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Self-service to one degree or another has been present since the rise of the web. However, customers are increasingly choosing self-service because they feel more empowered and it is often perceived to be an easier interaction than dealing with a live person. The rise of the smartphone also has increased the use of self-service.
In fact, as explained by Jessica Verbruggen, Integrated Marketing Assistant at Alcatel-Lucent Motive, in a recent TechZine article, Empowering Autonomous Customer Self-Care, self-service can be a win-win for customers and communications service providers (CSPs).
The voice of the customer supports self-service
Verbruggen, citing a recent consumer survey by Nuance Enterprise to illustrate here point. The survey found:
Plus, in terms of what motivates them to use a mobile app:
Benefits to CSPs
As noted, CSPs are finding self-service to be very beneficial. Experience has already proven that customer self-care reduces the cost of interaction with customers, allows them to collect more customer information and helps them deliver a more personalized experience.
"This, in turn, drives higher customer retention, increases revenues, and positions their brand as being a provider of a comprehensive and personalized customer experience," Verbruggen noted.
One problem that many CSPs have, however, is easily delivering all the functionality that consumers expect and appreciate. That's why products such as Alcatel-Lucent's Motive's Self-Service Console, part of the company's Motive customer experience solution, are so well-received.
The Motive Self-Service Console empowers customers to pay their bills, access their accounts and schedule maintenance without having to involve a live agent. A large European operator that uses the tool has reported that 88 percent of customers that used the Motive troubleshooting application were able to avoid a call to the help desk entirely.
That's huge. And it demonstrates strongly why CSPs are increasingly attracted to customer self-care.
"CSPs are able to cut costs, get a better view of their customers, and provide more personalized service," explained Verbruggen. "That's a win-win if I've ever seen one."]]>
No matter where one looks these days, be it in enterprises or service providers, there can be no disputing that enhancing the customer experience has become a top, if not along with security the top, C-level concern.
Indeed, from burnishing the brand to enhancing customer loyalty, having permission to upsell and getting early visibility on new opportunities the customer experience (CX is now the short appellation) has become a cross line-of-business preoccupation and priority. This has meant business units' increased attention on listening to, analyzing and reacting upon needs arising from the "voice of the customer" (or certainly knowing more about their service usage behavior), and IT department focus on providing the tools necessary to support these requirements.
It has also meant that businesses of all sizes and vertical markets are changing their views on what it takes to have a better understanding of the customers. This means using new metrics for success. It also has highlighted the realization that you need to look at life cycle management of customers, i.e., as the headline says it is no longer about the destination in the form of a sale but is about assuring optimization of what has been popularized as "The Customer Journey."
Ultimately, what it has also meant is that organizations need not only the tools, skills and strategies to optimize the customer journey but also need to be able do so quickly. The reasons are obvious but worth repeating. Competitors are becoming more nimble and customers armed with better real-time information themselves have become more fickle. Time is of the essence.
Illustrative of an area where there is, or certainly should be, a sense of urgency regarding having all of the capabilities to optimize the customer journey is in the global mobile services business. This is a sector rife with competition and susceptible to high churn rates. The good news is that the information that resides in the network and various lines-of-business (LOBs), when properly mined, analyzed and acted upon can give service providers more satisfied customers and a competitive edge.
The question is, where are the places to go to get the information and tools needed? The answer can be seen in a recent Alcatel-Lucent webinar, "LTE, It's Not About the Destination, but the Journey," which is embedded in its entirety below.
Spoiler Alert!
I'd like to encourage you to view the entire webinar by sharing just a few insights provided by presenters David J. Swift Marketing Director Wireless, and Josee Loudiadis, Director Network Intelligence, Alcatel-Lucent.
The first is the chart that is the backdrop of the webinar (yes you are seeing double) which is a still frame tickler as to why Alcatel-Lucent believes the deployment of an LTE overlay network is the preferred way to go as the vehicle for being fast-to-market. Swift provides a granular explanation but the benefits slide sums it up well.
Source: Alcatel-Lucent webinar, LTE, It's Not About the Destination, but the Journey
The savings are demonstrable and it should come as no surprise that several of the world's leading mobile service providers have opted for an LTE overlay as their choice for not just deploying but leveraging the Alcatel-Lucent LTE Express to enable fast deployment.
For her section of the presentation Loudiadis highlights the Alcatel-Lucent belief that the network has the information to keep customers happy. She describes what this information is, and how it can be generated and analyzed for use in looking at:
In fact, a compelling case is made, and again with an emphasis on the need for service providers having some sense of competitive urgency, for implementing an analytics-driven customer care solution such as Alcatel-Lucent's Motive Customer Experience Solutions.
While a bit of an eye chart, you hopefully get the picture.
Source: Alcatel-Lucent webinar, LTE, It's Not About the Destination, but the Journey
Yes, the realities of the mobile market, especially as global service providers are in a mad dash to deploy LTE quickly and not fall behind competitors is to get it out there fast. However, being fast-to-market is only part of the equation. You need to also be cost-efficient, and more importantly fast in the market/agile as well. To be the later requires real-time actionable insights. That is where the information and insights from the network become critical.
Success going forward really will be about creating and leveraging better and better knowledge about the entire customer journey. Indeed, it is with such knowledge that services providers can go from being not just reactive but proactive in terms of not just pleasing customers but beating competitors to the punch.]]>
Churn can be a costly problem for service providers, particularly when it gets up into the high double-digit percentages. And that's exactly what can happen when customers are less than satisfied with their communications services. In fact, it has been estimated that churn is 89 percent for subscribers who have a poor customer experience.
But there is an answer.
As highlighted in a recent TechZine article by Alan Marks, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Alcatel-Lucent's Motive Customer Experience Solutions, Alcatel-Lucent, service providers can leverage analytics solutions to help them identify and track network resources, and customer behavior and experience on the network. This enables them to have visibility into whether customers are receiving the level of service for which they have subscribed.
As Marks explains, having such visibility helps service providers build customer loyalty. This has direct impact obviously on obtaining a reasonable return on investment (ROI) on those customers over time.
Plus, it better positions the service provider to upsell those subscribers in the future. It allows service providers to avoid customer care and new customer acquisition costs. And, of course, it results in happier customers, which is a positive all around.
The connected home is one application for which customer experience management tools that do analytics makes perfect sense. This arena is a relatively new one for service providers like the cable TV companies and telephone companies, which traditionally have liked to keep outside demarcation points at residential customer premises. But the connected home is now increasingly inviting service providers into consumer homes. This is great because it can enable those service providers to play a bigger role in the customer experience. It also creates challenges, however, because there are more moving parts that service providers need to consider when assessing the total customer experience.
New tools from such as Alcatel-Lucent Motive Customer Experience Solutions give service providers visibility into what's happening with home device connectivity, Internet security and malware protection, online video quality of experience, and usage and performance. This information can be analyzed so service providers can make changes to their networks to improve the customer experience and to improve internal customer care processes.
As Marks details, the Motive CX analytics framework for optimizing the customer experience in the connected home is broken down into four categories:
Home device and home network analytics—enables operators to collect device and home network data, and use the resulting intelligence to proactively discover, diagnose, and resolve issues
Online video analytics—combines data from video player plug-ins, content delivery networks (CDNs) and quality of experience (QoE) agents to measure subscriber QoE, and assess viewing trends, content usage, and CDN performance
Security analytics—helps to establish and maintain a safe home network environment by providing network-based analysis of Internet traffic for malware and protecting the network and subscribers
Care analytics—leverages the wealth of intelligence embedded within customer care sessions and their associated workflow steps to create more efficient customer care processes.
Source: Alcatel-Lucent, TechZine blog, Analytics can customize the connected home
As depicted above, Alcatel-Lucent's Motive Customer Experience Solutions portfolio includes solutions and consulting services that address different, critical touch points in the relationship between communications service providers and their customers. Among the offerings in the portfolio are Motive ServiceView (available in both Home and Mobile versions), which enables the visibility discussed earlier; Motive Big Network Analytics, which service providers can leverage to capture and extract intelligence from the network and combine it with key customer data; and many other solutions.
A recent U.S. survey by Alcatel-Lucent Motive found that 71% of smartphones had no security protection to defend against malware. That's a sobering stat considering the 20% rate at which mobile malware is increasing annually. The malicious activity can degrade smartphone performance, secretly pirates your data minutes, and steal personal information from you, spy on your whereabouts and track your browsing calls, texts, emails and web browsing.
Now here's where the survey gets even more interesting: It reveals 65% of mobile subscribers think it's the service provider's responsibility to protect their smartphones. And the majority is willing to pay their service provider for this mobile service – up to $4.40 per month!
For operators continually on the hunt for new revenue generating services and "sticky" offers that attract and retain subscribers, device security services is a lucrative and differentiating opportunity right under their nose.
Operators already have a trusted billing relationship with customers. So who is more uniquely positioned to protect customers' connections and content than the service provider? By defending customers' devices against malware, operators are protecting their own networks, strengthening their relationship with customers and ensuring subscribers have a high quality service experience.
Opportunity Knocks
Motive Security Labs (formerly Kindsight Security Labs) conservatively estimates that 15 million mobile devices are infected with malware at any one time. And with LTE and VoLTE devices flooding today's market, subscribers are spending increasingly more time browsing the Web, accessing data and consuming video. As a consequence of being more active on the Internet, subscriber devices will be at greater risk of infection, which can cause unwanted traffic over an operator's network.
