Wireless intelligent network deployments remain slow in the United States as mobile phone carriers have focused on building out digital networks and spending money on switching and radio-frequency infrastructure.
That is about to change, indicate WIN vendors, as more competitors enter the mobile phone market, creating a need for carriers to offer enhanced services rather than competing on price. WINs allow carriers to offer revenue-enhancing services such as short message service, virtual private networks and voice-activated dialing.
“There’s a magic number in the market, somewhere around four operators. Once carriers have established networks and coverage and capacity are up, we start to see marketing battles intensify,” said Paul Sargeant, senior marketing manager for Code Division Multiple Access wireless networks with Northern Telecom Inc. Wireless Networks. “Once you get to that stage, the market gets into a state of differentiating in features. It’s nascent in the U.S., but as [personal communications services] operators get networks built out, we’re going to see an uptake in differentiating the services … We’ve seen it in the GSM business in Europe and we see some in the Asia Pacific.”
WINs will allow carriers to quickly deploy enhanced services as market conditions change because carriers no longer will have to rely on their switching resources, said David Schwartz, industry analyst with Dataquest in Miami.
“In the past you had to add services through switch-based services. That would mean going back and re-engineering the whole switching platform. In the past, it took years to introduce new services-nine months to two years. Now it can take hours or a day depending on the complexity of services.”
“You can use multiple switch vendors to deploy service on one platform,” said Braatz. “You can deploy that service across the whole network without having to get development from all different service providers, ubiquitously across multiple switch vendors.”
Schwartz said the market growth potential for WINs is large because carriers will be required to deploy them. Government mandates for local number portability and enhanced 911 services will require WINs, and competition will become too intense for carriers to compete on price alone. In the past, carriers have had trouble justifying putting money into WINs because they have been unsure of the return.
“We’re seeing a shift in looking at INs and what they can do for enhanced services,” said Braatz. “Carriers are looking at maximizing the return on their investments. Revenues per minute will be going down if you don’t capture more market share. Speed and flexibility and being able to deploy services very quickly will be key. You’re not going to be the big market winner with price differentiation.”
A market study from Technical Marketing Services in St. Petersburg, Fla., estimates the North American WIN market will generate $82.2 billion in revenues between 1997 and 2000. It expects total revenue in 2002 will be $22.6 billion. The firm predicts a compound growth rate of 49.8 percent.
Many Interim Standard-41 carriers in the United States today are waiting for equipment to become standardized before they deploy systems, said Schwartz. The Telecommunications Industry Association recently completed Phase 1 of the project and expects to complete Phase 2 by the end of the year. BellSouth Cellular Corp. has been spearheading a WIN task group to reach carrier consensus.
“We’re a very strong proponent of moving toward a WIN-based architecture. Our intent is to use the WIN capabilities as they get standardized to leverage how we provide enhanced services,” said J.M. McGarrah, director of network services with BellSouth Cellular. “The advantage we see of a WIN-based architecture is more options … It means IN capability for mass customization.”
And the possibilities for services used on WINs are almost endless. Lucent’s messaging division recently introduced an IN messaging solution designed to reduce costs in delivering next-generation messaging services. The vendor is continually working on new ways to deliver messaging services, like Internet voice messaging. This will allow subscribers to exchange voice messages between voice mailboxes and e-mail users.
Prepaid service also is driving the use of WINs, says Nortel. Carriers are clamoring to offer prepaid services to previously untapped markets.
“With WIN service implementation, a lot of the additional costs move away so a prepaid customer can be treated as a postpay customer. Customers can get the same features they can enjoy with postpay service,” said Bill Young, director of network solutions, Nortel.
Nortel’s Young said WINs will play an important role as wireless carriers strive for wireline service displacement.
“The customer base is moving right now. Carriers are going after the next tier. They are increasing volume and moving toward making service more competitive with wireline. We will see a need for wireless services to have wireline equivalency, like calling-name display-things you would enjoy on a wireline phone. With current marketing programs, people are using wireless phones as their only phone.”
