How to create fit-for-purpose wholesale data services

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How to createfit-for-purpose

wholesale data services

Martin GeddesMartin Geddes Consulting Ltd

© 2013 All Rights Reserved

This presentation was given as a keynote at Asian Carriers’ Conference in Cebu, Philippines on 3rd September 2013.

Consultancy on the future of telecoms.

Business model innovation.Technology & product ideation.

Organisation development.Public & private workshops.

I work with smart people on the hard stuff.

1980s

Digital fixed voice services

Evolution of wholesale telecoms

1990s

Mobile voice and messaging Broadband

data services

2000s

?2010s

What’s next?

Next ten to twenty years?

Packaged cloud services

The growth is in new kinds of managed cloud services.

And by ‘packaged’ you mean?

• Available when and where you need it• At a cost you can afford• Right quantity and

quality• Easy to consume

Key messages

Wholesale voice services

historically have a

sustainable business model

Today’s wholesale broadband data

services arenot fit-for-purpose

for futureapplications needs.

Wholesale telecoms businesses need to

fundamentally rethink their service offering

for the cloud.

This requires newfit-for-purpose cloud services with

a sustainable business model.

There is a profitable future

for those who take this path.

Digital fixed voice

services

Mobile voice and

messaging

Broadband data services

Packaged cloud

services

1980s and 1990s

2000s & 2010s

2010s & 2020s

2010s & 2020s

Fitness-for-purpose

Purpose-for-fitness

Fitness-for-purpose

1980s and 1990s

2000s & 2010s

The thread that runs through this presentation is ‘fitness-for-purpose’

Which we’ve lost, and need to regain.

2010s & 2020s

Packet-basedstatistical multiplexing

(using IP)

Time-divisionmultiplexing

Best ofboth worlds!

1980s and 1990s

2000s & 2010s

These changes are intimately tied to our technology

choices, and how we share the network’s fixed and

finite resource.

How do networks

create value?

There are some basic things we need to get sorted out before we begin.

Meet Alice and Bob

It’s the end users who put the money into the system, and decide whether we are creating value worth paying for.

Alice and Bob are end users.

Alice is a sales woman

Alice SmithSales Director

alice@widgetcorp.com555-125-9876

WidgetCORP*

Bob is her customer

Mustn’t run out of widgets!

Alice wants tocommunicate with Bob

I want to meet Bob to

sell more widgets!

Alice doesn’t have to buy a telecommunications service

Slow and expensive

Alice has a choice of means of communication

Email

Post

Phone

Alice ‘hires’ a telephone callto reach Bob

Quick and cheap

This is a ‘task substitution’

There is a chain of delivery

Retailorigination

carrier

Retailtermination

carrier

Wholesaledeliverycarrier

Wholesale holds thevalue chain together

Role of wholesaler

YOU

YOURCUSTOMER

YOURSUPPLIER

(Remember the audience for this presentation is wholesale carriers and their suppliers.)

Money passes down this chain

Retailorigination

Retailtermination

Wholesaledelivery

$ $ $$ $ $

PROFIT

Profit depends on four factors

BENEFIT COST

RISK INSURANCE

Are thesebig or small?

Excess risk has to be (self-)insured.

TELCOSEND USER

Benefits and Costs

BENEFITMade the sales call Revenue

COST Price ofphone call Tin, operational expenses

There are risks…

TELCOSEND USER

Risks

RISK

Didn’t make sale SLA breach

Unplanned capacity upgrade

Time wasted

Reputational loss

Frustration

Churn

Regulatory non-compliance fines

TELCOSEND USER

Insurance

Second carINSURANCE Contingency fund (lawsuit, PR)

If Alice can’t rely on her communications service delivering a good enough experience, she needs a

Plan B – and has to carry all the associated costs. For a corporate user, that could be having multiple access providers; for a consumer, you need to buy a DVD in

case Netflix doesn’t work.

Telcos spend a lot of money dealing with

screw-ups.

