The journey to the cloud is well underway, but many communication services providers (CSP) are still limping along with costly legacy infrastructure.
This poses multiple risks: the cost of maintaining these networks will only increase as they become older, while over-the-top providers have the capital to invest at relentless rates.
Cloud communications provider Alianza has highlighted three misconceptions that are often considered barriers to CSPs’ move to the cloud:
- Network transformation is expensive
- Migration is painful
- They need to bleed value out of their existing infrastructure
“Of the three voice transformation assumptions we debunk, each revolves around the misconception that CSPs have plenty of time to make a decision on what to do about their ageing networks,” Kevin Dundon EVP of Sales, Marketing and Alliances at Alianza, said.
“The time to transform and grow their network is now. Clearly, on the enterprise side, cloud has made big inroads over the last decade, and now almost half of the market had transitioned to some type of cloud communications platform; however, service providers’ legacy communications networks are some of the last bastions of old-school software that hasn’t moved to the cloud.
Dundon went into each of the myths to fully debunk them.
Network transformation is expensive
CSPs have been through network upgrades and migrations before and likely remember experiencing a great deal of pain — ranging from expense, to network disruption.
Dundon said that these scars are causing some hesitancy when it comes to cloud migration.
In fact, migrating to a cloud network does not have to be expensive. Alianza states that up to 90 percent of the cost to build and operate a legacy network is actually in the OPEX, rather than the initial CAPEX investment.
“For a typical CSP, moving to a cloud cost model delivers substantial OPEX savings, a with scalable, per-seat SaaS pricing model, and eliminates the CAPEX components such as on-premises equipment, truck rolls, device provisioning, emergency 911 (E911) infrastructure, and more,” Dundon said.
No matter what, when CSPs start to optimize their network and eliminate rooms full of aging equipment, so will the substantial costs to maintain those systems.
Migration can be painful
Aside from the cost pain, many CSPs remember the disruption caused by past network migration.
This pain can be erased on the journey to the cloud using Alianza’s project management team that manages the entire migration for service providers, including integrations, device testing, process training, and more. Alianza’s onboarding and migration methodology is proven, having migrated up to 10,000 subscribers per day and from virtually every switching platform on the planet.
“Over the years, Alianza has participated in, advised on, and supported countless digital transformations,” Dundon said.
“In helping service providers navigate the entire migration process, we’ve fine-tuned the knowledge needed to deliver a safe migration. Digital transformation isn’t for the faint of heart, but it is a business necessity.”
It’s important to note that the transformation process doesn’t end with the migration itself, the impact is two-fold driving efficiencies and a seamless experience both internally and among their customer base.
Alianza’s platform allows CSP employees to manage their customer base centrally via its easy to use, intuitive, Admin Portal — including tools to help with ordering, provisioning, and number porting.
They need to bleed value out of their existing infrastructure
A common justification for delaying a cloud migration is that CSPs feel they haven’t got the true value out of their existing legacy network components. In reality, capital spent will never be recovered, and delaying a move to the cloud will mean continued expenditure to maintain the legacy infrastructure.
Paired with this continued investment is the risk that service providers will fall behind competitors that are already operating in the cloud. Alianza cites research which found that CSPs embracing digital transformation are growing revenue five times faster than their lagging rivals.
Regardless of if and when a CSP move to the cloud, their customers will be demanding new communication tools sooner rather than later.
The market is certainly shifting in this direction, with Lumen recently becoming Alianza’s first Tier 1 Provider customer.
“If you’re a CSP, think about your current voice services,” Dundon said. “Do you have a cloud communications offering that delivers modern functionalities? If not, your business customers are at a distinct disadvantage compared to those with cloud communications solutions.
“These are now essential tools required to survive and thrive in the post-pandemic world. And, if you don’t develop a solution for them, you might start losing your customers to CSPs that can.”
“Adopters of developing and deploying these communication solutions to the cloud, like Lumen, are poised for success over the next decade and beyond due to launching high-growth cloud communications services on the Alianza platform such as feature-rich voice, messaging, and video conferencing to their customer base — while also simplifying operations and increasing agility”
