12704_SCTE_Broadband_Nov2016_COMPLETE_lowres

from the industry

Comcast recently said that its business services unit was a significant growth driver in 2015, with revenues increasing by 20 per cent compared to the previous year and an annual revenue run rate of US$ 5 billion. The operator has also created a new enterprise unit to focus on Fortune 1000 companies and drive growth in this segment using targeted programmes and offerings specific to these customers. The operational benefits of vCPE are transformative, and will greatly improve the way that MSOs manage both the technology and the user. Virtualization will help to reduce and simplify any customer interactions, reduce innovation cycles for developing new services and reduce time to market for new features and applications. Service interruptions or problems can be addressed and corrected more proactively, and cable customers will realize the benefits of new services that are activated without the need for truck rolls or CPE replacements. Simplifying these processes becomes almost a guarantee for an improved customer experience An evolutionary shift for cable MSOs Virtualization may be revolutionary to cable operators, but the shift will be evolutionary. MSOs should build a business case that highlights the operational cost and performance benefits and amortizes the costs of shifting from the physical to virtual infrastructure. They should see a rapid return on investment in the elimination of truck rolls, reduction in home tech visits and longer usage cycles of on-premises, upgradeable hardware in the home or office. These changes to the operating model for residential service delivery are the first step in laying the foundation for a new kind of business. Cable MSOs must also look for ways to improve the customer experience through driving greater process efficiencies. The elimination of unnecessary service costs is of paramount importance to any MSO. Truck rolls for cable service-related installs and repairs rank as one of the most costly components of the cable service, and the timely performance of a service appointment is intrinsically linked to customer satisfaction. Appointment delays become a source of frustration for customers, and sometimes simple corrections or resets of customer premises equipment become unnecessary high-cost components over the lifetime of the customer relationship. In an ideal scenario, technical support services would be limited to initial installations, customer premises equipment (i.e. set top box) failures or disconnects, and every other

Paul Hughes, Director of Strategy, Netcracker Technology

Monetising new business services Cable operators have a growing opportunity to turn speed into new revenue streams. The growth of 4K video and High Dynamic Range (HDR) represent what’s next in video quality and enable service options that should have higher monetisable value, regardless of whether they are delivered as part of a traditional cable bundle or as an Over-The-Top service. MSOs believe that 4K and HDR support will be their market advantages over competitors in attracting new higher- end customers, so being able to deliver and monetise those services should be a top priority. The shift towards virtualization will bring new operational efficiency advantages to MSOs, initially with the adoption of virtual Customer Premises Equipment (vCPE) devices such as set-top boxes that provide greater efficiency and cost savings by shifting functionality from the box to the cloud. By rendering the set-top box as more of an access point than an intelligent device, MSOs can dramatically reduce the cost of equipment in the home, in some cases by as much as 70- per cent or more. Virtualization also shifts device management to the cloud, allowing the MSO to manage devices remotely, including troubleshooting, testing and remotely managing problems, pushing software upgrades where necessary and ultimately eliminating the need for costly truck rolls. Virtual CPE (vCPE) benefits extend to the growing business services market, especially for small and mid-sized organisations. SMB-related business services, in particular, represent a growing opportunity for most cable MSOs looking to expand their customer base beyond the consumer market.

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Vol. 38 No. 4 - November 2016 Issue