TELCOEND USER

The whole picture

BENEFIT

COST

RISK(failed call)

Made the sales call

Price of phone call

Didn’t make sale

Second car

Revenue

Tin, opex

SLA breach or churn

Unplanned capacity upgrade, fines

Time wasted

Reputational loss

INSURANCE Contingency fund (lawsuit, PR)

Frustration

Lots of (potentially hidden) costs!

Who profits and why?

CUSTOMER SUPPLIERWHOLESALER

BENEFIT

COST

RISK

ENDUSER

ENDUSER

INSURANCE

Who & how big?

How is the role ofwholesale changing?

BENEFIT

COST

RISK

INSURANCE

Voice Broadband Cloud services

Wholesale voice

services

What are the risks?

Retailorigination

carrier

Retailtermination

carrier

Wholesaledeliverycarrier

End user risk

Alice only pays her telco for asuccessful phone call

$

Retail telco risk passed to wholesaler

Retail telco only pays wholesalerfor a successful phone call

$

Wholesale telco risk is transferred

Wholesaler only pays terminating networkfor a successful phone call

$

The delivery technology was(and often still is) TDM circuits.

No overlaps or collisions!This isolated flows and assured end user

outcomes – audible voice calls.

Composable value chain with SLAs

Retailorigination

carrier

Retailtermination

carrier

Wholesaledeliverycarrier

Predictable application outcome

How did we do?

Retailorigination

carrier

Retailtermination

carrier

Wholesaledeliverycarrier

TELCOSEND USERS

Why?

BENEFIT

COST

RISK

INSURANCE

Low risk!

Predictable experience

• MOS or PESQ score model• Strong

understanding of relationship to network properties

Predictable capacity requirement

Voice erlangs

VOICE SUMMARY

Telcos get paid for delivering

fit-for-purposevoice services

VOICE SUMMARYWholesaler

mitigated both end user QoE

risk and supply chain capacity &

SLA risk

VOICE SUMMARY

Resource efficiency

Flow

effi

cien

cy

LOW HIGH

LOW

HIGH TDM(core)

TDM(edge)

Very profitablewholesale business!

How hot can we run the network?

How well can we deliver the flows within acceptable

loss and delay?

Broadband data

services

Resource efficiency

Flow

effi

cien

cy

LOW HIGH

LOW

HIGH

MULTIPLEXING

TDM For bursty data, TDM is

highly inefficient, even if it is

very effective

So we changed technology…

Time-division multiplexed

circuits

Packet-based statistical

multiplexing

TELEPHONY BROADBAND

Lost phase and flow isolation!

We gained higher resource efficiency,but at the cost of losing flow efficiency

What a great dealfor Alice and Bob!

COST COST

Statistical multiplexing gain makes everything

cheaper!

What a great dealfor Alice and Bob!

BENEFIT BENEFIT

So many more rich applications to choose

from!

But…

There’s a catch!

What is the effect on Alice?

Alice now ‘hires’ a web conferencing system to reach Bob

Richer, modern and more effective

This is a ‘task substitution’

End user risk

Alice bought ‘bandwidth’(speed and mechanisms like 4G and FTTH)

$

ISP is blind to Alice’s needs

No visibility of application outcomes

$

Retail telco risk passed to wholesaler

Retail telco buys ‘bandwidth’ transit.Has no means of expressing

needs for application outcomes.

$

Wholesale telco risk is transferred

Wholesaler connects to receiving ISP,but is carrying effective risk

of application failure

$

And what about Bob?

His ISP has no visibility of whether theservice is delivering a good outcome.

What are the risks?

Retailorigination

carrier

Retailtermination

carrier

Wholesaledeliverycarrier

QoE RISK

QoE RISK

PLAN B PLAN B

What are the risks?

Retailorigination

carrier

Retailtermination

carrier

Wholesaledeliverycarrier

Churn Churn

What are the risks?

Retailorigination

carrier

Retailtermination

carrier

Wholesaledeliverycarrier

Capacity upgrade

risk

Capacity upgrade

risk

And the wholesaler?

