IP networks: The engine for profitability

Mobile communications capabilities are expanding rapidly, which is changing the way we all work, live and play. We are now truly able to stay connected virtually anywhere, anytime. The market and its associated technological advancements are moving very quickly.

We can now use mobile devices to see what restaurants are in walking distance, get directions and even make a quick reservation. We can tell all our friends where we are and what we are doing by simply updating the status on a social media site. Information is accessible anytime, anywhere or any device.

More than a billion people will access the internet for the first time on a mobile device.

Let's consider some of the challenges and opportunities that service providers faces today. There is an enormous demand for new services. Consumers are increasingly demanding more visual, interactive, personalized services especially video based services. Businesses are demanding more collaborative services to enable them to work more efficiently and flexibly while requiring better returns for their business, through lower costs.

The shifting environment is creating a mobile data tidal wave of bandwidth. At Cisco, we predict a 3,900% increase in data traffic through 2014 with video accounting for 66% of the traffic by 2013.

There has been also been a seismic shift in the industry landscape as the competitive landscape has changed dramatically. No longer do operators just compete against each other ?they compete and partner with content providers, and even to some degree device manufacturers.

More than soaring demand

The revenue mix is changing. Voice revenue is moving to multimedia revenue and an increasing amount of the revenue generated over networks is flowing to content and over the top providers.

We're moving from lower bandwidth technologies to higher bandwidth technologies. Services are moving from network based out to the cloud where the applications and content is going to change dramatically.

All of this impacts the operator business model. B2C is becoming B2B2C.

As the landscape changes, so does our perspective. We have to change the way we are looking at the market from a technical and business point of view.