From the standpoint of the traditional telco or Internet service provider (ISP), high service availability is important. It is imperative that the service reaches thousands of people, and that it is absolutely reliable. It must be available 24 hours per day, and it must be something on which people rely and take for granted. If a system suffers too many outages, people will complain and will wonder why they are not receiving the expected service levels.

Another important consideration is scalable systems. Some of the current technologies and products on the market only work well on a small scale. The unified communications platforms should reach thousands of customers. The network-deployment cost for scaling up these systems must be manageable—merely having the technology to provide a user service is not sufficient. The service-provider involvement requires that different infrastructure services be available. For example, users must be added to the system en masse rather than having to type them in one by one. The systems also must be integrated with the existing service infrastructure of the service provider. A similar infrastructure service is needed, such as providing management reports, research data, or data-collection facilities to allow the service provider to know which part of the service is being used, what the popular services are, and which services or features are not as popular. This information helps service providers to determine where to invest next. The data-collection facility is another feature that service providers want to integrate into their service and system.

With the current developments in communication, standards are important. Also, products are needed that offer interoperability. These products may not be from the same vendor, but they must operate together to form powerful solutions for customers.

For the subscribers, it is important that the interface is simple and intuitive. In a business environment, people are forced to learn to use a service—such as voice mail—that their company provides. There may be training sessions for employees to learn how to use the sophisticated features. For the individual subscriber, the situation is different. Service providers cannot offer a training session for all the people in the city, so the product must be intuitive from different device interfaces. If it is simple and people can use it, they will benefit from it and will want to continue the service. If the service is less than satisfying, subscribers will drop it. Instead of making products and services ever more sophisticated, they must be made intuitive, simple, and useful in solving problems.