The dawning of a new era in internet evolution has opened a vast realm of revenue-generating opportunities for communications service providers (CSPs) who choose to leverage the latest advances in cloud technology.
This is the core message delivered by a new Whitepaper from DZS titled “The Cloud-Orchestrated Path to CSP Ascendancy in the Emerging Metaverse.” It’s offered at no cost as an important information resource CSPs can turn to for a thorough discussion of what’s at stake at a moment of historic transformation in the telecommunications industry.
The Whitepaper explores how CSPs can leave a history of over-the-top (OTT) disruption to their core businesses behind by providing households experiences that are far superior to anything internet super-scalers will be able to cobble together as what’s widely labeled as the Metaverse era unfolds. CSP decision makers will learn they can do this free of major fork-lift outlays and vendor lock-ins by implementing the unique capabilities embodied in the DZS ground-breaking portfolio of Cloud Edge software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions.
The New Service Paradigm
As the Whitepaper makes clear, this new chapter in CSP services is all about the seamless blending of life experience across the once-rigid boundary line between activity on and off line. This is a departure from promotional discussions about the Metaverse that obscure its true dimensions by focusing on aspirations for extended reality (XR) technology.
Of course, augmented (AR), virtual (VR) and mixed reality (MR) iterations of XP will play growing roles in that experiential blend over time. But the larger meaning of what’s happening is that, from now on, consumers will increasingly benefit from the ubiquitous presence of well-orchestrated support for whatever they’re doing as they go about their daily routines without giving a second thought to the mechanics of activating that support.
First and foremost, this requires integrated management of how applications and services originating in the cloud are implemented over access and premises networks. With their control over those facilities, CSPs are better positioned than any cloud provider to fulfill this vision, provided they have the means to ensure the highest quality of experience (QoE) with every application flowing over their networks.
This doesn’t involve a return to creating siloed use-case specific services of the past. Now the goal is to move beyond the industry’s current reliance on bandwidth expansion as the primary revenue growth driver by responding to consumer needs as Experience Providers (XPs) wherever demand leads.
The Whitepaper serves as a helpful guide to understanding the full range of what consumers will be looking for as the transition to the Metaverse accelerates. Citing research findings, it looks at trends in everything from entertainment to social media, e-commerce, gambling, hybrid work engagements, telemedicine, and education. And it looks at where things stand in the use of XR technology in all these fields.
Leveraging the Cloud Edge SDN Framework
In today’s environment the XP opportunity lies with creating a common software-defined network (SDN) framework that will allow consumers to exploit myriad applications on offer from cloud providers in these service categories with plug-and-play convenience. Through personalized discovery on their XP UIs, consumers will be able to meet all their needs, knowing they’ll gain the reliability, QoE, and multi-app interoperability that are missing from today’s DIY marketplace.
Prior to the introduction of DZS Cloud Edge there was no way for CSPs to transition to this next-gen XP business model in a multi-vendor infrastructure environment via the cost-saving pay-as-you-go approaches to advancement enabled by cloud SaaS technology. By leveraging its expertise as a leading supplier of broadband access, optical and mobile (5G OpenRAN) edge, and Wi-Fi technology, DZS was able to develop the first vendor-agnostic carrier-grade cloud platform combining comprehensive, highly scalable automated support for end-to-end network orchestration and service assurance.
Taking advantage of the increasing commonalities among technologies underlying fixed and mobile access migration, Cloud Edge makes it possible for CSPs to manage network functions across all fixed and mobile edge infrastructures and more than 150 unique residential gateways and Wi-Fi devices supplied by multiple vendors. Open API access to commonly deployed OSS/BSS solutions allows CSPs to employ wizard-driven drag-and-drop dashboard UIs accessing single-click, zero-touch SaaS templates to manage all aspects of service development and operations.
