The era of big data and telecom analytics has arrived for operators as they face the challenge of getting value from data, both structured and unstructured. Telecom operators are looking to use the vast amount of consumer data to benefit their business and to understand what is passing through their networks.
“With the evolution of networks and access devices, new information has become available, extremely rich material that if exploited with the right tools and the right vision, can turn into a valuable competitive differentiator for operators, whether in terms of service quality, new products or more assertive marketing initiatives,” Cesar Carvalho, business intelligence specialist at PromonLogicalis, noted in a past Reality Check column.
Therefore, communications service providers will need to rely on analytic tools to better administrate their network, improve the customer experience and its relationship with their users. This interest from carriers on analyzing their networks and on managing big data reflects recent moves by vendors over the past several weeks.
- Guavus, provider of big data analytics solutions, announced it has acquired Neuralitic Systems, a mobile data monetization and marketing analytics firm serving the telecommunications industry.
- Aito Technologies, a provider of customer experience analytics for mobile operators, purchased Finnish mobile data service analysis company Iptune.
- Teradata unveiled an integrated CSP framework designed to provide a 360-degree view of customers. The company said the offering enables communications service providers to gain useful big data analytic insights into customer behavior and product preferences through visibility to all data interaction.
Big screen
Telecom analytic tools, which go beyond business intelligence technologies, have been used by carriers to help increase sales, reduce churn and fraud, improve risk management and decrease operational costs.
As Gartner recently noted, future analytics will also include data from systems beyond traditional billing and mediation sources. These will include deep packet inspection, home subscriber server, video optimization equipment and on-device clients, among others.
Big data is also on carrier roadmaps. During last year’s TM Forum Management World Americas, Robert Rich, managing director at TM Forum Insights, highlighted the advances of three technological changes that could cause a revolution: in-memory databases; information appliance of data management; and column-oriented databases.
According to Olly Downs, SVP of data sciences at Globys, carriers should take advantage of big data by applying scientific marketing technologies on top of a dynamic big data repository. Downs said that this approach allows telecom operators “to take very highly targeted actions that haven’t been possible in the past, but also dynamic, contextualized action based on customer behavior.”
The telecom analytics space aims at proving a weekly look at insights, trends and new products in all topics that touch how telecom operators can take advantage of and monetize analytics tools, including big data, business intelligence, business analytics and network analytics.
