The Nigerian Triple play blues

In the past few years, “triple play” has probably been the biggest buzz word in telecommunications worldwide,promising as it does to boost revenues and reduce churn by offering an array of voice, video and data services. Today, integrated triple-play delivery is energizing the telecom and mass-media markets in Europe and America.

Triple play ambitions of Some telecommunications companies in Nigeria will change the landscape of communications for ever when implemented. Globacom, 21^st century and MTN with its acquired fixed wireline company,VGC communications Ltd, have made their intentions known about this innovative service and they are on the verge of deployment. Commoditization of Mobile telephony has led to a decline in spending of subscribers, forcing telcos to look beyond traditional services for future growth. In the belief that bundling of services in the convergence era will increase the attractiveness of service packages and improves customer retention, operators are staking their future on multi-play, viewing it as a means of achieving growth and differentiation. In essence they need the services to make subscribers spend more.

In telecommunications, the Triple Play service is a marketing term for the provisioning of the three services: high-speed Internet, television (Video on Demand or regular broadcasts) and telephone service over a single broadband connection. Triple Play focuses on a combined business model rather than on solving technical issues or a common standard. Unlike many other Services which operators classified as value added services, Triple play is far more than this. The challenge is to deliver voice, video and data services to Subscribers, over a single access point. Therefore telecommunications companies will be adding IPTV to their portfolios and to handle the complexity of the infrastructures they need to deliver the digital world their customers demand. The challenge lies in managing these conflicting demands reliably and efficiently, at acceptable cost, while providing the consumer with the quality of experience he has come to expect.

In maturing triple play markets like United states of America, where the service has been around for awhile, telecommunications firms are battling with cable operators for triple play market share. The cable companies offer a significant installed base of pay television subscribers and fast data rates using their cable-modem technology as they expand their services into data and voice communications. For their part, the telecommunications providers view the cable companies' incursion into the voice realm as an act of war. The telcos have little choice but to respond. So, Verizon and AT&T are rolling out IPTV services using advanced broadband networks that feature higher data transfer rates. However, the cable companies are firing back by offering their triple-play solutions in order to retain their current subscribers and to attract voice and broadband subscribers away from the telcos.

In the past, television was only distributed via cable, satellite, or terrestrial systems. Internet TV is basically defined as the ability to view video streams over the Internet. The primary models for Internet television are streaming Internet TV or selectable video on an Internet location, typically a website. Today - with the increase in Internet connection speeds, advances in technology, the increase of total number of people online, and the decrease in connection costs - it has become increasingly common to find traditional television content accessible freely and legally over the Internet. Internet televison utilizes the connections of the Internet to deliver video from a source to a target device. Some of the ways in which Internet delivered television is used include,watching on a regular TV via a direct connection from a computer or a Set-top box, or on a computer, or on a portable device such as a mobile phone ,show a channel 'live' like regular TV, or allow the viewer to select a show to watch on demand,"Video-on-Demand" or VOD ,allows low budget, home camcorder productions to expensive professional productions to be viewed .Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, both former skype owners just launched joost,an iptv which promises to give cable operators a run for their money.

Telcos must remain vigilant because the challenges are not insignificant. Those challenges run the full spectrum of technical, regulatory and competitive and must embrace the technical challenge of delivering high-definition TV and other bandwidth-intensive applications.Also must weather the regulatory storms surrounding broadband, universal service and access to compelling content. Must meet and surpass the competitive challenge offered by other sectors, most notably satellite television service providers like the dominant player,South African Multi-choice DSTV and other upcoming providers like Hitv, Fstv and host of others. Not also forgetting the ever innovating local stations like Silverbirds TV, AIT and many others. Already some are already offering specialized content like DBN which is a sport only TV channel.

Triple play, Unlike DSL, which has been aimed at heavy Internet users,is envisioned as the Plain old telephone systems of the 21st century: universal and priced affordably. Cost to consumers must be pretty much in line with what they pay today for Plain old telephone systems and cable TV. A premium triple play package which combines basic, several premium video channels, advanced video features, telephone service, and broadband is offered presently at around $100 in America. Pricing will determine widespread acceptance.

Similarly, if customers perceive video services to be less reliable than present Digital satellite TV and renting DVDs, they will not switch to triple play. And unlike telephone service and the Internet, television is viewed by more than half of the population for more than two hours per day. Outages will be duly noted.

The reliability challenge is more than just perceptual. Legacy services really are highly reliable. Fixed wireline telephony and cable TV are designed to deliver high-availability services. The design standard for telephone circuit switches is two hours downtime every 40 years, and analysis of cable TV designs shows 41 minutes downtime per year for the hybrid fiber-coax plant. Service availability is very important here since a subscriber will expect Television to work when switching it on for news or any other programme, likewise the internet and the voice.For this service to make the required impart, it has to be “always on” service.

Ease of use and reliability are critical considerations in any consumer product. The next generation technology must be easy to set up and configure and its operation must be relatively transparent to subscribers.

Customer service support in a single play world, like voice or video or data is challenging in the best of circumstances. Service providers need to attract new subscribers and quickly recoup the expense of acquiring them, while solving subscriber technical problems and answering their questions in a way that maintains high levels of satisfaction in order to reduce churn. No small feat. Support in a “triple play” world is an order of magnitude more difficult. It’s not simply three different areas in which to keep customers happy and keeping costs down. Customers expect to receive the same level of support across all services offered , seamlessly and consistently in real-time. They want one bill and one person to call if they have a problem. Without this seamless integration of service and support, they might as well buy each of their services from the lowest cost provider.

For telcos, the "triple play" represents the ultimate way to increase profits and customer loyalty at the same time. While this sounds like a piece of cake, not everyone is excited about its prospects because of the harrowing experiences of mobile subscribers presently. Customers Service levels must be consistent and superior for all three parts of the triple play in order to keep from churning subscribers.

The triple-play future is indeed bright, and we have reason to be excited. But let's not forget that there is still work to be done .