Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in our September Special Edition, Behind the Scenes, a focus on integrated subscriber and network management systems. To download the complete Special Edition, click here.
More than 20 years ago, a group of powerhouse service providers and key infrastructure players got together with one goal in mind: integrating equipment from multiple vendors into an operating environment that uses the same language to address the same network functions. Today, those same companies have managed to find a common language for operational and business processes, but are facing new challenges as wireless broadband emerges and tomorrow’s landscape includes visions of converged networks.
Thus, the TM Forum today is beginning to address the top 10 operational requirements for the next generation of mobile networks, noted Rebecca Sendel, coordination marketing director for trade association. Key areas the Forum plans to address include self-optimizing networks and billing.
“We use a common set of information models so that when you are passing around information between different IT systems, you are a calling a subscriber or a customer or a piece of equipment by the same terminology across all of the systems so you are not always having to be transforming that information across systems,” Sendel said. “The benefit of that is saving a bunch of money on processes and IT.”
Originally formed as the Network Management Forum, the trade group works to develop best practices and set standards so business operations can become more plug-and play, rather than custom solutions. Each time a service provider adds a layer to its network, there are a new set of challenges to integrate that layer into the operational environment, Sendel explained. “How do I standardize all of those interfaces? … We still have an equipment focus but it’s much bigger and broader, focusing on the consumer experience, revenue management topics and anything operationally focus, whether it is network facing or customer facing.”
Going forward, service providers will be faced with new challenges as broadband adoption explodes and consumers continue to demand data-intensive applications on the networks, Sendel said. “The whole advent of broadband has created a more competitive environment and a more complex environment. The operational environment has gotten incredibly complex.”
Not only do service providers have to be able to react quickly to the competition, consumers have high expectations of how they should be served, including being able to see their bills in real time, fix problems in real time and order new services in real time. Operators “have to be much more responsive, like a consumer-type retail service company, which is actually what they are.”
IT departments have grown up in silos – a voice network, a video system, etc. Now those systems need to talk to each other – service providers must streamline a lot of processes and do it in a cost-effective manner. Plus, service providers need to be flexible. “You can’t hardwire everything into place. You’ve got to be prepared for a rapidly changing environment,” Sendel continued.
Fourth-generation networks tee up their own set of challenges as consumers start watching a video on TV, for example, and then move it to their mobile device – which has been a common scenario envisioned by service providers and telecom equipment makers. Sendel ran down a list of the OSS/BSS areas that need to be addressed in such a scenario:
•Where is that movie stored?
•How do you know it is the same account watching it for the home PC, TV or mobile device?
•What are the digital rights to the movie and how do those digital rights get shared across multiple devices?
•Who are all of the partners in this transaction?
•How are those partners paid?
As members of the wireless value chain come up with new revenue models, billing will get increasingly complex, Sendel said. Going back to the video model, if advertising was associated with the movie, the advertiser needs to pay someone (either the content provider or service operator) and perhaps the customer gets a credit for agreeing to watch the advertisement. The network needs to be smart enough to handle all of those policies.
Wireless networks have been operated separately from other networks, but as all of the networks become IP-based, they need to be managed together. When a service provider is reading performance data, for example, the information needs to come into the network the same way, regardless of which vendor’s equipment or software the service provider is using. “You’ve got an end–to-end view that you’ve never had before. “
Service providers will be able to configure 4G networks to be self-organizing but policies still have to be set, Sendel said. The TM Forum is addressing those policies as well as simple things like how software should be downloaded to the network. None of these types of things are differentiators for the service providers or the vendors, instead they cut prices for the service providers because the equipment all works the same, regardless of which vendor is chosen, and it cuts costs for the vendors as well, as they can sell to more service providers because their solution appeals to a wider audience, Sendel said.