Service providers are wise to take the steps necessary to prevent infections that can also sour the customer service experience and potentially slow network performance. To do this, service providers need a cloud-based, network-driven security solution that can be rapidly deployed and scaled. Because it resides on the network, the security service is always-on and up-to-date and can pinpoint malware on subscriber devices without having to be installed on them.
Alcatel-Lucent's newly announced Motive Security Guardian fits that description: operators gain real-time insight into what subscribers and devices most affected by malware and the most common types of malware to better contain and block threats. It also enables operators to better understand how malware impacts their network resources and performance to arrive at strategies for improved efficiency and service delivery optimization. And by correlating malicious activity on the network to infected subscriber devices, it enables operators to proactively alert subscribers and provide step-by step instructions on how to remove the threat.
Seize the Opportunity (Before your competitor does)
Device security is an ideal path to service provider differentiation, new revenue and subscriber loyalty. Here's proof:
While the Internet and all of the technologies that have stemmed from its creation have served to make our lives easier in many ways, they can also be very confusing and frustrating at times. In these times, people have traditionally turned to call centers to get customer support. In today's increasingly digitized world though, fewer people are relying on this form of assisted service. Contacting a call center tends to be time consuming and, often times, frustrating. Traditional customer support is not very well-suited to handling the millions of very specific questions that arise during device usage every day. Enter mobile self-service.
There are few areas of our economy today that haven't been touched by the growing self-service industry. Many, it seems, prefer to resolve their issues themselves. People relish the ability to "do it themselves" because it affords them a certain level of control over their devices and services that was previously not attainable.
A recent consumer survey commissioned by Nuance Enterprise found that a majority of respondents thought positively about self-service. More specifically, 72% of smartphone users surveyed said that they have a more positive view of a company if they have a mobile self-care app, and 81% will tell others about a positive app experience. In terms of what motivates them to use a mobile app, 35% said that effortless transition to a live agent from a mobile app is the feature most likely to drive usage, while 48% want more functionality.
It's not just customers who are embracing self-service though. Many CSPs are hopping on the bandwagon and offering web-based portals and mobile applications that standardize the customer experience across fixed and mobile device platforms. These tools provide customers with a personalized, contextual experience for diagnosing and troubleshooting configuration and performance issues related to access networks, home LANs, devices, applications, and Wi-Fi.
Why are both customers and service providers adopting self-care so enthusiastically? From the customer's perspective, self-service is valuable because it is convenient and flexible. It provides an "autonomous communications channel enabling customers to obtain ongoing support on an "anytime" basis"[1]. Users are able to address the issue from wherever they are using whatever channel is most convenient for them, whether it be a smartphone, a tablet, a laptop, the Internet, or within a website. This is being enabled by new technologies like WebRTC and VoLTE, which make it easy to strike up a conversation from anywhere. For CSPs, self-service not only reduces the cost of interaction with customers, but also allows them to collect more customer information to deliver a more personalized experience. This, in turn, drives higher customer retention, increases revenues, and positions their brand as being a provider of a comprehensive and personalized customer experience.
It is critical to implement these self-care initiatives without compromising customer satisfaction in return for the cost-savings associated with an automated self-service system. The self-service tools that are provided must be valuable to consumers in order for them to adopt them wholeheartedly. They must empower customers to transact how they want, when they want.
At Motive, self-service is something we have long been interested in. Our dynamic and innovative self-care products, like Motive's Self-Service Console, empower CSPs to reduce support costs, accelerate problem resolution and exceed customer expectations. These tools also allow customers to pay their bills, access their accounts and schedule maintenance, all without having to involve an intermediary. After making Motive's self care options available to a large European operator, 88% of customers that used its PC-based troubleshooting application were able to avoid a call to the help desk altogether.
Due to the increasing amount of human-computer interaction in our world today, many people are much more comfortable accessing an account via a self-service portal. Customers feel empowered when they are able to avoid bypass the middleman and just resolve their problems themselves. On the flip side, CSPs are able to cut costs, get a better view of their customers, and provide more personalized service. That's a win-win if I've ever seen one.
[1] Gupta, B., Johnson, R., & Pramidi, S. (2005). The Challenge of Customer Self-Service in Telecom. Infosys.
Voice and text revenues are declining as mobile service providers (MSPs) face an unprecedented challenge from OTT communication apps such as Facebook, Instagram, and lesser known entrants, including WhatsApp and LINE. At first, MSPs enjoyed net gains because the use of these apps had generated significant data revenue. But times have changed. While still a source of revenue, these apps have begun to erode MSP's native voice and messaging revenue.
To illustrate, let's look at WhatsApp, who recently debuted its business model for mobile virtual network operators. In this model, WhatsApp (now owned by Facebook) provides voice and messaging services while leasing wireless services from a mobile operator. This means that MSPs are left with price per bit as their sole differentiator.
What's more, the massively popular OTT apps are generating ad revenue, giving them yet another advantage in their competition with MSPs who haven't yet effectively exploited this revenue source. Fortunately, the tide is turning in favor of MSPs with the introduction VoLTE and rich communications services.
To help you prepare for a VoLTE launch, this blog series provides tips and insights on your go-to-market questions. You'll also see how our Wireless Network Guardian's network analytics capabilities can assist you with your launch strategy.
There are several key apps in this sector whose popularity we've examined:
Each offers at least one voice feature, such as video calling, voice calling, or voice messaging. Much like VoLTE, these apps often combine voice features with texting or content sharing. This study situates their voice services within the overall voice-enabled communication package delivered by these apps.
On average, 43% of subscribers worldwide make use of these OTT apps on mobile networks on a given month. But breaking it down by app is more revealing: their popularity ranges from less than 1% for Facetime and Nimbuzz to 26% for WhatsApp. Even more interesting is the fact that some subscribers use more than one OTT voice-enabled app. When adding the popularity of the individual apps, the sum is 68% – far exceeding the 43% reported above which represent the number of unique subscribers operating those apps.
But this competitive landscape varies widely across geography, and indeed, even across different networks within the same country. Service providers in North America have little competition from OTT voice-enabled apps, since only 12% of subscribers, on average, make use of them. The most popular of these apps in North America is WhatsApp, reaching just over 4% of users.
By comparison, Middle Eastern subscribers are especially active with OTT voice-enabled apps where 81% of subscribers make use of them. In fact, the cumulative sum of subscribers across those apps reaches 123% which means some subscribers use more than one of these apps! In that market, WhatsApp leads the pack by a wide margin with 71% of users hopping on it monthly.
Europe and APAC have 70% and 79% of their users launching voice-enabled apps; but WhatsApp dominates in Europe whereas LINE dominates APAC. APAC is also home to the network with the most users for a given OTT voice-enabled app in this study: a record setting 85% made use of LINE.
OTT apps are largely perceived as being "free". Few users think about the data usage incurred by these apps since their bill only reports the total monthly data volume spent. How much is spent for each app is a total mystery for consumers and often for service providers too! But it is imperative to know how much data users spending on OTT voice-enabled apps to select the appropriate tariff strategy for VoLTE.
The average subscriber consumes 3.9 MB per day on these apps. That number includes all manners of communication offered by the app: voice messaging, video calling and texting. But that number differs greatly across apps and by geography. Facetime is by far the most data intensive with data volume of 12 MB per user per day on average. Its video call format drives data consumption much above other OTT voice-enabled apps who offer a range of less data intensive communication methods such as texting or audio phone calls. Another interesting observation: WhatsApp users in the Middle East and LINE in APAC consumed significantly more data than other app and geography combinations. This effect could be due to subscribers using the app often through the day, or to using data-heavy features. This distinction should be further investigated in a given mobile network before a VoLTE launch.
The average by geography is also telling: APAC spends the most data with 5.3 MB per user per day on average. Some regions of APAC offer mostly unlimited data which may explain the difference. And while fewer subscribers in North America used OTT voice-enabled apps, the average consumption is close to the highest with 4.4 MB per user per day on average. This average is driven mainly by Facetime which tells us of North America's propensity for video calls. The number of minutes of usage is another key piece of information for marketing strategy.
On average, these OTT apps will see 10 minutes of usage per day. Those minutes represent the overall amount of time spent using the app, whether sending voice messages, video calling or texting. But users could be spending anywhere from 2-61 minutes depending on geography and specific networks.
And therein lies the fork in the road: should voice features be charged per minute as usual or is it time to ban minutes altogether in favor of data usage fees? Depending where one lives in the world, a VoLTE strategy will have different goals. In North America, it is about keeping subscribers from transitioning to OTT voice-enabled apps. In the Middle East and some locations in APAC, it is about enticing them back to the service provider's app.
In North America, the trend has been to keep VoLTE rates identical to 3G: unlimited domestic minutes are included in the monthly plan. Given the limited competition from OTT voice-enabled apps in North America, the status quo for VoLTE voice calls makes sense. And video calling will be charged against the data plan – an excellent harbinger of healthy revenues to come given North America's pre-disposition to video calling and the sharp data demand associated with that service.
