the “long tail” of low-volume termination destinations. Other providers source infrastructure while controlling routing – or vice versa – and deploy as‑a‑service back–office or trading tools.

By addressing challenging routes and functions, sourcing allocates resources away from fixing problems, and towards multiplying successes.

MYTH 4: Outsourcing reduces competitive differentiation

REALITY: Smart sourcing will increase resource availability for competitive differentiation, while shoring up capabilities in non-core areas.

With tight margins and commoditisation already concerns, many providers worry that sourcing will accelerate price competition by reducing perceived advantages between suppliers.

Because sourcing allocates resources away from reactive problem-fixing, it is more often the first step to improve competitive differentiation. A few providers conclude that international voice is entirely non-core; more focus on attracting inbound traffic, building regional specialisation, or strengthening sales and support.

Mobility, cloud services, IP migration and convergence are exciting growth opportunities for innovative voice providers. Ensuring agility and focus to navigate this new environment is critical for success.

MYTH 5: Outsourcing is complex and risky

REALITY: Voice sourcing is a powerful tool to manage risk and complexity.

Previously, healthy growth in total international traffic volumes cushioned against many business risks. But recently, volume growth has slowed while business and routing complexity have ballooned. For providers facing more intense competition and more execution challenges, the riskiest decision may be to do nothing.

Significant up-front investments are needed to migrate to next-generation IP infrastructure, and upgrade routing engines to handle number portability, codec interoperability and converged services.

Invest, and providers may find that within a few years, over-the-top players and next-generation services have eroded traffic volumes and ROI. But providers that delay investing will be vulnerable to fraud and arbitrage, and unable to deliver premium-quality services. Sourcing provides a third path forward within the voice business.

Is Sourcing right for you?

In a highly competitive environment, providers cannot afford to miss opportunities to increase flexibility, improve efficiency, or augment revenue growth.

Tata Communications has partnered with several voice providers to overcome operational challenges and improve business results. Talk to us to understand your potential business case for voice sourcing.

4G in a nutshell

The race to increase uplink and downlink speeds beyond 3G has seen a number of competing approaches and a confusing number of possible upgrade paths. They include EVDO, HSPA, HSOPA, E-UTRA, EDGE, Wi-Max, HSPA+ and LTE. The most recent one, LTE which is the acronym of Long Term Evolution, offers up to 100mbps on the downlink and 50mbps on the uplink while Wimax enables 128Mbps and 56mbps. However both LTE and Wimax are not considered real 4G by the purists.

The ITU has raised the ante now ‘true’ 4G as LTE+ (Advanced LTE) and Wimax (IETF 802.16.m) are offering up to 1 gigabit per second to fixed users and 100 mbps to mobile users.

In the meantime, the market power of mobile operators and the GSMA has made LTE the de facto winner in the race but the astonishing growth in volumes to be transmitted makes even the increased available spectrum, made available recently in a number of countries, a scarce commodity. This results in the need for a peaceful coexistence between wireless and wired as the devices switch back and forth between local Wi-Fi access and mobile roaming to avoid needless clogging of precious spectrum.

Why 4G now

One of the most pressing drivers behind 4G recently has been the mobile data deluge. Mobile data traffic has doubled in each of the past three years (Cisco) – a fact that is attributed largely to the meteoric rise in smartphone usage. Video constitutes a large chunk of this traffic and will continue to do so.

The network challenge

The rapid growth in mobile data, particularly in bandwidth-intensive video which constitutes a large percentage of this traffic, has currently overwhelmed many 3G networks. Many carriers now are struggling in the midst of a constant cycle of catch up. Even as their networks become fully built out, with the exponential rise in mobile data, they risk not being to meet future demands fast enough unless there are significant network improvements. This is partially a result of spectrum availability as well as backhaul limitations.

Our commitment

At Tata Communications, we are leading the way to supporting mobile operators in the move to Next-generation Networks and successfully meet the rapidly advancing mobile data landscape. Our IPX+ framework includes LTE Roaming, Voice over LTE (VoLTE), and application enablement solutions for real-time rich media applications.

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Our expert, Christian Michaud, Senior Vice President, Product & Business Strategy at Tata Communications, responds to some of these questions. See below.

What is IPX and how is it helping to ease the transition to an all-IP world?

IPX provides for the delivery of current data roaming, signaling and voice services via a single connection.  The evolution toward a multiservice IP infrastructure not only allows for savings and efficiencies but more importantly, lays the foundation for service providers’ new product and services roadmaps.  IPX is also characterized by end-to-end QoS, security and one-to-many connectivity, enabling a controlled migration to IP and the compounding of its benefits.

As a framework, how is IPX inherently efficient from a cost and services perspective?

IPX’s multiservice characteristics provide operational efficiencies, in addition to those afforded by running an all IP network.

The IPX framework also allows for more efficient connectivity and commercial relationships: one interconnection opens up to multilateral interconnections. From a commercial agreement perspective, IPX provisions for flexible models which can help service providers optimize the management of such agreements.

What recent industry developments are you seeing regarding IPX ?

Beyond the efficiencies and improvement in service IPX brings, it is also designed with future service enablement in mind. What is particularly interesting now is the portfolio of new services and features which are being fast-tracked, such as multimedia applications (i.e., online gaming, video streaming and sharing) and HD voice. From a roadmap perspective, Long-Term Evolution (LTE) and Rich Communication Suite (RCSE) are now close and tangible enough that the industry needs to plan accordingly. As a global leading solutions provider, we see these developments as reflective of the accelerated pace in which the industry is moving, and as an opportunity to enable our customers to be future-ready and profit in a rapidly evolving landscape.

As a mobile network operator, why is an IPX solution important?

With mobile data undergoing consistent, rapid growth, MNOs need a solution that helps them cost-effectively deliver increasingly sophisticated services to meet evolving demands and drive customer loyalty. Our IPX+ framework enables efficiency with optimal network utilization and simplified interconnect arrangements and service delivery models. Our expertise and infrastructure enables MNOs to seamlessly deliver existing services in an IP environment, so they can better focus on development of their service roadmap and future revenue streams.

What is the Tata Communications IPX offering?

Our IPX framework is called IPX+ and provides a converged interconnect platform, enabling end-to-end management across mobile networks for the delivery of multiple services over IP. MNOs have consolidated access to voice, signaling, video and Telepresence, as well as mobile data roaming and transport options including Global VPN, IP transit and the newly available IPX Connect, all with seamless interworking and industry-leading features. Our IPX+ roadmap also includes Voice over LTE (VoLTE), LTE roaming and IMS application enablement solutions.