IBM offers wave of new products for telecom operators
By Zatni Arbi
SINGAPORE (JP): These days the telecom industry is undergoing yet another transformation. Chiefly responsible for the new tide of telecom products and solutions are on-going deregulation in most part of the world, new and more affordable technology and rising demand for interactive multimedia information, education and entertainment.
It has become clear that no telecom provider will be able to survive by offering just voice calls. The Internet, for example, has opened up new and less expensive services -- such as Internet telephony and faxing -- that bypass ordinary telephone systems.
The implications are clear. Telecom providers must offer more diverse services to stay viable. To do so, they have to compete with independent services providers, such as ISPs and digital broadcasters. To stay competitive, therefore, they have to find new ways of generating revenue and increasing efficiency.
IBM saw this as a new window of opportunity and three years ago it started a new division, IBM Global Telecommunications and Media Industries. Its general manager, Stephen Mucchetti, said the division was one of the fastest growing businesses in Big Blue.
At the recent Asia Telecom '97, I was able to see some of the products and solutions specifically targeting telecom providers and independent entrepreneurs who want a slice of the telecom cake. These products and solutions are intended to help telecommunications and media providers create new revenue streams and lower operating costs.
Logicast
One of the more significant developments in the telecom industry is digital broadcasting. Advances in this technology have opened up a raft of new opportunities, both to telecom providers, such as PT Telkom, and to independent operators including broadcasters, satellite service providers and cable companies.
IBM's product, called Logicast, is an end-to-end hardware and software solution that lets any operator to capture, store, manage and distribute video data straight to its customers.
In providing the solutions, IBM works closely with other companies to get components that it does not supply itself, including video encoders, multiplexers, receivers, modulators, conditional access systems, programs schedulers, set-top boxes, electronic program guides and subscriber management systems. IBM provides services that make sure everything is well-integrated.
By now you may be familiar with the name Video on Demand or VOD. This type of video service, which is already available in many developed countries, allows us to order a video -- a movie or a musical video clip -- at any time we want to watch it. We pay for what we order.
The problem with existing VOD technology is that the signal that comes into the box on top of our TV set is still analog. Service providers should be able to send out as many video "streams" as there are orders. If 1,000 customers order videos at the same time, the provider should send out 1,000 streams. At peak times, this could tax the network. Logicast helps video service providers transmit digitalized video streams without having to overtax the network. Thanks to digital video compression technology of MPEG 2, the same bandwidth that is required to transmit an analog video stream can be used to send up to 10 digital video streams simultaneously.
With Logicast, a movie video can be scheduled to start at regular intervals, say at 10:00, then 10:05, 10:10, 10:15 and so on. When the movie that started at 10:00 is over at 12:00, it will get replayed. A customer who'd like to order a movie can check these schedules on the TV screen and will probably have to wait for a couple of minutes until the next "launch time". Since delivery is not quite instantaneous, this service is called Near Video on Demand or NVOD.
For broadcasters and TV viewers alike, Logicast may also bring High Definition Television one step closer to reality, although presently it is designed for the current definition standard.
Computer networks are more pervasive than ever. The advantages for an organization that connects its computers are numerous, but chief among them is resource and file sharing.
For example, a network allows an organization to store all its computer-based training (CBT) videos on one server and allows employees to access it at any time.
These features may sound fairly simple to implement without the help of specialized products. But a library is also responsible for protecting copyright, and its patrons should be able to quickly find the materials they want. Without copyright protection and a powerful search engine, a digital library is not very useful. IBM's Digital Library, which is part of the company's digital broadcasting solution, has both.
Centralization makes managing the collection easier and copyright can be protected. Employees do not download video files from the server over the network. Instead, they connect to the server, choose the CBT videos they want to watch, and play it as if it was stored on a local hard disk.
Other solutions
The video broadcasting solution is currently targeted at TV's, but it is flexible enough to support PCs when the time comes. We have to keep in mind that the required standards are still being formed. There are, for example, the DVB and ATSC data broadcast standards that are still being specified.
A solution fully provided by IBM is in operation in Italy. It is operated by Stream, the multimedia group that belongs to Societe' Finanziari Telefonica per Azioni (by the way, the abbreviation for this name is STET. Go figure!). Since last September, this telecom service provider has been delivering pay television and NVOD to customers in Italy.
In Japan, IBM has also implemented other video solutions that utilize components of its digital broadcast solution. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government, the Kobe Disaster Information System and the Okazaki School System are examples of its video distribution systems.
The Kobe Disaster Information System has booths throughout the city to provide on-line important civic and disaster information, including VOD. The Okazaki city school system uses the technology to offer educational VOD to its students.
Other products and solutions for telecommunications providers and independent operators showcased during the Asia Telecom '97 exhibition were Digital Ad Insertion to insert advertisement spots, Multimedia Directory, Integrated Customer Management System, Customer Care and Provisioning Solutions, Automated Customer Fault Management and many others.
This technology is already available. In some parts of the world it is up and running and has improved people's lives. In Indonesia, we still have to face the sad fact that the majority of us don't even have access to the most basic telecommunications services. Isn't it really high time Indonesia moved a little more quickly in building its telecommunications infrastructure so that we won't be totally left behind in the dust?