In Europe and the Middle East, a different strategy might be required. To compete against WhatsApp and Viber, it might be necessary to meet them on their own turf and charge for data. VoLTE has been shown to require 10 times less bandwidth[1] – a marketing campaign touting that attribute in conjunction with the deployment of systems capable of reporting per app data consumption should lead users to make more educated choice towards the least expensive VoLTE option for voice calling.
While this blog focused on users' affinity for alternate OTT voice-enabled apps, another attribute is key to a successful VoLTE launch: service quality. Mobile operators are in a position to deliver higher quality voice calls than their OTT competitors. Guaranteed quality could be an attractive proposition for enterprise users, especially while they try to access conference bridges or attend important calls while on the go.
Our Analytics Beat studies examine a representative cross-section of mobile data customers using the Alcatel-Lucent Wireless Network Guardian and are made possible by the voluntary participation of our customers. Collectively, these customers provide mobile service to millions of subscribers worldwide.
[1] Signals Ahead Research "Behind the VoLTE curtain, part 1" reports 6 times fewer PDCCH (Physical Downlink Control Channel) grants, 4 times fewer transmissions, and 89% less signaling overhead.
It's a story experienced all the time in cities across the world, and is a major challenge for transit operators in the battle for passengers. When you are wet through and the bus still hasn't come around the corner, taking the car always feels like the better option.
However, telecommunications technology is helping to readdress this balance. Research has shown that use of mobile apps which show up-to-date and accurate journey information is improving journey experience. Passengers can plan their journey better meaning the wait for the bus is no longer such a drag.
Using a smartphone is also increasingly the way to kill time while you wait. This has had a significant impact on perceived and actual waiting times when public transport is delayed, a real Achilles heel for transport operators. Smartphones allow users to work and interact on the go and constant access to mobile broadband is now expected by urban dwellers.
But with more and more people using data-sucking devices, the pressure on urban communications networks is immense. Indeed 77% of people say they currently experience slow download speeds. You might have a full 4G LTE signal, but the performance of the network is poor, only adding to the frustration of that wet Monday.
Existing 4G networks use macro cells, which are not optimized to provide connectivity suitable for a large number of passengers to access mobile data services at the same time. But there is a way to improve radio coverage. LTE small cells solve the mobile broadband capacity crunch by boosting coverage density and capacity in saturated areas.
While LTE small cells are not common yet, their deployment may about to be as widespread in cities as the humble advertising billboard. At the end of September JCDecaux joined forces with Alcatel-Lucent to speed up the roll-out of connected street furniture. With references including 276 railway transit systems, and 10 of the top 20 airports in the world, it's an agreement that could have huge implications for the future of connectivity.
Alcatel-Lucent's small cell technology is suitable for 3G and 4G networks and is simple and quick to install. Crucially it offers a capacity gain two times greater than current macro networks and can reduce demand on macros by up to 70%. Smart cells also offer a 38% total cost of ownership saving over using only macros.
Teams from both companies are now working together to optimize the aesthetic integration of small cells in JCDecaux's street furniture that are in tune with the urban environment and meet demand for broadband.
So in the smart city of the future, you may not be able to stop the rain, or the bus from being late. But at least your smartphone won't let you down.
For more information contact firstname.lastname@example.com.
Field service is often the only face of the company that a customer will ever see, so it's not a surprise that CSPs are striving to make a positive impact on customers in this realm. Achieving full potential in field service saves CSPs a lot of time and money. Productivity and efficiency reviews targeted at field service operations, done correctly, can reinforce other areas of the business by increasing customer satisfaction and improving safety and quality.
Field service has traditionally worked as follows. Something breaks or needs to be installed. The customer notifies the CSP. Dispatch schedules a field service technician. The technician arrives, resolves the issue, then moves on to the next job. While many CSPs have perfected the process of efficiently scheduling technicians, it does not negate the fact that there has been a disruption in a consumer's life or an organization's productivity, and they are likely unhappy as a result.
The CSP is starting from a disadvantaged position and must turn the situation around by providing exceptional field service – or risk losing customers, profits, and opportunities. Inefficient field service increases the amount of time the customer is stuck with a non-performing asset, thereby increasing the amount of time that the customer is not generating revenue from that asset, as well as increasing the amount of time that the customer must spend appeasing his/her own customers. All of this eventually leads to lower renewal rates and, ultimately, CSP customer loss.
So, what does it take to achieve field service excellence? For Alcatel-Lucent, an optimized field service solution empowers lower-cost service methods. This includes remote service, self-service, and fixes by phone or mail from the contact center. An optimized approach incorporates several essential elements, including: automation, mobility, and consolidation and collaboration.
Communications service providers need the ability to automate and remotely manage broadband access network operations at three key stages of the customer lifecycle:
This approach will enable CSPs to accelerate time-to-market, reduce operating expenses, and maximize their capital investments. The ultimate prize, of course, is long-term customer loyalty.
"Best-in-Class organizations prioritize the investment in mobile tools to provide technicians with better access to information in the field. The need to resolve customer issues quickly and efficiently has led to the best firms equipping the field with the right tools to find information in a complex world."[1]
CSPs must decide which corporate systems should be available via mobile device at a customer site in order to most effectively resolve potential issues. On the scheduling/dispatch side, CSPs need to have the GPS aspect of their mobile strategy figured out up front so they can make location-specific scheduling and routing decisions from Day 1 of go-live.
Consolidation and Collaboration:
Maintaining separate dispatch systems or processes for different areas of business is expensive and inefficient. With a single common service management platform, CSPs can comprehensively define, publish and execute advanced service activation, troubleshooting and management logic across the service delivery ecosystem.
If you're still on the fence about leveraging field service as a revenue growth driver, consider this:
Alcatel-Lucent's solutions allow customers to receive a convenient, more personal experience while also allowing executives more visibility into the organization. With our solutions, field agents are more empowered to deliver great service while completing more jobs per day.
Above all, Alcatel-Lucent's field service management solutions get the right field service technician to the right place at the right time – with the right service parts, tools, and information – to get the job done right.
[1] Aberdeen Group. Service Lifecycle Excellence: Resolution at the Heart of Service. July 2014.
There's been a lot of debate within the industry about VoLTE's readiness and how it stacks up against 3G voice and applications like Skype.
Now Signals Research Group (SRG), a leading field research and consulting services leader covering the wireless telecommunications industry, has closely studied the performance of VoLTE, 3G and Skype in AT&T's commercial network and issued their report. As we noted last week, SRG conducted that independent network benchmark study in Minneapolis-St. Paul, in collaboration with Spirent Communications. This is a market where Alcatel-Lucent provides the infrastructure, so I'm particularly glad to share this report with my friends and colleagues who've helped design, deploy and optimize VoLTE.
During June and July, SRG tested VoLTE, 3G and Skype for everyday conditions, including stationary and mobile locations, strong and weak radio coverage, and under a variety of network loading and multi-tasking conditions. The tests evaluated voice quality, call setup time, call reliability, eSRVCC handovers, network resource utilization, and battery life.
For subscribers, SRG concluded VoLTE delivers superior call quality even for weak radio coverage and loaded networks, along with faster connectivity and substantially less battery drain. For the operator, VoLTE consumed fewer network resources than Skype.
The SRG report states: "Whenever we do these types of studies we are always fearful that the results will fall short of our expectations and we will be in the precarious position of telling proud parents that their baby is less than beautiful. Fortunately we were not faced with this situation after completing the first part of the VoLTE study. VoLTE generally lived up to our expectations."
The SRG results should settle the industry debate. A voice app such as Skype was shown to require a sunny day situation in order to sound good: strong radio signals, little network loading, and no multi-tasking. VoLTE works all the time, including everyday conditions. VoLTE's audio fidelity is better: our voice tones are richer and warmer, and we don't have annoying latency or lost audio during calls. Plus VoLTE provided significantly longer battery life than Skype, and only a bit less than 3G.
VoLTE's user experience also beats 3G Circuit Switched Fallback (CSFB). Calls were setup nearly twice as fast as CSFB. VoLTE's voice quality was measurably higher due to intrinsic AMR-WB, which isn't in that 3G UMTS network. Particularly important for today's data-hungry people, VoLTE subscribers get faster broadband, because LTE is always available, including voice calls.
SRG also measured how VoLTE provides efficient network utilization. Its design shrinks the packet header so that it consumes less radio bandwidth (Robust Header Compression); it requires fewer scheduling grants and resource blocks; it provides better coverage (TTI-Bundling); and it takes greater advantage of techniques such as discontinuous reception or transmission (DRX, DTX). When compared to Skype that means VoLTE ensures the LTE cell has more capacity for broadband data services.
For consumers and enterprises, VoLTE is the clear winner. It provides a superior experience while simplifying everyday communications. VoLTE enables anyone to talk clearly while simultaneously browsing the Web, downloading videos, sending emails, playing games or sharing content at LTE speeds.]]>
There are two kinds of technology consumers: Those who revel in the technology, and those who just want the benefits of the technology without having to think about tech itself.
While I definitely am someone who enjoys the technological innovation as much as the results of that innovation, most consumers are not. They just want technology that works, i.e., where the proof of the viability of next generation capabilities can be summed up as "seeing is believing."
One example of this is the increasing popularity of multiscreen entertainment as delivered over a leading-edge multiscreen video platform such as the Alcatel-Lucent one that has become with service providers around the world. Consumers don't want to have to fiddle with their computer or TV to get their content from one device to the next. They just want it to work; consumers want to be able to walk around the house with their shows or take their entertainment out into the world via their smartphone, not unlike we've been able to do with hardbound books for generations.
