http://www.iec.org/newsletter/jan07_2/broadband_2.html
ISP Market: Proposing New Services to Customers Educational content provided by Stefan Bengtsson, BeWAN systems A Turning Point in Europe's Increasingly Competitive Market In recent years, Europe has witnessed significant growth of the Internet, both in the increasing number of subscribers and the appearance of new operators. While the market has reached maturity in several countries, competition remains aggressive. The challenge for Internet service providers (ISPs) is not only to acquire new customers, but also to improve the long-term loyalty of their subscribers. Consumers are also changing their habits. A parallel can be drawn between how the market for Internet service has evolved and what has happened with mobile telephony. Imagine trying to sell a mobile phone today without a color screen or a built-in camera! Users today want products that offer the broadest possible range of functionality. ISPs are facing a similar situation with high-speed Internet: consumers are no longer simply looking for fast access, but also for services that will impact their daily lives, in addition to high-quality connections and related services. Convergence and Added Services The mobile phone market was the first to offer mass-market convergence devices: calculators, cameras, notebooks, agendas, e-mail, MP3 players, and video game consoles. The mobile phone has evolved into a technology center, and as a result, mobile operators have been able to significantly increase their revenues by developing additional services. The same trend is appearing with Internet connectivity products. ISPs are placing devices in their subscribers' households, which in addition to managing Internet connectivity, are also providing a number of complementary services. The French market is a good example: to sustain and even increase their revenue, ISPs have chosen to use several technologies that have emerged since the development of high-speed connectivity, including IP telephony and digital television. And now, multi-play devices are appearing on the market. While still taking shape, today's multi-play device offerings are facing strong competition from market players. In response, a residential gateway that would allow ISPs to provide their subscribers new services in digital entertainment and home automation would complement the more "traditional" services such as high-speed Internet connection, IP telephony, and television. The objective is to allow ISPs to differentiate themselves by proposing unique services that will best position them to evolve in response to the needs of their subscribers. A Scalable Residential Gateway to Support a Range of Significant Services By choosing a scalable residential gateway, ISPs will be able to advance at a pace in line with the proliferation of new uses and adapt their offering to their subscribers' needs and demands. They will be better positioned to adjust the price of their users' subscriptions based on available functionality: high-speed Internet, IP telephony, IPTV, shared digital support (e.g., data, audio, video, blogs, pictures, images) and home automation applications (e.g., remotely operating surveillance cameras, enabling subscribers to control the home heating/air-conditioning system from the office) Furthermore, ISPs could supply their users with hardware that complements these additional services. The consumer's shopping cart would include storage peripherals, MP3 and video players, webcams, cameras, and Bluetooth adapters, resulting in increased average spending and a deeper involvement with their service provider. -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
