By Qiao Ruole
FTTO (Fast-to-the-Office) is a Huawei product designed to bring together a customized collection of proprietary and third-party services. As rapid development of the commercial market has led to enterprises' continuously increasing requirements for comprehensive information service, this Android-based product makes intelligent enterprise access easy and effective while providing differentiated services for different commercial customers.
SME comprises a key market segment
Advancements in e-commerce have fostered the proliferation small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It must be pointed out that small enterprise also includes a significant "micro" segment that cannot be overlooked. By the end of 2013, the number of new SMEs in rural China alone exceeded 400,000 while the total number of new SMEs in China overall exceeded an astounding 45 million. At present, the number of registered SMEs in China has exceeded 60 million, which accounts for 95% of the total number of enterprises in China. These enterprises create final products and added value amounting to 50% of GDP. According to international telecom operation experience, SMEs are high-value customers because the revenue generated by this market segment is the largest part of total operating revenue. To attract SMEs, telecoms offer flexible charging packages, value-added services, and high-end service levels based on their using habits.
SMEs require access products that are low cost and which provide good user experience, flexibility, customization, and high-level services. Despite the fact that SMEs are commercial customers, telecoms are missing an opportunity by offering them only the same services they offer to common household customers – basic communication service and few customized information services that can be widely adopted by SMEs.
Differentiation is the only way to win in SME
As SMEs are developing rapidly, Internet companies have been gradually entering the enterprise leased-line market. They have been trying to change their service targets from individual users towards enterprise users mainly through service development, and in ways such as branding, service platforms, and even customized devices. For example, WeChat has developed WeEnterprise for enterprise staff management, CRM, and punching in/out; Tree Bear in Hangzhou has developed its store-owner customers through dealers and telecoms, and provided Wi-Fi routers and a Wi-Fi marketing platform. The Tree Bear Wi-Fi marketing platform enables stores to customize portals, O2O customer flow acquisition (for example, to follow official accounts), ordering systems, and other functions; 2Dfire has focused on the catering industry and provides an Android-based package solution for cashiers, ordering, and customer management; and Baidu's Direct Number uses a customized platform to display traditional companies to the public. Continuous search and exploration for high-end customers has triggered more fierce competition in the SME market, putting telecoms at risk of being further channelized and marginalized.
From 2011, national broadband and optical networks in China have developed rapidly. Because they own the basic network coverage, telecoms have an extraordinary advantage in developing services for SMEs. Telecoms can meet the requirements of SMEs from different fields by leveraging existing access resources and providing service platforms and differentiated services.
Differentiated solutions for various scenarios
SMEs can be categorized by scale, location, and service type. Through research and analysis of typical scenarios, solutions can be customized to precisely meet a range of varied SME requirements.
Shops along streets are usually owned by individuals or families. A computer is necessary in the shop mainly for entertainment, ordering inventory, or maybe accounting, with simple software installed. Apart from basic broadband access requirements, low-cost devices for security protection and video surveillance as well as the storage of surveillance files are in urgent demand, considering the possibility of nobody being on guard during the night. Other devices needed include one or two telephones, a POS machine, a fax machine, and so on.
Chain-supermarkets often need professional cashiers, video surveillance systems, and security protection devices, while catering chain stores need ordering systems, customer management systems, and payment systems. As for express delivery companies, professional warehousing, mail delivery and receipt are required.
Shopping malls require seamless Wi-Fi coverage to ensure that users do not need to switch between networks at every corner of the grounds. Several service set identifiers (SSID) can be configured in the Wi-Fi and ad push services can be embedded so that users can enjoy free Internet access for a limited time after they have watched obligatory advertisements. Users can also log-in using their VIP accounts or telecom accounts. Users can receive preference or sales information when they enter each shopping area. The shopping malls can be equipped with LCDs to show preference information periodically.
Small-sized enterprises need seamless coverage of Wi-Fi in their office areas, considering for personnel that move around and for convenient communication with customers. Firewalls should be embedded in the Wi-Fi and the enterprise-level confidentiality should be protected against hacking, such as freeloading, phishing, and Trojan horses, so that the security of employees and customers can be ensured and convenient online communication can be achieved. The bandwidth can be increased in real time whenever there is a need for higher levels of big data transmission in the company, such as during account reconciliation with the headquarters and when video conferences are being held. When bandwidth needs are low, bandwidth can be reduced, and then it can be turned back to normal status to save enterprise operational costs when high bandwidth is not necessary. Besides, devices for security protection and including video surveillance in the night are essential. Requirements for time recorders, office device interconnection, data backup, and energy conservation are also of great importance.
As for small hotels, cost and user experience are two fundamental factors that determine survival in the highly competitive hotel business. Therefore, they should prefer low-cost construction that meets customer requirements and provides convenient services which make customers feel comfortable while charging them low prices. Business hotels generally already have catetogry-5 cables that enable basic coverage of broadband, voice, and Wi-Fi for customers. They can also provide value-added services for customers, such as point-to-point video on demand services, dinner reservation, ordering, and high-definition videos inside the hotel rooms. Due to poor IT technical maintenance capabilities in small hotels, it takes a long time to repair network problems, which greatly affects customer experience. Simplified network O&M and troubleshooting will significantly improve the ability of small hotels to respond to customer needs.