Thankfully, the Digital Living Network Alliance (DNLA) is making that relatively easy for consumers nowadays. DNLA helps specify the standard for enabling the sharing of music, video clips and photos across devices.
Earlier this year DNLA released guidelines for its Commercial Video Profile-2 (CVP-2). CVP-2 lets pay TV operators share premium content across devices inside a subscriber's home, opening up much greater sharing of content across devices.
The release of these guidelines is a crucial step in the evolution of cloud TV and away from a device-centric model toward a cloud model where content follows the consumer.
As a recent TechZine article by Roland Mestric, Director, Multimedia Solutions Marketing, Global Corporate Marketing, Alcatel-Lucent, titled DLNA CVP-2: Addressing the Multiscreen Challenge, noted, CVP-2 will start in the form of home-based gateways to process the content according to the devices used. The gateway will also act as the DLNA server, streaming content to these devices inside the home.
However, "the next logical step will be to move the processing and streaming functions of the DLNA server into the network," the article noted. "Pay TV operators can then prepare the content in a central location, from which they can serve each device and have a better control over the delivery mechanism."
DNLA and its new CVP-2 guidelines will in very short order open up the way that consumers consume media, effectively liberating content from a single device or group of devices. As Mestric explains in a podcast on the subject, while this will cut down on the geek factor of moving content between devices, for the majority of consumers this will be a big win.]]>
The craze for WebRTC grows louder as its realization in the market begins to be marked with high profile adoptions such as in Google Hangouts, Amazon Mayday, and SnapChat's AddLive solution. The formal standardization of WebRTC began in 2011. Early implementations by Google and Mozilla, on Chrome and Firefox respectively, followed shortly - beginning in 2012. And with the availability of developer versions of WebRTC on Chrome and Firefox, an ecosystem of proof-of-concept and early commercial products and solutions quickly emerged. Open source plug-ins are filling the gap in browsers that do not yet support WebRTC e.g. Internet Explorer. There is also clear progress being made in WebRTC standards for ORTC. Given this, we expect that WebRTC ORTC will likely be natively available on Microsoft's Internet Explorer within the next 18 months.
This is exciting to witness after having initiated Alcatel-Lucent's WebRTC work in 2011. Since then we have come a long way:
In June 2013 we launched a complete WebRTC solution for telco and enterprise markets including client Javascript libraries, the WebRTC Border Controller and an ecosystem of partners with a sandbox providing a fast prototyping environment for WebRTC apps,
We are also engaging with 3rd party app partners, building a vibrant ecosystem of developers, who are integrating their innovative apps with our ORCA APIs and backend system, opening up new opportunities for service providers to capitalize on existing network investments and to enhance the customer experience.
With the growth in IP communications deployment and adoption of VoLTE services, discussions with telcos and enterprises have intensified. Many of these conversations are taking place at WebRTC dedicated public events such as Upperside's WebRTC Expo Conference, Informa's WebRTC World Summit and more recently TMCnet's WebRTC Conference & Expo and IIR's Next Generation Service Platform where Alcatel-Lucent hosted a VoLTE Innovation Hackathon providing an on-site virtualized platform with support for developers.
What's clear is that service providers are now prototyping, trialing and integrating WebRTC gateway and services into their existing IP communications. This is happening even while open questions are still pending regarding use of plugins, building of WebRTC apps native to the device as well as in the browser, use of transcoding, federated versus island solutions, and technology maturity in areas of QoS, codecs, identity management, browser support, etc. And there are several reasons for this.
As mentioned by Stephane Cazeaux from Orange Labs during UpperSide's WebRTC Expo Conference, the telco's approach to WebRTC is primarily to pursue "access webification", i.e., WebRTC enabling web access to existing telco services and improving the telco's brand experience. An example is the New Conversation APIs enhanced version of the SIPPO Web Application Controller from Quobis, which won the first ever "fast tracking innovation" contest at the Conversations 2014 conference. It highlights the value of a common WebRTC client for legacy as well as new WebRTC-enabled services such as collaboration, B2C click-2-call, Gmail plug-in, etc.
But WebRTC doesn't only make it possible for service providers to leverage the web for telco-based consumer and enterprise services (including B2B, B2C). Talking business strategies and opportunities at the UpperSide conference, Fabrizio Caffaratti from Telecom Italia differentiates the WebRTC retail model -- where WebRTC as a framework enables WebRTC distinctive and enriched retailed services -- from the WebRTC wholesale model -- where the service provider capability is to leverage the web ecosystem for the benefit of telco services (B2B2C) and to monetize telco WebRTC APIs exposure to third party developers. As an example, Apizee's Web Call Center application integrates Alcatel-Lucent New Conversation APIs allowing RCS service continuity on the web.
The potential of WebRTC to positively impact IP communications is high. There are many use cases and business models being explored in both the consumer and enterprise markets. These scenarios leverage WebRTC for VoIP, video, and data channel-supported services. They include the use of WebRTC in browser as well as WebRTC implementations native to the device – providing a consistent approach to facilitate the realization of the vision for IP communications enablement of all IP connected devices, the Internet of Things. The possibilities are truly exciting and the craze is not stopping!
Recently in Munich, Alcatel-Lucent ran a 12 hour Hackathon that pitted the industry's best and brightest developers against each other. The mission: build the most original, compelling and marketable app using New Conversation APIs.
New Conversation APIs make the rich functionality of IP Communications simple to mash up into applications. By enabling developers to easily integrated voice, video, data and contact information into any app, service providers can innovate faster – providing entirely new communications experiences to end users from any screen, device and network. They enable operators to explore new opportunities for enhancing retail services and to pursue new wholesale markets through application partners (web, verticals, M2P, M2M…).
For the Hackathon, Alcatel-Lucent provided on-site the virtualized, commercial grade IP communication platform and APIs access through its WebRTC Border Controller, Converged Telephony and Rich Communication Servers. But the real stars were the developers, whom powered by pizza, beer and caffeine, brought the adrenalin, ingenuity and drama.
The Hackathon did not disappoint. The developers delivered highly original, compelling and marketable apps that run on IP communication serving as the foundation for today's LTE network and VoLTE services. A panel of global telecom industry analysts, developers and operators had the tough task of choosing a winner.
Ultimately, judges named PhoneDeck the winner. Its developers used New Conversation APIs and WebRTC technologies to deliver an app enabling the seamless mobile integration into CRM Salesforce. The app significantly improved the work experience of sales representatives through a screen-pop displaying relevant information about the customer calling on the mobile; call whispering providing information from a previously scanned customer business card stored on the CRM; click to call back on the sales representative's browser; mobile, multi-device call handover; and mobile call reporting.
Hackathon finalists included:
Such competitions ultimately benefit end users like you and me. It provides a path to creating a world where communications is more dynamic and compelling – one that connects all contacts and communications in the online and real worlds to make the act of communicating simpler and more meaningful.]]>
Last week, I talked about mobile operators are building an overall brand experience that engages young consumers because the youth segment is valuable — and do influence adult segments. In addition to creating a youth brand or a youthful brand, mobile operators must also consider how to craft specific offers that promote the "mobile data first" experience to drive mobile data growth through the youth market.
Here are the 10 ideas that can help craft the "mobile data first" offers using an online charging solution (OCS).
1. Try before you buy
There are often barriers in the way of a young person's first purchase impulse. The same barriers also apply to buying and consuming mobile data. So help them get past these barriers with short-term promotions. For example, with a 100% discount on data for the first 3 months. Or offer 300MB for the price of 100MB, for the first 3 months. These offers can stimulate the data experience and encourage greater usage.
2. Mobile data as a reward
Young consumers spend money on brands they love. Spend in other areas detracts from an immersive mobile data experience and spending. Mobile Apps like Kickbit working with an OCS allows consumers to get more megabytes of data in exchange for doing things like taking quick surveys, trying free trials, shopping, and watching videos. These incentives help overcome financial barriers, deepen the data experience and remove dependency on Wi-Fi. Taking the concept further, sponsored data plans and toll-free data can also help encourage youth to surf on their mobile Internet, rather than Wi-Fi, if the offers apply to the contents they enjoy frequently.
3. My Tribe and social gamification
My Tribe, a twist on shared data plans, helps counteract churn by offering young consumers a variety of propositions, such as unlimited voice and text while on your network. It can also offer group discounts on mobile data. The bigger the tribe is (up to a designated number of the tribe), the bigger the savings the tribe members will share. This idea capitalizes on youth social groups to provide mobile data discounts and increase retention and acquisition. Solavei's social media referral offers and Sprint's Framliy offers started this with a total bill discount.
We all know youth today also love mobile gaming, especially multiplayer games. Mobile operators can go further leveraging the gamification concept to provide an instant discount or additional bonus allowance when the total tribal usage reaches over multi-level thresholds.
4. Subsidized or discounted subscription app and services for My Tribe
The youth market is constantly seeking the hottest and trending mobile apps and services with freemium and subscription services. Without much money left for mobile data after paying for the apps and services, they tend to enjoy them on Wi-Fi. For example, they love WhatsApp but there's an annual subscription fee of USD $0.99 after the initial free year. Operators could offer group discounts to the My Tribe offers with mobile data by subsidizing or discounting WhatsApp annual fees.