The major solution components incorporated under the Cloud Edge umbrella include DZS Xtreme, CloudCheck, and Expresse. Already, as enumerated in the Whitepaper, deployment of these solutions across more than 100 million households worldwide is generating significant results averaged as follows:
- 20% increase in customer retention
- 35% reduction in customer calls
- 35% improvement in QoE
- 164% fewer customer dispatches
- 2x-4x gains in new service ARPU
The Cloud Edge Portfolio
Xtreme is the award-winning platform that supports NFV-based network migration together with service development, deployment, and orchestration essential to enabling fixed and mobile network migration matched to market segment needs. All the capabilities of Xtreme will be fleshed out in a forthcoming Whitepaper.
The Whitepaper under review here focuses on how Xtreme brings the benefits of 5G-like slicing to all fixed broadband access infrastructures by utilizing bandwidth spectrum segmentation to create logically independent virtual conduits supporting all the functionalities specific to each service category. While the approaches to slicing in the mobile domain differ, Xtreme makes it possible for operators to consolidate the design and implementation of service verticals on a single platform.
In addition, the Whitepaper provides an in-depth description of how Expresse and CloudCheck enable a highly automated AI-assisted customer-centric approach to meeting service performance requirements across all elements in the access network and on-premises Wi-Fi infrastructures. Data collection and AI-assisted analytics employed by Expresse are used to manage performance over GPON and DSL access networks while CloudCheck uses iterations of those mechanisms across Wi-Fi gateways and access points (APs).
Together Expresse and CloudCheck enable holistic hands-off orchestration of whatever adjustments are needed end to end to ensure QoE is always the best it can be. At the same time, the automated processes accelerate technicians’ ability to get to root causes in proactive manual interventions aimed at minimizing the impact of performance issues over time. And CloudCheck also employs its AI-assisted intelligence to generate actionable insights into key performance indicators (KPIs) via a set of standard reports designed for specific teams and business functions.
Along with explaining these capabilities in detail, the Whitepaper delves into the negative impact CSPs’ lack of control over Wi-Fi in the home has had on customer satisfaction and on the costs of customer service operations owing to consumers’ tendency to assign responsibility for Wi-Fi issues to their service providers. The discussion explores all the issue mitigation processes achieved by CloudCheck when it is employed with any Wi-Fi gateways and APs that comport with the prplMesh Foundation’s carrier-grade implementation of the WiFi Alliance’s open-source EasyMesh specifications.
The document explains how prplMesh-compliant software links the gateway and all other APs together for holistic execution of all the functionalities that go into ensuring optimal connectivity of all stations everywhere in and around the home. As the discussion makes clear, many of these issues are beyond the reach of point-to-point and hub-and-spoke architectures, and they will still need to be addressed with deployment of Wi-Fi 6 and 6E, now well underway, and Wi-Fi 7.
More to Come
Using Expresse and CloudCheck to optimize monitoring, analytics and mitigation to achieve QoE goals across all the verticals enabled by Xtreme, CSPs can take on the XP role with far greater flexibility to build ARPU through their own branded service offerings than they’ve ever had. But, as noted by the Whitepaper, there are many other aspects to the XP opportunity that need to be brought into play to fulfill all the bandwidth and network functionality requirements intrinsic to keeping pace with market demand.
For example, to meet the accelerated DevOps mandate of the emerging Metaverse, CSPs must be able to execute their workflows through the open-source APIs of a unified cloud-based network management layer that executes NFV instantiations and operational responsibilities across all fixed and wireless access facilities. Critically, this includes support for network-wide distribution of computer processing in ways that optimally deliver intelligence essential to each type of service as requirements evolve.
This centrally managed intelligent network architecture will allow CSPs to maximize the flexibility and minimize the costs of expanding access and premises network bandwidth. And they’ll be able to introduce technology that surmounts the latency limitations of unmanaged IP networks with support for ultra-low bidirectional latency essential to the most demanding volumetric payloads.
These capabilities and many others will be the subject of the next DZS Whitepaper. The bottom line is there’s no doubt that CSPs now have the means to take the lead in bringing all the experiences the new era in internet life has to offer to a world of connected consumers.
Download the Whitepaper, “The Cloud-Orchestrated Path to CSP Ascendancy in the Emerging Metaverse,” to learn more.