Viewpoint
What is the role of NetNumber in the interconnect industry?
NetNumber is a leading signaling-control technology provider to the global interconnect industry. The NetNumber TITAN platform is a multi-protocol Centralized Signaling & Routing Control (CSRC) that supports SS7/C7, SIGRTRAN, SIP, Diameter, RADIUS, ENUM/DNS and HTTP signaling-control services. TITAN is used in production today by 14 global IPX providers. Typical applications licensed on TITAN include: STP, DSC, ENUM, Number-Portability, CRE, SS7-FW.
What are the critical challenges facing the interconnect industry?
The interconnect industry is struggling from slow growth. Over the past twenty years the industry benefited from an expanding number
of service provider networks (new customers), growth within each service provider network (new subscribers) and expansion of interconnect services driven by the global demand for mobility. Today, the market is largely penetrated so we see fewer new service providers, slower subscriber growth and pricing pressure on services. Hence, the key challenge is to find new ways to generate revenue growth in a saturated market. The good news is that growth can be achieved and the move to software-only networks is going to create new opportunity.
Describe the new growth models interconnect carriers could consider.
The NetNumber team has seen interconnect providers create new growth by employing three well-defined strategies (1) Grow market share by being more flexible than competitors; (2) Create new revenue by quickly building/testing new services; (3) Create new opportunity by expanding into new market segments (Security, Big Data, Enterprise, IoT, etc.). All three of these growth strategies are enabled by investing in a software-driven network. Flexibility is the key competitive advantage.
Virtualization is a hot topic for all carriers. How does software change the game for interconnect carriers?
Virtualization on its own is not that interesting. The cost of substituting COTS hardware/storage for shared NFV hardware/storage is helpful but not dramatic. By comparison, the transition from silo solutions (stand-alone STP, stand-alone HSS/HLR, stand-alone DSC, etc.) to a software infrastructure is dramatic. A software only network is faster to scale, faster to upgrade, and it enables faster customer-specific innovation.
Which carriers you think are doing this well?
Even early adopter carriers/operators are in the early stage of migrating to a software-based network running on virtual infrastructure. This transition is going to take a decade or more and it will involve process changes at all levels of the business. The reward will be “on-demand” functionality that can be quickly customized for specific needs. By comparison, network planning cycles today are measured in years.
What are you looking for most at this month’s IPX Summit?
The IPX Summit is always a great opportunity for me to share ideas with key executives in the carrier community as well as key leaders in the vendor community. I’m looking forward to more of the same this year.
Doug Ranalli discusses the Real opportunities for growth in a difficult interconnect market at the IPX Summit on the 22 September 2016. Find out more here