For instance, a community of 6 to 10 people could share a $4.99 offer, with a minimum mobile data allowance, instead of each paying $0.99 for WhatsApp usage. Offers can include other subscription-based music apps or gaming apps. These sorts of offers encourage young people to join your network and bring their friends. They also build loyalty and discourage churn.
5. A choice of subsidized apps bundle
Some young people may want unlimited WhatsApp on mobile data, and others may want unlimited Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and many more. Etisalat has launched unlimited social bundles for a day or a month to tailor to their youth market. Why not let young people select which apps they would like to use in discounted or free mode since they fall in and out of love with mobile apps quite frequently. For example, the enhanced offer could be for a maximum of 3 apps to be included in the social app bundle, chosen from a pre-curated pool. And the discount could be in the form of a bucket of data associated with those apps, either capped or unlimited. A good practice for the mobile operators is to understand the network and usage impacts of mobile apps before curating such a pool of apps.
6. 200MB free each month when purchasing a tablet
We know from research that the youth market loves using tablets and that the growth of media-rich traffic like video is partly driven by tablet usage. Offering an incentive to use tablets will push up data consumption. Tablets could be offered with a free monthly allowance of 200MB of mobile data. Today, T-Mobile USA is offering free 2G data for life with up to 200MB of free 4G LTE data each month for as long as customers own the tablets purchased from T-Mobile.
7. Device-based discount on mobile data
The youth market is very loyal to particular mobile device brands and models and will be attracted to networks that offer the models they like. Attract the youth market to your brand by bundling the leading mobile devices with a discounted data bundle offer. Alternatively, mobile tablets can be bundled with a promotional, discounted data plan per MB, rather than feature phones, to encourage young consumers to surf the Internet freely on mobile tablets in places where Wi-Fi isn't readily available. This will also help with the uptake of mobile tablet sales.
8. IOU for mobile data
Often implemented in prepaid services, this IOU (I owe you) idea is to advance an allowance from the next payment cycle to help promote a positive user experience. When users reach their data cap, their session simply stops until a top-up is made. The top-up takes time so the youth loses the opportunity to finish their data session, giving a poor user experience. To improve this situation, the youth could receive a flash screen message offering a nominal amount of mobile data, the cost of which will be deducted from their next top-up or next month's payment.
9. Emergency bandwidth for a week
Often, young data users wait and move into Wi-Fi coverage to continue surfing on the Internet when they run out of mobile data. For existing customers, a cheap, emergency week-long pass for mobile data can be sold to tide the user over when a data bundle expires. It gives the youth market the option to buy either cheap, unlimited, low-bandwidth data or discounted, premium high-speed mobile data for a week. This lets them continue to use data for a nominal fee within their budget before the next bundle kicks in.
10. Bridge mobile data offer between Wi-Fi hotspots
The youth market is tribal and doesn't have much money. They meet in groups in free Wi-Fi hotspots, consume data and then stop, until they reach the next free Wi-Fi location. Offer discounted data in selected mobile coverage areas like school campuses, shopping districts, concerts and stadiums as consumers move between Wi-Fi hotspots to allow them a continuous data experience — and get them used to consuming data on the mobile network.
What do you think? Do you like the 10 ideas? Have other ideas to share? Want to learn more about the Six Degrees of Mobile Data Plan Innovations and Mobile Application Ranking Report? Want to learn more about how Alcatel-Lucent can help? If you like this article, please feel free to share it with your followers.
I've received a lot of questions from mobile operators, who are asking about mobile data growth and how it's related to the youth market — meaning consumers from the age of 18 to 25 or sometimes 18 to 22. The mobile operators' own research shows that the youth segment is valuable — and influences adult segments. The Business Case for Youth section of the Mobile Youth Report also says: "The youth market is worth $1 trillion dollars. Youth drive high-end smartphone markets. Youth have the highest lifetime value of all customers." As a result, mobile operators around the world are taking notice of young consumers, and some are investing in a new youth brand to attract that segment.
For example, in Ireland, "48" is the new wave of youth mobile services targeting the 48-month duration between the ages of 18 and 22. See how 48 cleverly branded its video campaigns. It's not about subscriptions, but about low-cost membership in the 48 community. Its members can get calling, texting, and mobile Internet services with a manageable cost — and find online support through FAQs, community support, and a 48 customer care agent offering online help with a 24-hour response time. On top of all that, 48 is encouraging members to grow their community by giving "Kickback" to members and their friends who join.
On the other hand, the Mobile Youth Report also points out under Youth Branding: "You don't have to be a Youth Brand. Most popular brands with youth are Youthful not Youth brands (e.g. Starbucks, Apple, Facebook). Youthful means open to ideas and dialogue. The Next Big Thing always starts in the youth market and spreads to the mass market/adults later e.g. SMS, mobile messaging, Facebook, Instagram."
Clearly, the recent "un-carrier" events launched at T-Mobile USA are working to attract youth through the CEO's twitter account and the company's Facebook and Instagram campaigns on "Break-up Letter" and "Rebel Maker." These communications are getting a lot of notice by the youth segment.
Whether creating a youth brand or a youthful brand, mobile operators need to consider how to craft offers that promote the "mobile data first" experience. Young people don't usually have a lot of money, but they are highly motivated to use data on the go, especially in countries where public Wi-Fi is readily available. The goal for 3G/4G LTE mobile operators is to drive the "mobile data first" experience into young consumers' behaviors, so they will stop being afraid to use mobile data and feel in control of what they use and when they use it.
What other successful examples of youth brands vs. youthful brands do you know about? Do you agree that the youth segment influences adult segments in mobile data growth? Why or why not?
If you like this article, please feel free to share it with your followers. Next week, I will offer my insights on the 10 ways to drive mobile data growth through the youth market.]]>
This blog launches our three-part series focused on the value of VoLTE. My next two blogs will look at how VoLTE benefits your enterprise and consumer customers.
Generating higher revenues
How does VoLTE help you earn more money? By opening up revenues in four ways.
1. You gain more capacity for data and voice, using existing spectrum.
A VoLTE network has up to 3 times more voice and data capacity than 3G UMTS — and up to 6 times more than 2G GSM — and that extra capacity helps you sell more data services. Nearly everybody understood that part. What most didn't know is that VoLTE's packet headers are smaller than unoptimized VoIP/LTE, so that more bandwidth is available for data services. For instance, in a cell with 200 VoLTE calls, 4.4 Mbps is freed up for data services. VoLTE also reduces the consumption of each cell's control channels, so the cell can serve more users and increase throughput for non-voice data services.
2. VoLTE encourages your customers to use more data.
Forget about charging more for voice or RCS. Rather, VoLTE allows your enterprise and consumer customers to easily use 4G LTE data services by maximizing their time on LTE. This difference helps business employees stay connected and work at LTE speeds. For example, they can keep their existing laptop or tablet, tether it using WiFi or Bluetooth to their VoLTE smartphone, and talk & work anywhere, without the old desk phone's limitations or ongoing operational costs. Consumers can multi-task, talking and browsing simultaneously. As a result, VoLTE fits perfectly into today's demand for faster mobile broadband.
3. You can offer rich IP communications right now, including video calling and content sharing.
Video provides engagement and immediacy. It's as easy to use as voice or messaging, so your customers can use it at the jai alai game or for closing on that sales call without the hassles or variable clarity of OTT video. Or those expensive enterprise room systems. And content sharing helps your customers use media (files, pictures, videos, location, etc.) just as simply and broadly as texting. Instead of heading over to email or DropBox, simply move the content within the call itself, whether it's to your fishing buddy or to your conference call. And thanks to WebRTC, your customers can do this with anybody, not just other VoLTE subscribers.
4. VoLTE sets the stage for distinctive apps and services.
You can also develop a full portfolio of differentiated applications and services that give you a competitive edge. Our adjacent MWC demo showed just how easy it is, for you or your application partners, to build engaging new services using New Conversation APIs and WebRTC.
With Cloud Communications, these offerings help move your organization fully into a data-centric ecosystem. It supports a data-centric pricing strategy that lets you put the focus on data plans, reduce consumer churn with bundled communications and grow your enterprise business by helping companies cut the cord on legacy customer-premise systems.
The bottom line
What's the result, when you add up all the business advantages of VoLTE? As the video highlights, you can make a strong case for moving fully to 4G LTE — and doing away with split-network operations and cumbersome services.
In my next two blogs, we'll take a closer look at the advantages you can offer your consumer and enterprise customers. Your 4G communications service becomes the one that people use, when communication matters. Meanwhile, Jean Jones' upcoming new blog series offers crucial tips for improving your VoLTE deployment, based on interviews with Alcatel-Lucent experts who have first-hand experience with major service implementations.
Click here to subscribe to our series and for more information on IMS, VoLTE and NFV. To join the discussion, connect with Ed on Twitter: @EdElkin1 and follow #VoLTE.


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Red Angus, Simmental collaborate on conference
The Red Angus Association of America (RAAA) and the American Simmental Association (ASA) hosted a joint Young Guns Conference in Bozeman, MT, earlier this summer. Made up of association members, commercial producers and industry partners, the attendees delved into issues that faced both Red Angus and Simmental.