Incentivised to find cheapest meansof delivering ‘bandwidth’,

regardless of impact on user or rest of supply chain

Current wholesale data business is structured in an unhelpful way.

1.Has become disconnected from the value end users are seeking.

2.This misallocates cost and risk.

Why?

Broadband is like a statistical ‘game of chance’

There price we had to pay…

Time-division multiplexed

circuits

Packet-based statistical

multiplexing

TELEPHONY BROADBAND

Game of chance

was easy

Game of chance is

hard

Can’t compose services& create strong SLAsRetail

originationcarrier

Retailtermination

carrier

Wholesaledeliverycarrier

Unpredictable application outcomes

Resource efficiency

Flow

effi

cien

cy

LOW HIGH

LOW

HIGHHEAVEN

How to think about the problem

HELL

Network feels empty to

users, even when full and making lots of

money.

Network feels congested

even when no other

customers around

Resource efficiency

Flow

effi

cien

cy

LOW HIGH

LOW

HIGH

IP(access network)

Access network has poor QoE and utilisation

Resource efficiency

Flow

effi

cien

cy

LOW MEDIUM

LOW

HIGH

HIGH

IP(access network)

HEAVENHEAVENHeaven gets further away

Over-provision to resolve contention problems

Resource efficiency

Flow

effi

cien

cy

LOW MEDIUM

LOW

HIGH

HIGH

Current approaches are infeasible to schedule at

high load

IP(access network)

Can’t assure applications with strong scheduling requirements

Resource efficiency

Flow

effi

cien

cy

LOW MEDIUM

LOW

HIGH

HIGH

IP(access network) Network collapses

Can’t run network ‘hot’

SUPPLY CHAINEND USER

Benefits, Costs and Hazards

RISK

Significant

High

INSURANCE Significant

High

BROADBAND SUMMARY

Telcos offeringpurpose-for-fitness

data services

BROADBAND SUMMARY

Wholesaler is exacerbating user QoE and

supply chain cost risks

Resource efficiency

Flow

effi

cien

cy

LOW HIGH

LOW

HIGH

IP(access network)

IP(core)

Wholesale bizconstrained by

weakest link

BROADBAND SUMMARY

How did we do?

Retailorigination

carrier

Retailtermination

carrier

Wholesaledeliverycarrier

TELCOSEND USERS

Why?

BENEFIT

COST

RISK

INSURANCE

Lots of risk due to application performance hazards.

Opportunity!

Leaves a lot of potential value

unrealised.

The re-think

Effective task substitution is

very sensitive to QoE hazards

BENEFIT BENEFIT

Benefits to the user of both methods are similar

COST

COST

POTENTIAL PROFIT POOL

The costs are very different

COST

COST

ACTUAL PROFIT POOL

RISK

Hazards to the user take value and profit out of the system

INSURANCE

Retailorigination

Retailtermination

Wholesaledelivery

$ $ $

$ $ $

PROFIT

Operator profit is also very sensitive to the QoE hazards

RISK RISK

Operator cost risks

Our experience is that these hazards are poorly modelled in broadband networks (if at all)

SLA breachor churn

Unplanned capacity upgrade

Summary so far

BENEFIT COST RISK

1. There is value ineffective task substitution

2. There are associated benefits, costs & risks

3. It matters how big these are, and how they are allocated

Where do these come from?

RISK

Resource efficiency

Flow

effi

cien

cy

LOW HIGH

LOW

HIGH

QoE hazard

Cost hazard

Resource efficiency

Flow

effi

cien

cy

LOW HIGH

LOW

HIGH

Requires lots and lotsof good coincidences

& very few badcoincidences

HEAVEN

Resource efficiency

Flow

effi

cien

cy

LOW HIGH

LOW

HIGH HEAVEN

HOW?

By tipping the odds through effective

scheduling

Summary so far

Failed call

Plan B

SLA breach or churn

Unplanned capacity upgrade

TELCOSEND USER

Resource efficiency

Flow

effi

cien

cy

LOW HIGH

LOW

HIGH

HELL

HEAVEN

HOW?

