The telecoms industry has undergone many changes since I started working in 1991. From cell phone uptake to IMS on service providers' roadmaps, the market continues to evolve. Of late, a couple trends have taken center stage due to a combination of market pressures - some more historically long-term than others - and as 2009 approaches, service providers are giving the practical implications of these pressures intense consideration.

First and foremost is the economy. It has been practically impossible over the last few months to go anywhere without hearing the words 'recession,' 'credit crunch,' or 'downturn.' The prevailing economic landscape will affect a profound shift in priorities for most of the world's service providers in 2009. The last few years witnessed excellent economic growth, which has allowed operators to focus their resources on transforming their networks and back-end systems to bring new services to market faster. This rapid time-to-market goal has been the key concern for operators for the past few years, and it has fueled the discussion, development and adoption of new core network technologies like IMS, SOA and others. Operators have not been in any way irresponsible with the resources they have dedicated to this issue in the last 2-3 years, but going forward, and particularly for the first half of 2009, service providers are likely to take a much harder look at getting value for money as they continue with these transformation processes.

This shift will need to be balanced by service providers with a second, longer-term strategic goal: the convergence of media, entertainment and telecoms. 2008 saw the coming together of these distinct industries, changing both the types of services customers demand and the way they consume them. Service providers have begun to recognize that the ability to offer exclusive or high-demand content via advanced services presents the best option for them to avoid becoming simple 'bit pipes' through which customers access the media they want. This pressure presents service providers with two interrelated challenges for 2009: creating the partnerships that will enable them to offer the content and services their customers want, and transforming their networks so they can handle these broadband-dependent offerings.

All signs indicate that the mobile and wireless sections of the communications market are where these new relationships and development of content-based services will be most critical in the near future. In some markets, the roll-out of these new types of services is already having an effect, which changes the rules of the game for 2009.

With the increased use of services like streaming live television and on-demand HD content, bandwidth will be stretched thin by the increased popularity of flat-rate data plans that grant customers access to as much content as they please. Most providers' networks, even those that support 3G, HSPA, LTE or WiMAX, still use the same existing network 'pipes'-whether they be fiber-optic, copper or otherwise-that were in place well before the advent of such broadband services. The result is that larger volumes of data are being pushed through the same existing infrastructures. So, the growing demand for content-driven mobile broadband services will make many mobile network operators turn their attention to identifying mechanisms to maintain adequate and consistent levels of service for their customers.

The commonly perceived solution to these problems is network backhaul, whereby service providers can either lease additional network capacity or build out networks with more physical infrastructure to provide more total network bandwidth. Backhaul has always been somewhat of a burden for operators, but in the current economic landscape it may prove to be even more of a double-edged sword, as its traditionally high costs and long-term fulfillment schedules make for an increasingly inopportune commitment.

As an alternative, service providers may realize the importance of actively managing existing bandwidth to properly leverage the convergence of media and communications. Several of the more major providers have already begun exploring this option: Hong Kong-based mobile services provider SmarTone, for example, has implemented a system comprised of a unique combination of convergent charging and mediation solutions to monitor each of its customers' network access and bandwidth use, and then automatically control the flow of traffic to prevent potential disruptions to other users or itself. It will be critical for operators to achieve this balance of both delivering a consistent quality of service and experience for all users at all times, while capitalizing on innovative, advanced services that present new business or marketing opportunities.

A lot of 2009 buzz is also coming from emerging markets, such as India, China and Southeast Asia, where the potential for developing mobile entertainment offerings is phenomenal. These areas are still primarily looking at 2G services, but they are becoming much more exciting for service providers with 3G on the horizon. The Latin American region is also showing a lot of promise with the growing adoption of IP services and need for Wireless Number Portability.

The introduction of mobile broadband will be much faster in these markets, as already evident through SmarTone. It's far more appealing for operators to jump directly to advanced, next-generation services, where the infrastructure is quite poor, and there is no reason to roll out high bandwidth cables to people's homes and invest in DSL or another fixed wire infrastructure. These untapped regions will require comprehensive OSS coverage to not only reliably deliver mobile broadband and content-based offerings but also enable the mediation and charging of such services.

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In today's rapidly-changing telecoms world, service providers can't respond quickly enough to the entertainment-driven, lifestyle services that consumers demand. Most are still in a position where offerings need to be thought-out well in advance and launched after 18 to 24 months of development. Operators will continue to require flexible and dynamic OSS solutions that are capable of addressing bandwidth issues and the way customers interact with content, applications and network providers. The credit crunch will drive providers to more closely scrutinize each of their network systems and operations to make sure maximum value is wrought from each. But in 2009, service providers can expect it to be easier to switch these advanced services on quickly, charge for them in real time and achieve an unsurpassed level of agility-demonstrating what the next-generation of telecoms and OSS is all about.