With competition at its height and new services being created virtually every day, the telecommunications market is just exploding. Though very few services—prepaid services not included—hit the ground flying, there are several good reasons for the new services market to be hot...

Deregulation

Deregulation has played a very important role in the telecommunications industry. Since 1984, the players in the industry have changed dramatically; whether they have been successful in the marketplace or went under is still a matter of competition and its impact. Time to market, price wars, and added-value services are the main strategies deployed by companies in the new environment.

Technological Advancements

The introduction of advanced intelligent networks (AINs) has been a major step forward in terms of developing new services outside the switch/central office (CO). Before AIN, all services were tidily coupled with call processing. With AIN, the major paradigm change has been the decoupling of call processing and service-related intelligence. In the new network, service intelligence now resides in other network elements. This new concept opened the gates to new service offerings and new network designs. In this new context, service providers have the capability of adding new services based on a variety of adjuncts, services nodes (SNs), and intelligent peripherals (IPs).

Figure 1. Technological Advancements

Customer Demand

As the availability of information increases, so does the level of customer expectations of service providers. Customers, not limited to a single service provider, have the option of switching if the providers do not meet their requirements.

Socioeconomic Requirements

The socioeconomic environment is also having an impact on the services required by the market. In this day and age, the haves and the have-nots are segments becoming increasingly segregated. Good credit versus bad credit has become an accepted part of life. On another note, trends such as market globalization necessitate more business meetings; faster, more ubiquitous communication; and control of costs associated with travel.