6 simple steps to actioning a strategy that can actually deliver better broadband customer experience

"When all is said and done, a lot more will have been said than have been done".

That pretty much echo's my thoughts on the current thinking around what's the best "practical" way to deliver on the customers expectations for new applications and services.

To me, it's quite simple if we walk through 6 simple steps that can help make things happen rather than pointing out what can't be done:

These 6 steps are looking at:

1. What does the customer want
2. What's happening now
3. How can we meet the challenge
4. Look at the Utopia soluiton
5. Ignore the unlikely solution
6. Actually set about delivering using a practical approach

What the Customer wants:
Better experience – primarily around two areas, devices and delivery.With a ubiquitous market of over 4 billion devices are pretty much taking care of themselves. The real game is now the network.

What’s happening now:

Anyone following technology whether the progress in eHealth, Cloud computing or consumer devices will know that  the demand for pure base bandwidth is growing exponentially according to the much quoted Nielsen’s law. The other side of this equation is that once average bandwidths increase in some markets new applications designed in these markets suck up any spare bandwidth capacity. With situations where most websites now have a multi-media content or if we look at the clear trend of backing-up data using some remote hosted facility the overall trend points no end to the accelerating appetite to comsume more bandwidth where available.

What the Customer wants:
The last three years saw Broadband suffering from a pretty similar syndrome to the early days of the .COM phenomenon. The 80:20 rule has been reversed, those using 80% of the bandwidth were generating the lowest 20%  of revenues. Unfortunately this problem was never solved and there was a blind push via devices like the iPhone to make this level of bandwidth consumption the norm, but neither the revenue model nor the delivery model were tailored to meet these needs. So now it's time to see what the cusotmer really wants and is prepared to pay for.  I came across a great piece of analysis on the economics of trying to provide this increased level of broadband under the current model written by Niall Murphy from the Cloud, see http://www.kubuventures.com/Kubu_Ventures/Kubu_Ventures/beingconnected_blog/Entries/2009/10/8_Report_-_The_Mobile_Internet___Risk_of_Meltdown.html.

Meeting the challenge:
Whether you agree with Niall Murphy’s base assumptions used in his calculations or not, there’s enough in-depth material out there from independent consultants like AnalysysMason that would point to the same general conclusion, the current model is at breaking point. In fact, from the work I’m involved in there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence that shows not only are operators hitting revenue ceilings but that the costs associated with in-life service of these products is rising due to the mismatch of customer expectations and customer experience.

The Uthopia Solution:
Fibre near everybody

An unlikely Solution:
Fibre near everybodyanytime soon. Given the level of debate on who’ll pay for the fibre, it’s clear that ubiquitous national fibre networks to every  home and base station are still some distance away. At with estimates of Fibre to the home for a country like Ireland ranging from €1,538 - €2,378 per home (see http://www.tif.ie/Sectors/TIF/TIF.nsf/vPages/Broadband~Publications~building-a-next-generation-access-network-for-ireland-16-04-2010/$file/TIF%20Report%20'Building%20a%20Next%20Generation%20Access%20Network%20for%20Ireland'%20Final.pdf) it’s hard to see how costs like that can be recouped directly from the consumer so therefore it’s not likely that any private enterprise will be giving charitable donations of this magnitude.

A practical approach:
If you can’t build extra lanes on the high, then you better start managing the traffic better. Without the rollout of fibre, evolution will have to take place in other areas. While it might not have the sexy appeal of a mass fibre rollout, a rethink of how OSS systems can be used for better traffic management are the key. This will mean advances will have to be made in areas such as traffic offload, better understanding of customers needs allowing select targeting of infrastructure rollouts. In short OSS systems will have to start becoming more closely linked to CRM and ERP systems. To put this in perspective, you could spend €10m trying to fibre up 10,000 homes or you could spend €5m and save more that €5m while still successfully evolving more targeted offerings to 100,000 customers. This change of focus is really a no brainer. The key is to starting thinking of small incremental ways to advance, it’s in solving these small  challenges that big changes will come about. It much easier to start solving the bandwidth issue, if we can realistically answer who REALLY needs the bandwidth and when and where can this be best delivered.

So it's time to let the debate conclude and the acitons begin.