Convergence Strategy for a Universal Operator and role of
Business Planning
Abstract
O. Gonzalez Soto
- Successful convergence of services and networks needs powerful modeling
both from technical and economical perspectives. This paper considers the main
dimensions in convergence, the related key economical factors and a strategy for
convergence of an operator with universal scope in a competitive environment.
Those factors allow defining the best steps to follow in order to increase business
and benefit from the economies of scale at the different network layers.
- The migration steps from a classical operator towards a universal operator for
voice, data and video in fixed and mobile networks are defined as a “stair case”
strategy that aggregates new business domains on top of the currently in
operation. NGN architecture facilitates the functionality and scalability at network
level while common IT architectures are also needed to allow flexibility and
economies of scale at the level of applications and control functions, especially
between fixed and mobile domains.
- Due to the important contribution to costs by the infrastructure and the services
launching, special emphasis is done on the modeling and evaluation of the
CAPEX and OPEX for the network infrastructure, systems and service platforms.
Architectures and steps within NGN are proposed for the convergence and a
techno-economical modeling is summarized for the evaluation of costs, revenues
and financial ratios incurred by the multi-service provisioning solutions.
- Different alternatives of operation are evaluated in a case study for an
integrated network that provides several mixes of voice, data and video related
services in order to illustrate the sensitivity of the economical indicators as Net
Present Value and Break-even point on the business health of the operator.
Conclusions are derived on the business feasibility and positioning in a
competitive market as a function of the services categories and customer classes
to be addressed.