Be a Service Provider from the Third Dimension

P-Cube's hardware-and-software bundle enables service providers to monitor and deliver value-added services—and to charge from them. A new research report estimates the amount of additional revenue the product will generate.

by ISP-Planet Staff [September 26, 2001]

P-Cube released a report from Omni Consulting Group touting the revenue-generating aspects of P-Cube's IP Service Engineering solution. The report is called Service Class Economics for Profitable Networks.

"This report creates a strong case that the deployment of value-added subscriber services leads to a profitable business model for service providers," said Yuval Shahar, president and CEO of P-Cube. "Looking at today's environment, the challenge rests in the actual deployment of value-added services within the current infrastructure. The application of IP Service Engineering leverages the investments in today's networks, allowing service providers to immediately create and provision services, thus opening new revenue opportunities."

P-Cube claims that its solution enables service providers to leverage value-added transport frameworks, such as VPNs, to deliver apps such as jukeboxes, computer gaming, and software on demand.

P-Cube's network monitoring features are designed to enable software providers to achieve actual Service Level Agreement (SLA) enforcement instead of a "best effort" and to bill according to actual services used—per user, per transaction, or per network resource, according to the choice of the service provider.

"The report shows that providers need to look for solutions that deliver a comprehensive service solution; deliver granular analysis of differentiated behavior in traffic, accurately track changes in content and applications being accessed by subscribers, deliver billing integration capabilities, and provide other vital service provisioning and management functions," said Richard Thompson, president of OMNI Research Group.

Specifically, the report predicts revenue benefits in three areas:

• Technical Efficiencies—IP Service Engineering allows service providers to dynamically assign bandwidth based on the application and usage preferences of individual subscribers or SLAs. The report says that service providers can eliminate inefficient bandwidth resources by up to 48 percent, creating available bandwidth for applications or services that have higher priority or variable demand.
  
  
• Revenue Generating Efficiencies—The report says that service providers can expect to gain incremental revenue of 9 percent to 13 percent over baseline service premiums per subscriber by deploying IP Service Engineering. IP Service Engineering enables accurate billing of content and application usage, thus producing significant incremental revenues.
  
  
• Operational Efficiencies—By automating the service provisioning process, providers can increase operational efficiency and reduce defect rates within the subscriber population. Additionally, IP Service Engineering lowers the demand for network engineering support, decreasing staffing costs.

For more on P-Cube's equipment and software, see the article below.

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