Manageable messages

If you've looked in any trade journal during the past few years, you likely found an article on what could be called the first killer application for integrated networks: unified messaging.

This service, which allows users to receive and send e-mail, voice mail and faxes independent from the access medium, is now making its first appearance via independent service providers trying to cash in on the lucrative early adopter market.

But for the mass market to have access to the service, market reports indicate that traditional carriers also will need to enter the marketplace with such a service offering. And with service provider revenue potential predicted to be $2.2 billion worldwide by 2002, according to a 1998 study by Ovum, the business case is strong for them to offer unified messaging. Will they enter the market and make the service a reality in the near term?

GTE says yes.

GTE is rolling out its GTE Unified Messaging service. The service includes fundamental unified messaging features such as the ability to retrieve e-mail and voice mail from both telephony and Web interfaces, read faxes via a Web interface or redirect faxes to a default or specified fax machine. Unified Messaging is initially targeted at resellers such as Internet service providers, wireless service providers and competitive local exchange carriers, with an enterprise user marketing effort to follow.

To meet the challenge of rolling out Unified Messaging service, GTE embarked on several initiatives. First, the carrier implemented a nationwide high-speed, private, fiber optic network, the Global Network Infrastructure, which is the backbone for its Internet protocol (IP)-centric service offerings, including unified messaging. Second, it selected an integrated unified messaging solution from Telcordia Technologies Inc. (formerly Bellcore).

GTE's rationale for rolling out the service is simple: The market is primed for a service that simplifies the management of communications. >From an end user's standpoint, the current environment for managing communications is complex and time-consuming - particularly for mobile professionals. For them, message management amounts to checking voice mail for both wireline and wireless phones, checking and responding to pages, and then (when there's time) finding a PC port from which they can log on and check e-mail. Subscribers to these services are at the mercy of the message sender for their choice of access medium. And chasing these messages via various interfaces is inconvenient at best and extremely time-consuming at worst.

GTE's Unified Messaging service was designed to provide a single repository for all messages and a means to retrieve these messages by whatever communications device is available (Figure 1).

The business opportunity

The market opportunity for service providers offering unified messaging services is quite large. Much of this opportunity stems from the sheer numbers of access devices available to consumers. The 1998 MultiMedia Telecommunications Association report on the telecom industry indicates that more than 500 million wireless and wireline telephones are in the United States, not to mention a growing number of intelligent hand-held devices, fax machines and pagers. In addition, similar reports indicate the United States is home to approximately 50 million PCs.

Service providers can use unified messaging services to make each of these devices an intelligent means of accessing any type of message from one interface. In an independent analysis of the unified messaging market, Ovum has projected a growth from 10,000 mailboxes in the United States in 1998 to 5.6 million in 2002, and a corresponding increase in revenue opportunity from $6 million to $2.2 billion.

Recognizing these numbers, GTE conducted market research to study end user requirements, including a limited market trial, before deciding to roll out its Unified Messaging service and meet the need for ubiquitous messaging.

The next step for GTE was to select its suppliers. The carrier chose Telcordia to help it integrate an open systems, IP standards-based solution composed of components from eight hardware and software suppliers. Telcordia's partners include Amteva Technologies Inc., which Cisco Systems acquired in April, for the unified messaging application, Software.com for the directory and message servers, Real Networks for audio streaming, and Sun Microsystems and I-Bus for hardware. GTE also brings Cisco and EMC to the table - the former for the Global Network Infrastructure architecture and the latter for high reliability disk storage.

Telcordia led the project planning effort, identified site preparation requirements, installed the hardware, installed and configured the Amteva software and worked with Software.com and Real Networks to install and integrate the directory, messaging and streaming servers. At the heart of Telcordia's integrated unified messaging offering is Amteva's Unified Messaging Plus product, which GTE chose to meet its IP networking requirements. Telcordia worked jointly with Amteva to customize the Amteva telephone user interface specifically for GTE. Finally, Telcordia conducted integration, load and performance testing.

Now that the system is in full production, Telcordia will provide support services and will work with GTE to implement upgrades and enhancements.

Central intelligence

Telcordia worked with GTE to implement the unified messaging solution in its central data center. This centralized architecture allows GTE to efficiently manage the service and offer better rates to its customers. GTE also designed the network and data center architecture to enable it to provide a national service while still maintaining a local presence for resellers and, ultimately, end users. Local access is obtained through points of presence in most major U.S. markets.

GTE's centralized data center scales up service capacity for its customers quickly and efficiently. This means that customers will not have to worry about capacity limits and software upgrades because none of the equipment is on the customer's site.

For service resellers, GTE offers a fully outsourced and brandable Unified Messaging solution. A reseller only needs to provide Tier 1 support and billing. GTE offers a choice of hosted provisioning or can provide customers with application programming interfaces to link to its provisioning system. In addition, GTE's service offer includes complete customer training and a range of co-marketing initiatives to help the reseller promote the service. This presents an opportunity for GTE's wholesale customers to manage their own customer relationships and retain the most strategic portions of their businesses in-house. Resale customers that need additional support can get it from GTE or Telcordia, which offer a full suite of unified messaging implementation support services.

GTE's initial Unified Messaging service provides end users with a consolidated inbox for both wireline and wireless voice mail, e-mail and faxes, with PC, cellular and pager notification of incoming messages. Customers keep all their current wireline, cellular phone and pager numbers, which are linked to their unified messaging mailbox through a call forwarding service. All customers are assigned a local phone number to access their unified messaging mailboxes, as well as an e-mail address that reflects the domain name of the reseller providing the unified messaging service.

The service offers message management via a Web-based graphical user interface and a wireline or wireless phone. From a PC, no special messaging client software will be needed for message retrieval. This means subscribers can access their mailboxes via the Internet from almost anywhere in the world.

From a telephone, subscribers can retrieve messages using a local phone number. E-mail is available through the telephony interface using text-to-speech technology. Faxes can be retrieved by PC and the telephone interface, with the ability to re-direct faxes to any fax machine. This allows users to receive faxes at their current location, even when traveling (Figure 2).

The service also allows subscribers to manage their messages and message notification choices. Subscribers can choose whether to send message notification to their pager, wireless phone or PC. They may also choose to be apprised by the type of message - e-mail only, fax only, voice mail only, or any combination of the three - or to be informed of urgent messages only. The end user can change notification options through the Web client at any time.

GTE plans to evolve the service to include other features in the future, including Internet Call Manager, a service that gives subscribers the ability to manage their incoming calls when they are logged onto the Internet via a dial-up connection. Other features that will be offered later include single-number reach, speech recognition that will permit voice-activated call management, and integration with other clients and communications devices. GTE plans to prioritize new service rollouts based on customer feedback. The important factor for GTE is to have an architecture that can add other features easily and seamlessly.

The customer advantage

GTE's service enables resellers to reduce their time to market because the infrastructure is already in place. Up-front costs include only marketing, customer care and billing - in other words, the strategic portions of the business are still owned by the reseller. Costs for the service and operations infrastructure, from Tier 2 through Tier 4 support, as well as other costs traditionally incurred by service providers for new service offerings, are covered by GTE. GTE plans to offer the service to resellers for a flat monthly fee with no usage or toll charges. Included in the flat-rate pricing is faxing, unlimited mailbox access and unlimited notification for pagers and wireless phones.

The telecommunications industry is in the midst of a tremendous shift that has forced service providers to seek new ways to build market share (or enter markets, in the case of start-ups) and retain customer loyalty. Early introduction of innovations such as unified messaging services that create multiple relationships with a single customer will help meet these competitive needs.