Read more Read it in print

subset: commoncrawl


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Book your room at Wyndham Garden Warsaw
Standard Room, 1 King Bed with SofabedMax Occupancy: 5 guests (up to 4 children)
Standard Room, 1 King BedMax Occupancy: 3 guests (up to 2 children)
Standard Room, 2 Double BedsMax Occupancy: 5 guests (up to 4 children)
3-star hotel with restaurant and indoor pool
Situated in Warsaw, this hotel is 0 mi (0 km) from Wagon Wheel Theatre and within 25 mi (40 km) of South Shore Golf Club and Lakeside Park. Maxwelton Golf Club and Wawasee Golf Club are also within 25 mi (40 km).
Hotel Features
A restaurant, an indoor pool, and an outdoor pool are available at this hotel. Free WiFi in public areas and free self parking are also provided. Additionally, a 24-hour fitness center, a bar/lounge, and a spa tub are onsite.
Room Amenities
All 157 rooms provide conveniences like sofa beds and coffee makers, plus free WiFi and flat-screen TVs with cable channels. Other amenities available to guests include MP3 docks, free local calls, and hair dryers.Information missing or incorrect? Tell us!
Hotel Amenities
Hotel Amenities
In addition to an indoor pool and an outdoor pool, Wyndham Garden Warsaw provides a spa tub and a sauna. The hotel offers a restaurant. A bar/lounge is on site where guests can unwind with a drink. A computer station is located on site and high-speed wireless Internet access is complimentary.
A 24-hour business center is on site at this 3-star property. Event facilities measuring 10000 square feet (900 square meters) include conference space. This business-friendly hotel also offers a 24-hour fitness center, spa services, and tour/ticket assistance. Onsite self parking is complimentary.
- Computer station
- 24-hour fitness facilities
- Hair salon
- Concierge services
- Gift shops or newsstand
- 24-hour business center
- Conference space size (feet) - 10000
- Conference space size (meters) - 900
- Free WiFi
- Airport transportation
- Billiards or pool table
- Tours/ticket assistance
- Dry cleaning/laundry service
- Total number of rooms - 157
- Wedding services
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- Spa services on site
- Bar/lounge
- Breakfast available (surcharge)
- Conference space
- Express check-out
- Porter/bellhop
- Restaurant
- Free self parking
- Sauna
- Spa tub
- Indoor pool
- Outdoor pool
Family Friendly Amenities
- Outdoor pool
- Indoor pool
- Free Wi-Fi
- Sofa bed
Available in all rooms: Free WiFi
Available in some public areas: Free WiFi
Free self parking
Room Amenities
- Free local calls
- Private bathroom
- Free toiletries
- Hair dryer
- Desk
- Climate control
- Sofa bed
- Cable TV service
- Flat-panel TV
- Free WiFi
- Shower/tub combination
- In-room safe (laptop compatible)
- MP3 docking station
- Air conditioning
- Coffee/tea maker
- Iron/ironing board
Where to Eat
Cooked-to-order breakfasts are available for a surcharge and are served each morning.
Bennigans Irish Grill - This restaurant specializes in Irish cuisine and serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Guests can enjoy drinks at the bar.
Nearby Things to Do
An indoor pool, an outdoor pool, and a spa tub are on site. Other recreational amenities include a sauna and a 24-hour fitness center.
The recreational activities listed below are available either on site or nearby; fees may apply.
- Downhill skiing nearby
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To make requests for specific accessibility needs, complete the "Special or Accessibility Requests" section of "Trip Preferences" when you book your hotel.
- Accessible path of travel
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Payment types
Pets allowed, Maximum number of pets per room 1
You need to know
Extra-person charges may apply and vary depending on hotel policy.
Government-issued photo identification and a credit card or cash deposit are required at check-in for incidental charges.
Special requests are subject to availability upon check-in and may incur additional charges. Special requests cannot be guaranteed.
- Pet fee: USD 25 per accommodation, per stay


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An East L.A. Football Rivalry, Unchanged For 79 Years
Originally published on Fri November 1, 2013 5:49 pm
An East Los Angeles rivalry has become the largest high school football game west of the Mississippi. The football teams of Garfield High School and Roosevelt High School will meet on the gridiron Friday night for the 79th year. The game is expected to draw 20,000 fans.


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International Journal of Eating Disorders, 05/17/2012DooleyHash S et al. –
Eating disorders are common amongst all patients aged 14–20 years presenting to the emergency department and are associated with high rates of psychiatric comorbidity.
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|Merck announces collaboration with the American Diabetes Association to educate adults with diabetes about increased risk for serious diseases like pneumococcal pneumonia Merck
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Band of Horses Reject Wal-Mart's Advances, Lose Potential Cash Money, or: Ben Bridwell Kills Future Chances of Becoming a Wal-Mart Greeter When He Is Old and Grey
It was (apparently) a mix of negative fan reactions and ye good ol' fashioned righteousness that brought Band of Horses frontman Ben Bridwell to kill a deal with Wal-Mart that would have released rights for the track "The Funeral" to the aforementioned Warehouse O'The Man.
Though Band of Horses did previously release some rights for Cease to Begin tracks to Ford (corporate vroom vroom), Bridwell obviously decided that selling artistic output to big, bad Wal-Mart would make TMT writers too smug in their metaphors. In other words, people like me rushing to finish a story and take the easy way out (i.e., poking fun at Bridwell's almost-deal-with-the-devil as symbolic of modern-day corporate-American-dream-killing1).
Apparently, profiting from Ford is fine by Bridwell, since calling Ford a corporate dream-killer nowadays is far too grossly anachronistic for any history-loving, metaphor-making fan to muster.
Had this been the 1920s, that metaphor could have been more palpable. If you didn't have a Model T.2
LONG STORY SHORT: your favorite ponies are touring, continuing to tour, and picking up ladies with sweet Model Ts, and touring, and touring:
Current dates:
Interpol Extend Tour with 2008 Dates, More Great Mysteries Unraveled After These Messages
Maybe Joy Division just didn't reach the same level of prowess in Europe (this is a lie, BTW), but for some reason, Europe is just a-clamorin' for the unique and fresh sound of Interpol in the coming months. Don't get me wrong, "Obstacle 2" appears on one of my favorite driving mixes of all time, eloquently titled "CAR JAMS," but... yeah, that's all I got.
The band has been touring for most of 2007 in support of Our Love to Admire (TMT Review), and as we previously reported (TMT News), a new toy drops during this leg: a deluxe edition of the album arriving November 19 in the UK, including a live performance disc and some of them newfangled music videos. Sheeeit.
* Blonde Redhead
Oh, and don't even think about naming your band The Interpols. Confused? Keep it tuned right here on TMT...
Updated: My Bloody Valentine Shows Sell-Out in Six Minutes, So They Add
Two Four More Shows!
Yesterday, I told you guys about My Bloody Valentine's three-show reunion (TMT News). Today, I tell you what happened.
The tickets went on sale this morning. After six minutes, they were all gone. Six minutes! Not quite Hanna Montana or Radiohead, but six minutes doesn't give you a lot of time. Actually... let's see just how long six minutes is in news form. Starting right NOW, I am going to type this story within six minutes. Shouldn't be a problem.
Okay, so yeah, the shows sold out in six minutes, blah blah blah. So, due to the demand, My Bloody Valentine have added
a couple four shows. Both will be at London's Roadhouse. Shit, I wasted all my time finding a link to my old news story and the tickets being sold on eBay. FUCK! Gotta end this. Good thing I formatted the dates first!
Here are the dates:
Pelican Launches European Tour, Makes Whatever Sound a Pelican Makes
PeliCAN melt your face, melt limestone, melt polar ice caps, melt
M&Ms in hands.
PeliCAN'T bake a soufflé without it collapsing.
PeliCAN summon Geotic demons, summon unfound courage, summon jurors.
PeliCAN'T play WOW for more than 10 minutes without getting banned.
PeliCAN infuse emotion into indie kids, infuse herbs in oil and water.
PeliCAN'T build a Lincoln Log cabin.
PeliCAN tour Europe.
PeliCAN'T play in a minor key for more than a minute.
So, you see, Pelican is a band of duality. As a veritable taijitu of
post-hardcore, they represent the balance between unbridled emotion
and... bridled emotion. Their soul-reaping intros harken to a
youthful optimism, while at the same time their extended outros
represent the failing self-efficacy of an aging population. At least,
that's what your girlfriend said last night when Jack Hanna and David
Attenborough taught her a little duality. Oh Sh1t!!!
Caw? Chirp? Snarf? Eunnnnggggh?:
Donald Ayler Heads For The Great Gig In The Sky, Dead At 65
Respected free-jazz trumpeter Donald Ayler died October 24 of a heart attack. The 65-year old was the brother of alto/tenor saxophonist impresario Albert, the subject of the recent documentary My Name Is Albert Ayler, which opened in Athens, Austin, Cleveland, and Winnipeg this week and is slated for DVD release sometime next year. Don Ayler performed regularly with his wily older brother and appeared on such releases as Bells (Calibre), In Greenwich Village (Impulse!), and the essential Spirits Rejoice (ESP-Disk). Don was an essential cog of his brother's group from 1965-1968 and also performed in a group with John Coltrane in 1966.
