Services and the User Perspective

Access to Network Services

The Changing Nature of Services

Relatively unsophisticated technology and networks meant that customers have
historically been presented with a fairly narrow range of services from which to
choose. The most common service is still that of voice telephony, but over the
past few years (especially the past 20), customers have been given the option of an
increasing number of valuable and sometimes novel services.

Network operators are keen to provide these services in an effort to increase
revenue. This is made more important as the margins for voice calls decrease. An
additional fact is that networks need to keep existing customers and attract new
ones. Different and desirable services are a proven method of achieving this.
With the advent of the Internet and all that it brings in terms of information,
together with increasing mobility in the form of cellular networks such as GSM,
there is a thirst for new and relevant services. With the most innovation-receptive
customers often opting for mobile phones, and the average age of mobile phone
users decreasing dramatically over the past few years, the uptake of new services,
features, gadgets, and applications is all but assured. New, flexible ways of providing
services are now being implemented. The shackles are coming off service creation.
The nature of services and their implementation is changing rapidly.

Increasing Service Needs
Users had relatively simple needs in the early days of telecommunications, mainly
because they had little knowledge of what was possible as the next step. Simple
voice calls completely dominated telecommunications for at least half a century
and provided the majority of traffic on a network for a full century.

Faster call setup, worldwide coverage, and more affordable services were largely
achieved as a result of advances in technology and organization. Data services, however,
were provided partly as an advance in technology, but developed in response
to customer needs.

As the age of mobility and advanced service offerings approached, the pull of
the customers’ needs became much more of a factor. At the present time, customers’
needs are top priority, evidenced occasionally by media hype about a new service
that fails to deliver on its promise (at least initially) due to technology constraints.
The near future looks bright in terms of services, with customer demand on the
way to being met by flexible systems with greater bandwidth, more control data,
and more innovation than ever before.

Telecommunications Services

Defining a Telecommunications Service

A service offered by a telecommunications company is a product that enables two
or more people to exchange information over a long or short distance. The nature
and complexity of the service is often reflected in the price the customer has to pay.
It was not too long ago that the choice of service was very limited. This was due, in
part, to there being little competition in the market, and also to the level of technology
deployed. Today, however, in the deregulated and liberalized telecom market,
there are many companies competing in the same commercial space, which leads to
innovation and development as companies strive to be different. The consumer looking
for service in the fixed or mobile arenas is faced with a multitude of apparently
different products from many different service providers or telecom companies.

Services in the Fixed Network
Fixed networks traditionally provide wired services, such as direct dial voice.
Increasingly, the networks are offering many more advanced services that include
data connections.

Voice. Voice is the most basic service offered, and the one the customer is most
likely to expect. This is the service that is taken for granted when considering
telecommunication networks and, for the operators of the networks, speech
is still by far the largest revenue generator.

Emergency call. The once ubiquitous telephone box in the street is to allow
all citizens access to the emergency call service. Regulators insist that the
emergency services operator is available to every customer of a telecom network
and that the service is free of charge. The reason many networks still
maintain the telephone box in the street is to allow all citizens access to the
emergency call service.