Page 20 - Telecom Reseller MayJun 2016

20 Telecom Reseller May/June 2016
Want to thrive? You need to be bold and nimble enough – Live from INTX 2016

I
t wouldn’t be a major industry event if the rst AT&T’s acquisition of DirecTV. But although Comcast had “put more money in broadband
keynote speaker did not devote a large portion BARAK
Roberts said he was optimistic for the future, and Wi-Fi than anything else in the past few
of his address to attacking the regulator.
there is no doubt that the pay TV industry
years” and he also pledged to improve the
And Michael Powell, president and CEO of
by Jeff Barak
is feeling the pressure of an industry under customer experience, saying that as part of this
the National Cable & Telecommunications immense competition.
year’s roadmap “every transaction you do with
Association did not disappoint here in Boston on e slogan of this year’s INTX – “Harnessing our company, we want to make digital.”
the opening day of INTX 2016, the Internet and disruption: turning today’s chaos into tomorrow’s At the same time, Comcast, the parent
television expo.
growth” –re ects this mood, and a new Amdocs- company of NBC, is also gearing up for the
According to Powell, the Federal streams and data available to third parties was commissioned survey into pay TV highlights Summer Olympics in Rio, where Roberts said it
Communications Commission (FCC) which tantamount to con scating operators’ property some of the reasons for this nervousness. will o er more than 6,000 hours of programming
regulates the US Internet and television industry, and turning it over to competitors. He also According to the survey, conducted by 451 on multiple platforms, attracting the biggest
has unleashed a “relentless regulatory assault” on criticized plans to regulate the rates of cable Research, 79 percent of North American cable TV audience ever. NBC’s coverage “will be
cable operators, saddling them with “heavy rules business broadband, arguing this would shackle and satellite pay TV customers are considering a technological marvel” Roberts promised,
without any evidence of harm to consumers.” network providers while edge companies such as reducing their spending, for three main reasons:
saying its improved search and personalization
Such attacks are reminiscent of Vodafone CEO Google and Apple were nurtured by government.
Rising subscription costs (89%)
capabilities will provide an insight into the future
Vittorio Colao’s remarks at this year’s Mobile Not surprisingly, Comcast chairman and Irrelevant channel o erings (84%) of TV.
World Congress in Barcelona, when he said that CEO Brian Roberts agreed with Powell, arguing Dissatisfaction with current levels of customer
And this future will turn out to be bright,
governments saw operators “as a lemon to be that now was precisely the wrong time for the service (77%)
according to Powell: “If we are bold and nimble
squeezed.”
government to intervene in the set-top box Such ndings are leading cable executives like
enough, we will thrive.”
Powell argued that the recent FCC’s set- business, given the wave of change hitting the Roberts to diversify their business in order to e writer is the Amdocs corporate editor,
top box proposal to make the boxes’ program
industry following massive mergers such as
promote future growth. He told the audience that
who blogs at Amdocs Voices. ■

PATTERSON has in their ability to focus on the future. there an extra charge?
best—trading and making money. e IT team
continued from page 14 Want to help your business transform and Can escalations to higher levels of support be
in the U.S. was able to x the problem remotely
increase your con dence quotient? Consider
avoided with embedded smart agents that enable during the U.K. nighttime when it would not
an outage be costly, the opportunity cost of IT
these 6 questions when selecting your support remote network analysis and solve network a ect performing business. When the trader
not focusing on rapidly transforming a business provider:
problems faster?
returned to work, she could con dently focus on
can even be higher. Today’s business is rapidly Can the support provider provide a 24/7 Can your service provider use intelligent driving customer trades and revenue. ■
chasing the digital transformation journey and Emergency Recovery (ER) team ready to step in so ware systems to resolve alarm-generated
IT is critical to that goal. An IT organization when adversity strikes?
service requests without human intervention?
Questions:
can gain time back to help deliver on digital Does the support provider’s remote technical Is multi-vendor support that can accelerate ● Who is watching over your network?
transformation if they are con dent that their so ware and hardware support include upgrades, diagnosis of interoperability issues across mixed ● How efective are your embedded agents in
support provider has their back.
updates, xes, and security advisories?
environments o ered or included?
predicting and solving problems before they
Picking the right team of support experts can Does the provider o er so ware that can For the global trading rm, asking the above start?
make all the di erence in terms of the real costs automatically predict and prevent future outages questions and picking the right support services ● Can you aford an outage?
of an outage and the level of con dence that IT
as part of the standard service agreement? Or is
team helped them con dently do what they do
● How do you sleep at night?

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