SuperComm 2001: OSS Companies Come Out Ahead

This year’s buzz on the SuperComm show floor: The telecom winds have shifted. Service providers have bought their network equipment and are now focusing on customers and OSS investments. Proof of the slowdown in equipment purchasing is found in the second quarter losses reported by Nortel, Lucent, Cisco and other infrastructure providers. But now is a good time to be an OSS company, as service providers look to service management systems and customer-oriented services to boost revenue. Here are highlights from the show, held this June in Atlanta, where the OSS vendors’ presence was strong.

A major venture capital news bite is the $30 million AP Engines received from investors, including Thomas Weisel Capital Partners LP, Enron Broadband Services, Atlas Venture, Bessemer Venture Partners, Commonwealth Capital Ventures, Lighthouse Capital Partners and Mentmore Venture Partners.

Partnership announcement include the agreement between Pingtel and CyberTel to work on reducing time for hosted VoIP providers to offer unified messaging services. Pingtel’s Java-based VoIP phone will operate with CyberTel’s CyberCom SC software to speed provisioning.

Redback Networks and IBM subsidiary Tivoli Systems have integrated a service portal, subscriber management and network activation technologies to develop Rapid IP Services for e-business Solutions. The combined system is designed to deliver IP services on demand.

Ellacoya Networks combined its provisioning and content delivery Premium Services Delivery System with Portal’s Infranet billing and customer care platform. Their system creates a portal for subscribers to choose services and view accounts with simultaneous billing.

EHPT USA announced a new certified co-marketing partner program for wireless Internet technology. New members include Cisco, Business Edge Solutions, Vitria Technology, Evolving Systems, Sun Microsystems, Ericsson AB and Hewlett-Packard.

Granite Systems introduced its new Global Alliances Program, designed to bring service providers technology for developing service resource management systems. Participants include Astracon, CADTEL and Tekmark Global Solutions.

CoManage and Paradyne plan to develop a DSL service management provisioning and troubleshooting system. CoManage will integrate Paradyne’s Hotwire DSL products into its Integrated Service Manager (ISM) software. CoManage also has plans to integrate ISM with Portal’s Infranet platform for SLA monitoring.

Astracon announced three agreements. It will combine its OSS software with Quintessent Communications’ integrated service ordering system; it will integrate with Orchestream’s IP service activation software; and it signed an agreement to co-market its integrated Connection Manager with Granite Systems’ Xpercom to develop an automated provisioning capability.

Sigma Systems Group and BusinessEdge Solutions will join forces to deliver integrated OSS to customers in the cable industry.

The bulk of announcements address the demand for bigger and better systems. Vendors released the floodgates for new products and upgrades. A sampling…

Attendees walking by the BusinessEdge Solutions’ booth caught a demo of the Open Access Cable Broadband velOSSity reference platform. With software integrations from Sigma Systems and Granite Systems, version 5 provides flow-through service provisioning for high-speed Internet access and DOCSIS cable modems, and lets subscribers choose an ISP while ordering.

Syndesis announced two new products. For provisioning services across multivendor SONET/SDH and DWDM optical transport networks, the company released NetProvision Optical to handle both metro and long-haul networks. It also released NetProvision Voice Over Broadband, software designed for service providers supporting small to medium businesses with service bundles including up to 24 voice lines and data access over a single local loop.

Siemens subsidiary Efficient Networks announced its middleware component Advanced Provisioning Manager. It is a Web-enabled provisioning and service management platform for real-time deployment of next-generation network services that is designed to integrate with legacy networks and OSS to support services across multiple data network interconnections.

Narus added real-time monitoring to its carrier-grade products. Users can apply this technology to capture information at the application, network and server levels instantly to verify if SLAs are being met.

AP Engines’ InterLink platform can now support cable operators. AP InterLink for High Speed Data Services is designed to automate provisioning for multiple system operators across multiple OSS and provide value-based customer billing.

Telcordia Technologies released its Integrated Operations Infrastructure, an enabling software platform for OSS. It supports multimedia services over wireline and wireless broadband networks.

Apogee Networks announced it is going wireless with the release of NetCountant Wireless Billing, a content usage-based billing platform that uses WAP gateway technology. It also recently upgraded NetCountant Accountability 3.2, a usage-based chargeback billing system that enables cost containment in IP networks.

Ace-Comm has created a new version N-Vision Go, its data management and warehousing platform. The product has an install time of one to four weeks.

EHPT USA has enhanced its Content Management Solution. The software now rates usage data and third-party content in addition to collecting, processing, activating and analyzing information. Wireless carriers can use the upgrade to rate and implement specialized pricing structures.

Emperative demonstrated automating service delivery across complex multivendor optical networks with its ProvEn Optical software. The company recently completed interoperability testing with Cisco, Nortel and Ciena equipment.

CoManage has combined software and equipment from Jetstream, MetaSolv, Paradyne, Portal Software, Telution, Lucent, Marconi and Turnstone to create Customer-Aware Complete systems for supporting multiservice, multivendor networks. It is designed to fully automate network inventory tracking, simplify order-to-bill processes for DSL and VPN services, and improve SLA management affecting fault and performance issues.

Orchestream Holdings has launched Service Activator, software designed for automatically configuring devices for new IP services on multivendor networks. Network operations centers can use the software to translate service requests into router configurations in real time instead of creating and editing the router scripts.

MetaSolv Software has adapted its OSS MetaSolv Solution to manage enterprise communications for medium to large businesses. Features include real-time inventory management, automated provisioning, and visibility into network and bandwidth resources.

Micromuse has upgraded Netcool/Wireless Service Monitors, software for monitoring networks for availability, response time and usability of WAP-based services. Features include an automatic fault collection process and direct dial to service providers to retrieve transactions or complete sessions.

Wisor has unveiled its Service Management Solution 2.0 with extended capabilities that include Optimal Cost Provisioning for factoring costs and SLAs into order provisioning. Another feature is the Business Knowledge Templates for implementing business rules throughout the service management process.