October 1, 2004

Part of the VoIP Game Is Learning from Others

By Justin J. Junkus, Telephony Editor

I confess. I'm a voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) addict. When I get press releases, thumb through the trades, or hit the show floors, if the publicity has those four letters in it, there I go. Worse yet, the word "multimedia" is beginning to have the same effect. The good part, however, is that I'm finding a lot of experiences in other segments of the communications industry that can be applied to cable's emerging VoIP business.

For example, think about how long vendors have been targeting the large enterprise market to converge data and voice into one network. Beginning in the late 1990 Jurassic Communications Age, vendors began rolling out commercial VoIP solutions targeted to businesses. Admittedly, that market is far more controlled and has fewer constraints on quality of service (QoS), but it's been a University of VoIP for providing practical learning on conversions from time division multiplexing (TDM) to VoIP. Many of those lessons are even more applicable if VoIP is your first entry into voice.

Few would dispute that Cisco Systems is one of the leaders in business VoIP. Cisco Press (www.ciscopress.com) has just published The Road to IP Telephony by Stephanie L. Carhee, which documents Cisco's internal migration from TDM private branch exchange (PBX) technology to IP telephony. In addition to being a good read on how an enterprise VoIP network is put together, this book contains a lot of project management advice that network service providers can borrow as they plan their own VoIP introductions.

As I noted earlier, enterprise VoIP has fewer constraints than network VoIP; however, if this "easier" implementation benefits from a structured plan, think about how much more a good project plan will pay dividends for a network that replaces incumbent telephony service. From an operator perspective, I'd suggest reading the second chapter in detail and skimming the rest for hints on procedures and checklists. A pull-out project flowchart that cross-references chapters in the book makes it relatively easy to zero in on topics of interest.

Recruit tigers

The second chapter talks about the importance of a cross-functional team and participation by the stakeholders most affected by cutover to VoIP. The scenario is a 20,000-user corporate network, which places the number of phones and terminals in the ballpark of some cable VoIP subscriber targets. A key element of the VoIP introduction methodology was the establishment of a Tiger Team covering all the critical functions of the migration. The Tiger Team was made up of four components: executive sponsor, steering committee, team managers and a core implementation team.

The executive sponsor is a high-ranking member of the company, such as the president or CEO, who can quickly help resolve cross-functional issues. Steering committee members are senior level functional executives who influence the deployment and help resolve issues. If we were doing this in a cable company, steering committee membership would include the VPs of operations, marketing and sales. The team manager component consists of a team lead and a program manager. The team lead focuses on building the cross-functional core implementation team, and the program manager is responsible for prioritizing tasks associated with implementation.

The core implementation team consists of functional managers who carry out implementation, in addition to their usual responsibilities. In a cable company, installation and customer support managers would fit into this role. Within the team, there are four lead people responsible for technology, support, finance and geographic segment.

I was struck by the possibility of modifying the core team concept for our industry by adding core members representing end users in the community, such as a city council member or chamber of commerce representative. Obviously, team leads would still be operator roles, but ground-level participation by potential subscribers could add substantial customer relationship value.

Rethink multimedia

On the multimedia front, I received an electronic communication from SMS.ac, a company active in the wireless industry, that discussed how they were helping increase cellular phone usage by adding functionality through myriad new features and applications. When we think multimedia, there is often a tendency to predetermine that certain types of messaging will be delivered via email or instant messages, rather than on the phone. Because the SMS.ac market is the cellular industry, however, they were forced to constrain their delivery vehicle for information to the telephone and, in the process, developed a number of alternatives to the PC.

This made me wonder if it might also be smart marketing to use cable telephony as an alternative communications vehicle for those who feel more comfortable with a phone than with a computer. In our market, I'm sure we could also think of links to video.

I therefore offer the following examples verbatim from Ina Mirman, the SMS.ac public relations specialist, to stimulate thought on how a cable operator can take a simple voice offering, and by adding functionality through CMS and applications servers, increase market share and stimulate other services:

"Teachers are sending parents text notifications that their children are in school (and not truant). Grades are being sent directly to parents' mobile phones, which the parents love and the kids hate. Even the hearing-impaired are using their mobile phones to communicate because of text and multimedia messaging. Religious congregations are having daily inspirational messages sent to their phones."

"Imagine getting a CD-quality music clip from your favorite artist delivered to your phone. You can purchase that music—and tickets to the upcoming concert—simply by replying from your phone! All transactions will appear on the users' monthly statements, or they'll be debited directly against their pre-paid calling cards ... no credit cards needed!

"There are more than 1 million people joining smsClubs (think telephone chat group) each month. (Through these clubs) people are finally able to meet other people from their own city—or from around the globe—that share their interests."

Multimedia alibis?

I found a service called "Mobile Alibi" particularly amusing, although I'm not sure cable can (or would want) to do this for landline phones:

"You can download software to your mobile handset that allows a husband (for example) to phone his wife to tell her he will be late, while the sound of heavy traffic (or a supermarket or a dentist office) is piped—through the phone—even if the husband is instead calling from a bar or nightclub."

The point of these examples is not to make a case for porting cellular applications to landline cable telephony. Rather, it is to illustrate that increased market penetration will be achieved by combining observation and creativity and picking the best implementations and applications for your markets and customers.

The service provider who is perceived as anticipating and meeting the customer's needs, through smooth implementation and novel services, will be the one who gets telephony market share.

Justin J. Junkus is President of KnowledgeLink Inc. To discuss this topic further, you may email him at jjunkus@knowledgelinkinc.com.