Paving the Way for a Next Generation Business Model for Carriers; How the paradigm shift culminating in separated IP-transport and service layers topsy-turvifies the traditional telecommunications industry and how NGN and IMS could help carriers and telco

Telcos today experience a tremendous hazard to their business models: Legacy switched voice and carrier-related data-services are being threatened by new application and service providers carrying on their business "over the top" of the ubiquitous open packet switched IP-transport platform, the Internet. Till recently, carriers used to be the only ones being able to offer telecommunication services like voice, because all services were tightly fixed to network structures; even more, transport and service were an integral whole and minute-based revenues used to be one stable cornerstone of their business. With the availability of the "Esperanto"-Internet as the open accessible transport platform and with the upcoming of all kinds of services on top of that platform, including voice like Skype, carriers are once cut back to their undisputed (IP-) access products. So they face the challenge, either to somehow rescue in part their minute revenues, which often make out more than half of all, or to find new revenue sources - or both. So, the first alternative is a direct strategy against over-the-top VoIP-providers ("pure play"). With an IMS service platform based on an NGN-network, a premium voice product, called VoNGN, can be offered. This can only save part of the voice business, however. Even more important for a future strategy is an enlarged product concept for all-embracing communication, presence, and multimedia services.