Alcatel-Lucent CMO: How we get there from here

On where and how transcoding will happen: Transcoding has to happen because every screen has a different resolution and size, or aspect ratio. Today content has to be stored in multiple copies, which is not very fun, or it has to be, each time, streamed in the format you know is needed. You can put a capability in the network that automatically transcodes to the right format. We’re building and will be building platforms that solve those problems. There are lots of choices in terms of distributed vs. centralized [architectures]. You could have a data center in the network that stores all this content for the content owner. When a subscriber asks for it, you say, “I know that subscriber; that’s my customer. I know already what kind of handset they have, so I know what to deliver.” And you transcode it and ship it to them out of your data center. Another thing you can do is say, “I don’t want them to always come back to this data center all the time. I know how a subscriber comes to me when they’re on the mobile network compared to the fixed network. So I’ll have a different amount of storage in the mobile network compared to the fixed network.” So you can start to distribute your storage around the network. In fact, what you’d really like to do is have some storage in every mobile base station. Mobile backhaul networks are getting congested with data; they were never built for that. If you can ship storage to the base station, you can stream all this content there. And when someone on a mobile handset asks for that content, it’s right there without having to go back through the network. That’s why it makes sense to do it from the network because then you can just push it to the right place when it makes sense.

On over-the-top coopetition: The CEOs in our customer base know they have to make big changes that have more to do with an open position, the willingness to go into coopetition with the over-the-top players because they have a co-dependent relationship. The over-the-tops know they need a network. Service providers know they can't live without something consuming the bandwidth on their networks. So they have to get together on this stuff to a certain extent. They have to become much more open and be less jealous about the capabilities of the network. The wholesale side of the business, as one small example, has to be given the flexibility to open up the capabilities of the network to users other than the enterprise or retail part of the service provider. When we talk to Warner Music and Paramount Pictures, they absolutely believe the service provider has a role to play in this game.

On carrier transformation: Some of them already are [transforming]. An example is AT&T with U-Verse. That’s an Internet-based architecture that uses [app] enablement technology. We cache the content all the way out into the network. We apply QoS to it. They’ve built data centers around the network to store and process all the content. These guys have started that transformation, and we’re helping them make this shift.