Albert's mysterious death in 1970 forced Don out of the spotlight and he popped up occasionally for features and interviews but nothing substantial. A 1981 recording from a Florence gig with a septet does exist but has been out-of-print for several years. A couple of Don's compositions were included with Albert's die-hards-only 2004 Holy Ghost: Rare & Unissued Recordings 1962-1970 box set.
[Photo: Larry Fink/ICA]
The White Stripes Tengo Un Mes Estudiando Español Beck
When I was in grade school, baseball cards were all the rage. My friends would peel back the wrapper, pop a stick of petrified gum into their mouths, and thumb through the glossy cardboard hoping for one that would offset their subscriptions to Beckett. I never got it. My heroes didn't swing pine, they swung steel. They didn't wear cleats, they wore capes as red as the blood they spilled. That's right, I idolized not the ball player, but the toreador!
Strong, agile, mustachioed, bronzed, and dapper, the toreador is the Spanish prizefighter who out-classes all athletes. Any man can challenge another, but it takes a steadied slayer to best an agitated beast bent on goring anyone in its path.
Now, finally, I'll be able to relive those heady days spent Indian-style on my bedroom floor sorting my matador trading cards. All the greats are here: El Sloth, El Bianca Rosa, El Perdador! Unfortunately, my mother disposed of my cherished collection. Perra!
Those with less of a thirst for beauty, machismo, and tight pants than I will no doubt be more interested in the limited-edition 7-inch The White Stripes/Beck singles, with which the matador trading cards are included.
For the release of The White Stripes Spanish-tinged new single, "Conquest," the band is issuing three 7-inch records.
- On black vinyl: Side A "Conquest" Side B "It's My Fault For Being Famous"
- On white vinyl: Side A "Conquest" Side B "Honey, We Can't Afford To Look This Cheap"
- On red vinyl: Side A "Conquest (Acoustic Mariachi Version)" Side B "Cash Grab Complications On The Matter"
The White Stripes collaborated on these B-sides with Beck, who, judging by his Guerro release, also has a taste for the spicier things in life. That funky little gringo added vocals and piano to "It's Not My Fault For Being Famous," slide guitar to "Honey, We Can't Afford To Look This Cheap," and he is listed as co-producer of all three new tunes, which were recorded in his living room over sangria and a sack of gorditas.
Your matador trading cards (which happen to come with the records) will be released in the U.S. December 18.
The songs will also be available for download via iTunes.
Acid Mothers Temple Tour, Bring Families Together
Dear Annie,
I am a recently-divorced father of two living in beautiful Cleveland Heights, Ohio. The break-up was hard, but I am beginning to heal, and I now feel ready to introduce my fraternal twins Eleanor and Jacob to experimental music. I'm taking small steps: going to the record stop, chatting with college radio DJs, and reading avant-garde music magazines. But there are so many new bands out there that I just don't know what to do! I have just bought an especially ironic sweatshirt and would like to wear it for a family evening on the town. What do you suggest?
--Confused in Cleveland Heights
Dear Confused,
You are in luck! Classic noise-mongers Acid Mothers Temple are back on the road, tearing up the clubs and sound systems of America on a tour this spring. And they have TONS of new releases. This could be just the event you need to get your groove back, and what do you know, they are even stopping in your town! A night with the group would be a great opportunity to teach the kids about proper earplug usage and the wild world of Japanese rock. Good luck and keep your chin up!
Donovan to Release Live DVD, Riki Tiki Tavi Mongoose Still Gone
Donovan has a concert DVD, cleverly titled Concert: Live in L.A., coming out January 22. Guests include David Lynch, Mike Love (who I refuse to consider a member of The Beach Boys), and Astrella Celeste, better known as Donovan's own daughter. It is 60 minutes long, will be released through Raven, and has a SKU# of MVDV4592.
In celebration, I performed a series of Wikipedia searches while listening to Donovan. Here are just some of the things I learned:
- "Donovan" is also a city in east Illinois. It is 96.30% white.
- Mello Yello was introduced with the slogan "Mello Yello - The World's Fastest Soft Drink."
- The Garden of Earthly Delights by Heironymus Bosch depicts the first known instance of a buzzing bridge on a Hurdy Gurdy (a weird kind of mechanical violin).
- "Barabajagal" doesn't mean anything.
- Atlantis lies beyond the pillars of Heracles.
- Regular Superman gains his power from the earth's yellow sun and is therefore more or less indistinguishable from Sunshine Superman.
- "Elevator in the brain hotel" is the most perfect possible series of five words in the English language.
- The titular "Season of the Witch" is Spring.
My Bloody Valentine Confirm Three Live Shows
You savvy motherfuckers knew this was coming a mile away, didn't you? Well, start booking those flights because My Bloody Valentine have confirmed that they'll be playing three live gigs in the summer of next year. Presented by ATP Concerts, the shows will take place in London (June 20), Manchester (June 28), and Glasgow (July 2). Tickets go on-sale 9 AM tomorrow at venue box offices and here. How do we know all this? THE ONLINE FLYER WITH A SUPER OLD PICTURE OF MBV DOESN'T LIE.
The news comes hot off the announcement that there will be indeed new My Bloody Valentine material released in the future (TMT News). It's still somewhat unclear as to what and when and how many, but, according to an interview on VBS.tv's Soft Focus series, there is an album that's three-fourths finished of music from 1996, a "compilation of stuff" recorded a couple years after 1991's Loveless, and "a little bit of new stuff." A release could come out as early as this year.
Now, kids, it's been roughly 16 years since the release of Loveless. Some of you reading this are probably that old. Just something to keep under your hat on these judgment dates:
Now excuse me while I do my morning tug.
Comcast In Trouble for BitTorrent Blocking, Gets a Time-Out
Remember when we told you two months ago that Comcast is blatantly violating net neutrality? Someone else noticed, too! The Associated Press accused the cable provider of blocking certain BitTorrent uploads, which Comcast of course denied. This got the attention of several groups, among them net neutrality advocates from fancy colleges (Harvard, etc.) and Save the Internet. The advocates have requested an investigation by the FCC into Comcast's activities. Here's hoping they find something incriminating.
Of course, these investigations take time. In the meantime, the FCC has notified Comcast that, until the issue is resolved, it officially gets a time-out. "We feel that Comcast's actions are no-nos and that the only appropriate consequence is to have it sit in the corner without its friends. Verizon, Earthlink, and AOL will just have to wait to play," said FCC spokesman Bill Redgely (not a real FCC spokesman). "Comcast will also not be getting dessert tonight and can't play with its new trucks until it learns to behave."
Sounds like fair punishment to me, though the FCC should also consider revoking Comcast's gold stars on the class chart.


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PixiVisor Lets You Treat Video As Sound
There are plenty of apps out there you can easily waste your money on if you feel like it. Of course this doesn't mean that there aren't powerful apps that are well worth the huge chunk of money that they cost, but that is all of that without a few experimental ones to play around with? One theme that I've noticed with app developers is their uncanny ability to blend themes and find a relationship between two events that normally would be unrelated. One of the better examples is finding ways to blend sound and audio together. With a plug in like Video SL, one can blend video at the same time they mix their music – but what about actually taking images and synthesizing them into audible notes? How would one even go about implementing this idea?
It starts with finding an algorithm that takes images and turns it into sound. There are already a few apps that can do something to this effect; one of them being the milkdrop plug in for Winamp users. However, PixiVisor expands upon this idea in a revolutionary way. It actually takes a palette of images and allow you to transmit the sounds to another device while you create them on the fly.


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The rates of direct taxes are prescribed every year in the Finance Act, presented to the parliament with the Union Budget.
As per the Budget 2014-15, the revenue mop up from direct tax is targeted at Rs 7.36 lakh crore for the current fiscal.
Several firms have received letters from the I-T department, "requesting" them to deposit the amount from tax deductions before the financial year closes.
Budget estimate for direct taxes is Rs 7.36L-cr for FY15, a growth of 16% over the previous fiscal, but collections have grown only by 11.38% till now.
The Securities Transaction Tax (STT) collections surged by 44.12 per cent at Rs 5,556 crore in the said period due to buoyancy in the stock market.
It will carry out closer scrutiny of those tax statements wherein an assessee has disclosed that he or she holds bank accounts or any other assets abroad.
" Cairn Energy has decided to file a notice of dispute under the UK-India Investment Treaty over the impasse.
What has rattled the poll watchdog is the huge expenditure made by some of the leading parties during the Lok Sabha elections last year.


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Find an Internship or Volunteer in Landisburg, Pennsylvania ( PA )
If you're looking for internships or volunteer work in Landisburg, Pennsylvania or even to get a summer job, you've come to the right place! With over 30,000 around the county, chances are that GrooveJob.com has the right job for you and wants to be your only source for finding internships and volunteer positions in Landisburg, Pennsylvania.
We've got plenty of intern and volunteer work in Landisburg, Pennsylvania. Check out the list of employers below who have positions in Landisburg. Remember to check back with Groovejob.com on a regular basis. We add new internships and volunteer jobs listings to our database every week, so you'll find new opportunities every time you check back with us.
|Browse by Employer (Click On Logos)
|Click for Intern or Volunteer at SEAWORLD ADVENTURE PARK
|Click for Intern or Volunteer at INROADS
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…coffee*/ Our interns go at a highly energized pace. From day one as a paid intern with Enterprise, you'll learn what it takes to run a...
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…to work as entry-level engineers in multi-discipline technical service lines! Available intern positions at this location include: 1....
