Telecoms experts predict 2005 as 'Year of triple play'

In its 2005 forecast, Taiwan-based research firm Market Intelligence Center predicted that, "As broadband penetration rates increase and with ever rising transmission speeds, in 2005 service providers are expected to more aggressively roll out triple play data, voice, and video services to raise ARPU (Average Revenue Per User)."

For customers in the Middle East, triple play offerings can be a bundled package of services intended to return more benefits to customers by offering more affordable rates than the aggregation of charges for individual services, ensuring greater convenience and integrating customer help desks.

Regionally, telecoms solutions providers such as INTRACOM are introducing triple play systems to meet anticipated growth around the Middle East. Because the region's triple play sector is still in its infancy, market experts believe that triple play options that enable operators to test and evaluate market demand before deploying full-scale systems will be the first choice for Middle East-based operators.

"In the Gulf, Levant, and some African markets, telecoms operators are realizing that offering basic connectivity services is not adequate to retain their customer base and compete effectively in the broadband era, especially as these markets become more liberalized. They plan to evolve into value-added service providers in order to revamp the declining average revenue per user (ARPU)," commented Stavros Vougas, managing director, INTRACOM Middle East FZE.

"By bundling video and high-speed data with voice services, regional operators can compete more effectively and offer an alternative to the satellite-dominated home entertainment market. Triple play services can not only be deployed in a cost-efficient way - they are also aimed at enhancing an operator's profitability, reducing customer churn and accelerating the recovery of network investments," he added.

'Test Before You Invest' in Triple Play
To enable service providers to determine market demand and the feasibility of different business models before investing in full-scale triple play systems, Intracom has developed FS-CDN/EL, a highly integrated content delivery system. FS-CDN/EL represents a compact version of the company's FS-CDN (Full Service - Content Delivery Network) platform that includes all content acquisition and transmission modules as well as the management middleware and the Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) required to deploy video, telephony and data services for a testing subset of 50 to 200 subscribers.

The Intracom FS-CDN/EL allows operators to acquire, manage and deliver efficiently different types of multimedia content, including real-time TV programs and on-demand video. FS-CDN/EL has been designed as self-contained system that can be installed with minimum effort and cost, representing the ideal solution for operators that want to evaluate the market acceptance for Triple-Play services.

"The ability to test market acceptance of triple play before deploying it is invaluable to regional operators, because its enables rapid time-to-market for these new services without disrupting existing broadband services. Telecoms providers can experiment with various business models, technologies and services without any related integration costs - determining the level of customer demand before large-scale customer deployment," Vougas concluded.

Ultimately, triple play systems now available in the Middle East have the capacity to benefit both operators and end-users from cost and service perspectives. Intracom executives confirmed that the company has planned a number of trials with regional telecoms providers throughout 2005.