CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE
Spotlight on converged services for SMBs A new future for CSPs By Pravin Mirchandani, OneAccess CMO
By calling for enterprise-class converged voice and data services, small to medium sized businesses (SMBs) are causing real headaches for communication service providers (CSPs). But thanks to innovations in customer
premise-based router technologies, times are changing. Not only can CSPs now turn a profit in this budget conscious sector, they grow its revenue potential too.
Until recently, the vast majority of
Pravin Merchandani explains the role of CSPs in an IP-centric world...
converged voice and data revenues for major CSPs has been realised from big contracts with large enterprises. SMBs, together with the branch offices of distributed organisations, have lacked the buying power, technical expertise and staff resources needed to harness this level of communications infrastructure, together with all its associated benefits.
More for less It’s not that CSPs aren’t interested in the small to mid-sized market, of course. Many have long wanted to create a comprehensive converged offer for this space; after all, 99% of all businesses in Europe are sub-€50m annual revenues or up to 250 employees [Source: European Commission]. Fixed-line and mobile network
operators, ISPs and cloud services providers have all wrestled with the challenge of assembling, delivering and commercialising a converged service suite that features affordable, entry-level per-user price points, while still offering a clear, step-wise path towards a set of integrated business communications and collaboration capabilities. Versatility has been a key challenge.
Just like any large enterprise customer, an SMB needs a communications and collaboration package, which caters to its specific needs. Smaller businesses inevitably mean smaller budgets so contract service bundles must be suitably lean. The problem lies in the great volume
and variance of SMBs. Sheer numbers alone greatly increases the manifold connectivity requirements of this sector relative to those of the enterprise market.
In painful contrast, if CSPs are to 32 NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 1 2013
balance commercial viability with acceptable pricing they must drive down the cost of equipment, installation, maintenance and upgrades. In recent years, the drive to reduce TCO has led CSPs to adopt a ‘just enough’ approach to the components and functionality built into its equipment - hardly a recipe for flexibility.
So what has changed? Innovations in customer premises equipment (CPE) routers, have started to empower traditional telecom carriers, systems integrators, cloud and managed services providers to deliver bundles of converged voice and data services into SMB and branch office environments at unusually attractive price points, driving down TCO and greatly enhancing their own, and their customers’ operational agility as a result. But delivering the converged network
environment, integrating legacy voice, IP voice and data services over Ethernet, fibre, DSL and ISDN access networks, is just the beginning. These unassuming boxes are now
capable of entirely transforming the CSP’s relationship with its SMB
customers, equipping them with a market differentiating managed service delivery platform designed to flex according to the connectivity needs of each business. The CPE broadband router has
now become a versatile platform over which the CSP can work with its SMB customers to tackle a host of issues, which have, to date, only been addressable in the large enterprise. Issues relating to the performance of
critical applications, the quality of the end-user experience and the encryption and optimal delivery of data across the WAN can all be resolved collaboratively. Democratisation of these services
for the SMB and branch office environments has been made possible because, thanks to the intelligent router, they can be provisioned and managed remotely, vastly reducing the need for the on-site intervention traditionally associated with services of this kind. Indeed these routers requires no
specialist installation at all; once connected to the WAN they are discovered, provisioned and managed remotely by the CSP. All activation and network identification processes required for the router to function occur
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