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Juju is looking for a Paid Intern with a strong knowledge of Python. Initial responsibilities will be writing and maintaining XML...
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…of premium building products and related technology, has an opening for a Mechanical Engineering Intern for the summer of 2015. This ...
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Ricky Nolasco, Dodgers spoil solid John Lackey outing, shutout Red Sox
|08.24.13 at 12:25 am ET
LOS ANGELES — Ricky Nolaso allowed just two hits over eight innings, striking out six and not walking a batter on the way to leading his Dodgers to a 2-0 win over the Red Sox in the teams' series opener at Dodger Stadium Friday night.
"This, from a right-hander, is probably as good as start as we've seen against us," said Red Sox manager John Farrell. "And to his credit, he had very good stuff and good location throughout.'
The difference in the game proved to Hanley Ramirez' two-run home run in the fourth inning against Sox starter John Lackey. It was one of the few mistakes by Lackey, who went toe-to-toe with Nolasco, also going eight innings while giving up just three hits..
Lackey, who also struck out six without walking a batter, became the first Red Sox pitcher to lose a complete game while allowing three or fewer base hits since Pedro Martinez (Aug. 8, 2000).
Lackey is averaging being supported with just 3.98 runs per game, lowest of any Red Sox starter. Ryan Dempster (6.32), Jon Lester (5.67) and Felix Doubront (5.08) all have been getting significantly more help than Friday night's starter.
'Typically there's that one starter in the rotation that's going to fall victim of maybe some less run support than others. He's been the guy," Farrell said. "I think he's been on the mound on half the times we've been shut out this season. (Note: Lackey has started four of the 10 games Sox have been shutout.) We talked about this not long ago. We feel like he's pitched better than the numbers might indicate, certainly the win-loss. you know what, that's the game this game goes."
Lackey did drop his ERA to 3.17, his lowest since July 20.
"I want to win the game. I didn't come here for ERA," Lackey told reporters. "I came here to try to win a championship."
The only two Red Sox to manage base-hits were Dustin Pedroia and Stephen Drew.
Former Red Sox Carl Crawford came away with a pair of hits and a stolen base, while Adrian Gonzalez went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts.
Click here for a complete box score.
Latest from Bleacher Report
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- 2015 Spring Training Reports
- Dubon taking journey from Honduras to the majors one stop at a time
- The Write-Up: Clay Buchholz
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- With new delivery honed, Haley looks to build on breakout season
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- Owens reassigned to minors in latest roster cuts; Boggs released
- The Write-Up: More reports from Fort Myers
- Karsten Whitson close to his old self in Red Sox system


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Fixed all listed
View questions for:All Chrysler
PT Cruiser
2002 Chrysler PT Cruiser
Chrysler Q&AAsk Your Question
2002 Chrysler PT Cruiser Question: Will not crank at start up ran fine before shift cable bushing broke
boomer tha realist, 2.4L 4 Cylinder, Auburn, WA, December 15, 2013, 11:46
1 Answer
Answer #1G. T. Service Center (4244 Answers) , Stephenville, TX - (254) 638-3236ProfessorG December 15, 2013, 12:04Master
Wow your tough, The will not symptom you are describing with the added shift cable issue, causes me to think the starter will not engage because the neutral safety switch will not allow it. Then I want to ask can you move the shifter to neutral and try it. Just tell me if the starter is turning/engine spins or does not turn/spin. Do you have a starter issue or a engine no run issue.
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text:
Draft of message to be sent after approval:
From: The IESG <firstname.lastname@example.com>
To: IETF-Announce <firstname.lastname@example.com>
Cc: Internet Architecture Board <email@example.com>,
RFC Editor <email@example.com>,
ccamp mailing list <firstname.lastname@example.com>,
ccamp chair <firstname.lastname@example.com>
Subject: Protocol Action: 'Generalized Multiprotocol Label
Switching Extensions for SONET and SDH Control' to Proposed
The IESG has approved the following document:
- 'Generalized Multiprotocol Label Switching Extensions for SONET and SDH
Control '
<draft-ietf-ccamp-gmpls-sonet-sdh-09.txt> as a Proposed Standard
This document is the product of the Common Control and Measurement Plane
Working Group.
The IESG contact persons are Bert Wijnen and Ross Callon.
A URL of this Internet-Draft is:
Technical Summary
(What does this protocol do and why does the community need it?)
Working Group Summary
(Was there any significant dissent? Was the choice obvious?)
Protocol Quality
(Who has reviewed the spec for the IESG? Are there implementations?)


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Shearwater Sign to Sub Pop
By Tom Breihan on April 22, 2011 at 11:25 a.m. EDT
UPDATE: Shearwater have signed to Sub Pop. Expect a new album on the label next year.
In January, the Texan orchestral pop band Shearwater played their last three albums in full during a three-hour show at Austin's Central Presbyterian Church. 2006's Palo Santo, 2008's Rook, and last year's The Golden Archipelago make up the band's "Island Arc" trilogy. Now, they've released a digital live album called The Island Arc, which includes excerpts from the show. The 10-song live album is streaming above, and it's for sale at Shearwater's Bandcamp page.
Download New Song From Blue Water White Death
By Tom Breihan on September 2, 2010 at 4:15 p.m. EDT
Blue Water White Death: Song for the Greater Jihad
Blue Water White Death is the new art-pop superduo comprised of Xiu Xiu's Jamie Stewart and Shearwater's Jonathan Meiburg. Their self-titled album is due October 12, via Graveface. And up above, you can download one of the tracks from the album, the evocatively titled "Song for the Greater Jihad". It's a florid acoustic track with exactly one burst of horrible noise in its six minutes.
Meanwhile, Xiu Xiu, Stewart's main gig, is touring the entire known universe this year, and they've just added even more dates. Click below for their touring schedule.
Shearwater's Meiburg + Xiu Xiu's Stewart = Blue Water White Death
By Tom Breihan on July 21, 2010 at 5:35 p.m. EDT
Back in February, we reported that Xiu Xiu frontman Jamie Stewart and Shearwater main man Jonathan Meiburg had teamed up to form a new band called Blue Water White Death. And now this union of art-pop stars has unveiled its plans to the world. The self-titled debut album from Blue Water White Death is coming October 12 from Graveface.
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USA Today had a must-read article on Under Armour's crazy uniform designs. Creative uniforms are wonderful, but as with all else in the world of intellectual property, care needs to be taken. Taking a copyrighted design from someone oftentimes results in a lawsuit. If you see the other design, run it by your fellows to… Continue Reading
Category Archives: Intellectual PropertySubscribe to Intellectual Property RSS Feed
Off Topic, But NotPosted in Intellectual Property
A friend's daughter has an award winning blog on weddings and wedding planning. Wickedly fun and funny. She has been approached by commercial ventures about featuring their products on her blog for $$$. So far she has declined these proposals. Nothing illegal about this practice, although the Federal Trade Commission is supposedly looking into… Continue Reading
McNutt, But Not For HeismanPosted in Intellectual Property
As featured in TheLanter.com, an enterprising young undergraduate at Ohio State University has been selling McNutt for Heisman t-shirts at $11 each. Seems that neither the New York Athletic Club, which owns the intellectual property rights to the Heisman, nor OSU (ditto on Ohio State) were thrilled with this promotion. Cease-and-desist letters were sent and… Continue Reading
Building Athletic Brand Name and Fan BasePosted in Intellectual Property, Sports Business and the Law
In sportsnetworker.com's article, "How Athletes Can Build Their Personal Brand," the author provided both text and video as to athletic brand building. To our mind, no one can touch the Jersey TV lad who trademarked his abs. Nice to know that in a land with almost 10% unemployment, the big issues are being tackled. Of… Continue Reading
Do You Pull the Trigger First in a Sports Trademark Claim?Posted in Intellectual Property
Assume that you have a mark in a sports' logo. You hop on line to see what traffic is out there regarding your mark and find that someone 1,000 miles away is using your mark in commerce and making money at it. Trying to be the gentleman (or gentlewoman), you nicely pick up the phone,… Continue Reading
Jay-Z and David Ortiz Slug It Out In Court Over a Club's NamePosted in Intellectual Property, Sports Business and the Law
In EXAMINER.COM, we see that rapper Jay-Z has sued baseballer "Big Popi" David Ortiz for trademark infringement over the 40/40 clubs. Jay-Z got there first. Forty-forty refers to forty home runs and forty stolen bases, a traditional standard of excellence. Question for the court will be one of jurisdiction. Don't see how he can maintain… Continue Reading
Tiger Woods' New Commercial Grabs the Bull By Its HornsPosted in Intellectual Property, Sports Business and the Law
On April 7, 2010, the LATIMES.com reported Nike's new commercial with Tiger Woods featuring the voice of his late father on the eve of the Masters. In this commercial, Tiger is standing silent with a golf course in the background and his father's voice taking about responsibility and learning from mistakes. Several people have… Continue Reading
ASK A LAWYER: What Exactly Are "Logos" and What Can I Do With Them?Posted in Intellectual Property, Sports Business and the Law
Logos are trademarks and are protected under U.S. law. This is true even if the mark has not been registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark office. Therefore, you need permission to use the marks. The products are a little less cut and dried. It really depends on what you are using the products for:… Continue Reading