It seems these days that everyone has or is building a Next Generation Network (NGN). What is an NGN? Why do we need so many? How will they impact the channel? Andrew Dickinson, Sales & Marketing Director at Griffin Internet explains.
As Wikipedia puts it; Next Generation Networking (NGN) is a broad term to describe some key architectural evolutions in telecommunication core and access networks that will be deployed over the next 5-10 years. The general idea behind NGN is that one network transports all information and services (voice, data, and all sorts of media such as video) by encapsulating these into packets, like it is on the Internet. NGNs are commonly built around the Internet Protocol, and therefore the term "all-IP" is also sometimes used to describe the transformation towards NGN.
The first and most obvious implication of this to the channel is that as switched circuit technologies are retired, the company that owns the IP connection into a customer (usually ADSL) will have a considerable advantage when it comes to picking up the VOIP and hosted applications that will replace and augment PSTN, CPS, PBXs and desktop applications. This realisation has contributed in the last three years to the channel’s exodus away from dealer/referral schemes in favour of the white label model.
What is less well understood is how resellers are going to interface with all of these NGN operators. Unlike CPS, broadband provisioning and in-life management is complex and without investment in automation the level of manual overhead required for just one supplier and even a modest broadband estate can often be financially prohibitive.
With multiple NGNs this problem is much worse. For example, Tiscali Wholesale interfaces are different to C&W and furthermore Opal, Orange and Easynet do not even have these capabilities yet.
A proper broadband aggregator will add value by:
- Investing in software that makes it easy for the reseller to select the right product to fit their customer’s needs at a given time
- Helping NGNs to justify the development of wholesale interfaces by making it easy for resellers to order their product in volume
- Negotiating better rates for their partners through commitments to volume.
- Removing the need for NGN operators to deal with hundreds of resellers and the reseller’s need to deal directly with them
- Developing new products on NGNs tailored to the needs of the reseller
We have learned over the last 25 years that as more operators are able to compete with BT, the better the deal for the channel and actually the more innovative BT become.
Source: Comms Dealer June.
Andrew Dickinson