1. Networking is a statisticalgame of chance

2. That schedules resources and determines application performance

3. That controls the QoE and cost hazards for both the user and network operator

How can we get the bestof TDM and IP?

1. How can we increase benefits (substitute for more valuable tasks)?

2. How can we lower costs by running networks hotter?

3. How can we quantify, mitigate and allocate hazards appropriately?

Cloud services

The cloud economy

Different demands to those of voice and today's broadband.

Understanding the nature of future demand, and how to create appropriate supply, is the key to future success. People want to achieve

higher-value task substitutions: teleworking, education, healthcare. These require dependable networks and application outcomes.

What has to change?

NOW FUTURE

PURPOSE-FOR-FITNESS

FITNESS-FOR-PURPOSE

The Cloud Economy

We mustassure application

outcomes

RISK INSURANCE

What do we need?

“Application Erlangs”

Alice ‘hires’ a Lync applicationto reach Bob

What has to change?

NOW FUTURE

SUPPLY-PUSH

Selling commodity bandwidth

inputs

DEMAND-PULL

Selling differentiated

application outcomes

End user risk

Alice buys an assuredMicrosoft Lync cloud service

$

What has to change?

NOW FUTURE

MONOSERVICE NETWORKS

Weak exploitation of stat mux trades

POLYSERVICE NETWORKS

Strong exploitation of stat mux trades

Multiple classes of service

Economy Standard Premium

Airlines offer multiple tiers of service, based on comfort, rather than arrival time (bar a bit of queue-jumping at check-in). In networks, the tiers of

service are based on how much you can time-shift traffic.

Resource efficiency

Flow

effi

cien

cy

LOW HIGH

LOW

HIGH

IP(access network)

Run access network hotterand also get good QoE

IP(access network)

Retail telco risk passed to wholesaler

Retail telco buys assured transitto its final destination

$

What has to change?

NOW FUTURE

UNASSURED DELIVERY

Qualily and cost unbounded

ASSURED DELIVERY

Quality and cost bounded

Wholesale telco risk is transferred

Wholesaler buys assuredtermination suitable for Lync

$

What has to change?

NOW FUTURE

TRANSPORT SERVICES

Locally optimised delivery

LOGISTICS SERVICES

Globally optimised

supply chain

New value chain

YOU

YOURCUSTOMER

YOURSUPPLIER

Although these might be new market

entrants coming from a cloud and

distributed computing angle…

What has to change?

NOW FUTURE

WEAK CONTRACTS

Boundaries misallocate risk

and cost

STRONG CONTRACTS

Risk quantified and costed end-to-end

Quality Transport Agreements

Strong and composable statistical delivery contracts

Profit!

Example services:Bulk content cost reduction

$$$

BULK DATA DELIVERYBulk content providers are paid to mark time-shiftable traffic to reduce peak loads and network cost for ISPs. Wholesalers

are ‘market makers’.

Example services:Small cell assured backhaul

ASSURED BACKHAUL

$ $3GPP standards were all built for a TDM world. Things are not working out that well moving to IP. Quality-assured IP backhaul would restore the necessary properties for

small cells to work well.

Retailorigination

carrier

Retailtermination

carrier

Wholesaledeliverycarrier

CLOUD SUMMARY

CLOUD SUMMARY

Telcos get paid for delivering

fit-for-purposeapplication services

CLOUD SUMMARY

Access suppliers and customers

fully exploit statistical

multiplexing

CLOUD SUMMARY

Wholesaler becomes digital logistics supply chain manager

CLOUD SUMMARY

BENEFIT

COST

RISK

INSURANCE

New ‘application erlang’wholesale business model

Think logistics, not transport

It’s all about the trading space, matching supply to demand, offering a variety of quantities, qualities and cost, and doing it over multiple timescales.

www.martingeddes.com

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Martin Geddesmail@martingeddes.com

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