According to the above requirement survey, traditional solutions focus on pipe functions, which tend to require a long time for customization and costly equipment to meet the differentiated requirements of customers, resulting in poor customer satisfaction.
A new hardware platform is needed to provide various interfaces including traditional multiple broadband and voice interfaces, and support multiple Wi-Fi hotspot coverage and access of multimedia peripherals, such as infrared interfaces and HDMI. It should also support flexible expansion of USB interfaces, which enable future hardware expansion. The related software should support open platforms, flexible customization capability, and third-party extended plug-in capability.
Android-based intelligent enterprise leased-line system
The Android OS has the greatest openness and the most applications of all. There are a plethora of Android applications used in office, video entertainment, social activities, consulting, and other areas.
The Android-based intelligent FTTO solution released by Huawei is comprised of four functions. The network center includes network interconnection function modules, such as the GE, POTS, HDMI, infrared, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi enhancement, USB, and enterprise cloud backup. The control center controls intelligent enterprise energy conservation, security protection, video surveillance, and one-click bandwidth acceleration through USB dongle interfaces. The maintenance center conducts automatic fault locating, service emulation, and automatic detection for intelligent FTTO devices through smartphone applications and 3G/4G/WIFI. And the data center, with the media service unit installed, will achieve Android-based intelligent control of, for example, various OTT video services, office software, integration of various industry software, video surveillance, corporate directory and other self-service software.
From the service application perspective, the solution can be divided into three parts. The first part is basic telecommunication services, such as the enterprise broadband, voice, and enhanced Wi-Fi access, as well as prioritization, traffic classification, and security, which can well satisfy basic communication needs of stores along streets.
The second part includes Huawei -developed intelligent modules, for example, the interworking between video surveillance, security protection, and cloud storage. For small shops, when the door or window of a store is forcibly opened, an alarm is generated. Upon receiving the alarm, the intelligent FTTO device will report the alarm to a user by sending an SMS message to his/her phone or triggering a special ring in his/her phone. Then, the surveillance video will be pushed to the user's phone so that the user can watch the video to check whether it is a false alarm. It is a low-cost and easy to customize guarding solution to small stores. With the commercial multiple Wi-Fi SSID function, several independent subnets can be created under a Wi-Fi network. By leveraging this function, telecoms are able to deploy their networks with flexibility and generate more revenue for themselves and stores in shopping mall. As the subnets can operate independently, one can be used by the store owner, one can be leased to telecoms as a supplement to 3G/4G, and another one can be used for commercial purposes, such as leasing ad slots to other companies. For instance, customers can be offered Internet access for free for a certain time-period after they have watched ads. The ads can be loaded through a local USB, or loaded to the intelligent devices in a centralized way through OLT. With the automatic O&M function, easy and simple local management, maintenance, and troubleshooting of devices is conducted with maintenance software that can be installed in smartphones. The time of locating a network failure reduced from several days to several is minutes. Hotels would welcome the reduced maintenance cost and shortened responses involved.
Thanks to the openness of Android OS, the third part is comprised of services that should be integrated with third-party applications and plug-ins to achieve profit sharing. As for the catering industry, the introduction of third-party developed software such as integrated ordering, customer management, and cashiers will accelerate service provisioning. The integration of Xunlei Accelerator will meet the instantaneous bulk bandwidth requirements of high-definition video and video conferencing. Vendors may integrate their products with telecom platforms so that their product sales will be promoted with the selling of telecom platforms. Telecoms can maintain and manage their platforms integrated with enterprise products and then finally provide a full series of customized solutions for SMEs.
Opportunity for business transformation
Intelligent FTTO devices have innovatively extended the traditional business and profit-making models for telecoms. In the traditional model, telecoms sell products to customers in a one-off manner and charge the customers a fixed amount of money for network access. However, with the basic network development of telecoms, the competition for high-value customers, especially SMEs, has become increasingly fierce, which has brought great challenge to the traditional sales model.
After adopting the intelligent platform, customers and telecoms will become close partners, not simply dealing with each other for device sales. For example, with the multiple Wi-Fi SSID function and the ad embedding function of FTTO, SMEs become not only traffic consumers, but also traffic telecoms. They can lease their ads slots to other companies, embed the ads into the Wi-Fi, and then push the ads to customers. In this way, the enterprises have a new revenue stream.
For customers from different industries, telecoms can cooperate with software companies based on the intelligent Android platform to develop customized software that can be used in hotels, restaurants, and office buildings and charge fees according to function packages. Telecoms can also cooperate with Internet companies instead of competing with them. For example, they can cooperate in the function of e one-click bandwidth acceleration services. Through cooperation with Internet companies, telecoms can evolve their services from simple bandwidth leasing to service operation, and build a close relationship with end users. Furthermore, by providing value-added services, telecoms can continuously gain service fees.
The above services are only basic services that FTTO provides in the initial stage. With the expansion of the service platform, the growing of third-party partners, and the accumulation of operational experience, more intelligent services will be developed in the future, and the intelligent FTTO will become the network and service center of enterprises. Broadband and voice services will become basic service packages and function as supplementary services to intelligent service packages, as telecoms will change their focus from pure broadband operation to comprehensive information services with content and service as the core. The intelligent FTTO is the perfect starting point for telecom service transformation.
