Get the message?

Messaging. Everyone seems to have it. Everyone seems to use it. People depend o it to conduct their personal and professional lives. But today's messaging systems fall short of meeting the needs of businesses with geographically dispersed employees. The problem is that the capacity, range and capabilities of current voice messaging systems limit what wireless and wire-line carries can offer business customers over their networks.

That's all about to change. Thanks to new advances in software, carriers now can cost-effectively use their intelligent networks to elevate messaging from a pure call answering model to one from which information can be accessed, forwarded and distributed anywhere, any time and by anyone. At the same time, this network-centric form of messaging promises to be affordable and easy-to-use.

The beauty of intelligent network-based messaging is that it doesn't render existing voice mail systems obsolete. Rather, it broadens and deepens the installed base of network and customer premises equipment mailboxes by extending innovative, network-centric messaging technology into the network. As such, carriers can leverage their existing intelligent network investments to unify all the disparate voice mail systems in use today and generate new revenues. And because intelligent network messaging will enhance the value of embedded CPE, carriers have an ideal way to increase their value proposition in the all-important business customer segment.

Calling from the mailbox With the intelligent network's ability to place a "bookmark" in an existing messaging system, carriers can offer subscribers a call sender with rebound service on their network. Only enterprise networks possessed a limited version of this capability before intelligent network messaging. This type of service enables users to move in and out of their voice mail systems with the touch of a button or two on their handsets. They can listen to messages, immediately return calls of their choice and then rebound into the voice mail system-all without continuously entering and re-entering phone numbers.

This innovative service works much like a personal computer running multiple applications simultaneously. Users are free to move about from one application to the next without having to close or reopen each one. This simple and straightforward functionality will help earn-and keep-a subscriber's business.

Offering a service of this nature is a departure from how carriers have traditionally viewed their offerings. In the past, because of capacity issues, carriers only wanted to provide the connectivity between two calling parties, staying invisible so subscribers would drop off the ports as quickly as possible. They now understand that the longer a subscriber is connected to the network, the more opportunities there are to generate revenue.

By making the intelligent network a resource for messaging, carriers can leverage other new services from existing messaging systems. For example, a carrier could offer a service that uses the spoken name (which is resident in every voice messaging system) as confirmation of receipt for e-mail. Or, the spoken name could be delivered in addition to a phone number to the recipient's caller ID box. The databases for these types of services already exist, only now they become an intelligent network resource that carriers can leverage to offer unique, service differentiating applications.

Without the intelligent network, offering call sender with rebound would be cost-prohibitive for carriers because of the regulatory requirements that would come with it-the voice messaging system is essentially being asked to originate a call. Routing these calls, billing for them and providing carrier selection simply is not practical. Yet when voice messaging is integrated with the existing intelligent network infrastructure, all those requirements can be easily handled-just as they are for all the other intelligent network services a carrier provides (Table 1).

Linking people together Carriers are struggling with how to increase their value proposition to businesses to avoid being viewed as "dumb" pipe providers.

One sure way to boost value is by expanding the concept of virtual private networks (VPNs) to include the work-at-home, alternative work environment and mobile employees that are commonplace in today's corporate environment. These remote employees are often cut off from the flow of information because they're on separate messaging systems.

Through the intelligent network, a carrier could offer its business customers a messaging service that would unify all its employees, wherever they are. Telecommuters' and road warriors' voice mailboxes are virtually linked with the corporate CPE systems. This type of seamless messaging could be the edge the carriers have been looking for to broaden their business offerings.

VPNs, already a strong network service offering, become a comprehensive yet affordable solution to a problem facing corporate telecom managers today. Now employees who are not tethered to a business will be as connected to other employees as if they were in the same building. In addition, users of one system will have access to advanced messaging services that previously may have only been available on a system other than their own.

Seamless messaging isn't confined just to voice messaging, however. It's about bridging every mailbox in use today. It's about bringing data networks and circuit-switched networks together into one "network of networks." Carriers will be able to offer their subscribers the unprecedented freedom to exchange messages through every conceivable form of media-Internet, wireless, wireline and fax-across a region or the entire country. Mailboxes even can be linked with the same dialing plan, spanning multiple locations (Figure 1).

Offering one access number Messaging systems traditionally sit as adjuncts to a central office switch. Once a carrier puts a subscriber on a certain switch and assigns a unique voice mail access number, it becomes difficult to move subscribers to another system and still let them keep the same access number. Also, carriers have a hard time offering one access number to all their subscribers; usually a user has a different access number for every messaging system deployed in a network-more than a hundred for larger networks.

The single number retrieval capability of intelligent network messaging provides the equivalent of speed dial access to voice mailboxes (Figure 2). All voice mail subscribers are assigned the same number, usually just a few digits. The number stays the same regardless of the features subscribers add to their service or where they are located. Again, this builds on the existing intelligent network infrastructure, which already has the ability to translate between phone numbers and destinations.

Because the resource for a messaging service is now network-based, carriers can finally load-balance between systems. When one adjunct messaging system reaches capacity, they can use the intelligent network to easily route subscribers to available capacity.

Carriers also have far more flexibility when it comes to deploying new services. Using the translation and routing capabilities of the intelligent network databases, carriers can cost-effectively deploy a premium messaging service-for example, Intelligent Personal Agent-in just one portion of the messaging service infrastructure and still be able to offer it on a networkwide basis. The result is quicker time to market and less financial risk for new niche services.

Carriers are realizing that the type of continuity intelligent network-based services provided by traditional voice networks will be imperative as they set their sights on lucrative new markets such as voice over Internet protocol. They also are discovering that they can leverage their existing intelligent network infrastructures to bridge ever-evolving transport technologies. In fact, numerous carriers have already begun adding Internet interfaces to some of their existing intelligent network services. The reason: A service that is easier to use gets used more.

For example, when carriers begin offering a variation of today's personal number service-known as single number reach-they give their subscribers total control over which device receives calls, whether wireline phone, wireless handset or computer. With the intelligent network interface, subscribers can use an Internet browser to change the parameters of their service. What was once a niche application is quickly transformed into one with mass-market appeal.

Established services such as call waiting are being extended to the Internet but are offered separate from a subscriber's Internet service. This new application allows local telephone subscribers to see a "call waiting" message pop up on their computer screens while using the Internet. The message gives the subscriber a variety of choices such as accepting the call, routing it to voice mail or ignoring it.

Now, with network-centric messaging functions being brought together through the intelligent network, immediate, affordable and billable networkwide messaging can become a reality as well. More important, it can give carriers yet another opportunity to strengthen their value proposition with both the business and residential subscriber.

Considering that intelligent network messaging can help differentiate a carrier's business, win over new subscribers and interoperate between existing networks and new data networks such as voice over IP, it's easy to see why it's being heralded as the killer application that will successfully span multiple networks. Those looking for proof that traditional carriers can operate successfully within what is becoming a network of networks environment can find it in the intelligent network.

The intelligent network makes messaging a network service by

* Enabling number portability

* Allowing for carrier access selection

* Allowing for billable remote access

* Providing calling name databases for message confirmation

* Providing virtual private networks