Quality of service will become a driving factor for the success of local telecoms providers in coming years said IXIA’s Vice President for the EMEA region, Mike Chaplain.<\/p>\n
Chaplain believes that the quality of service with consumer communications “has deteriorated and customers are now demanding a higher level of service”.<\/p>\n
Studies have shown that when telecoms become more deregulated in emerging markets, prices bottom out and service delivery becomes the most important factor behind customer retention, he added.<\/p>\n
It is for this reason that IXIA and local ICT services firm ATIO announced that they would be rolling out a comprehensive pre-deployment testing solution which will enable wireless and fixed line carriers to thoroughly assess new products before launch.<\/p>\n
This will better allow telecoms providers to ensure new products can sustain expected customer loads before deployment.<\/p>\n
Although local carriers have carried out testing before deploying new services in the past, ATIO Managing Director Tim Courtenay believes this may not have been thorough enough to ensure that these services can deliver what customers expect.<\/p>\n
As the local telecoms environment gradually becomes further deregulated customers will begin to favour providers that offer a reliable service, he added.<\/p>\n
In the long term, Courtney believes companies who neglect to adequately test new services before deployment will lose customers and will be forced to reinvest large amounts of capital into marketing and updating their product offering.<\/p>\n
In short, ensuring that customers have access to the capabilities advertised in a product will become increasingly important to success in the local telecoms sphere.<\/p>\n
Although South Africa has come some way in the past few years, there is still a long road ahead added Courtenay.<\/p>\n