While we probably all have our own view on what the future telecoms market will look like, the one certainty is that it will be much more complex and uncertain. Change will become an intrinsic part of the business environment. In other words, we’re not seeing a one-off transformation, but an ongoing process of change.
So what does this all mean for the OSS? Well, the OSS is arguably the key enabler of the next-generation vision. It’s what turns a bunch of very expensive networks into a business that can deliver services that generate income. But when speaking to those in the industry, it is often said that OSS is complex, expensive and high-risk. Other sentiments include that there is no generally agreed definition, scope or standards; and finally, that current systems are ill-equipped to support rapid, low-cost service rollouts. That being said, many operators see the OSS as an obstacle rather than as an enabling system.
However, it can be argued that if the telecommunications industry is to make progress, then the OSS must support the commercial goals of next-generation services.
The OSS Hurdle
Many service providers are struggling with the fact that they have outdated OSS. These providers face considerable challenges presented by highly complex back-end infrastructures that have resulted from years of piecemeal, tactical investment in best-of-breed OSS systems. This has resulted in fragmentation of both data and processes, while also creating an infrastructure that is very costly to maintain and integrate. But increasing competition in many markets, commoditization of traditional services, the move to multi-service, convergent networks, and legislation such as Sarbanes-Oxley are putting considerable pressure on service providers to both rationalize and optimize their OSS.
Teresa Cottam, writing in the Analysys report “World Telecoms BSS and OSS Markets: Trends and Analysis,” says: “OSS used to be viewed, implemented and developed or sold separately, but increasingly operators now see them as part of an end-to-end process. In the new service environment, the speed of service fulfillment is increasing, as is the volume of orders. To remain competitive, operators need a service fulfillment process that is aligned to their business needs, provides high visibility and effective reporting, and that is tightly integrated and scalable.”
Operators such as TDC, a leading Danish operator, have been working hard to optimize and rationalize their OSS in order to support their next-generation vision. Kim Frimer, CEO of solutions at TDC, says, “Our customers are excited about next-generation services, but they expect rapid fulfillment of their service orders.”
Frederic Rose, president of Alcatel integration and services says that they “see strong market demand for a single, scalable, pre-integrated, end-to-end OSS solution that enables communications service providers to quickly pursue new opportunities in triple play.”
To achieve this vision, it is important to consider the concept of third-generation OSS.
Third-generation OSS will be an integrated suite of applications that support a variety of network types and architectures. They will allow process and data to be integrated, while presenting simple external interfaces and hiding complexity. The defining characteristic of third-generation OSS is that they work on a converged data core. This can be defined as the convergence of OSS onto a single schema that encapsulates both data and process. This lowers the cost and increases the speed of service delivery through true automation.
Delivering the Benefits of Third-Generation OSS
Operators are looking to third-generation OSS to provide two main types of benefit: reduced cost plus quick and effective service delivery, while remaining reliable and scalable.
The economic rationale for the next-generation network is the ability to integrate all the services on one platform, and the same logic applies at the OSS level. Gartner estimates that the BSS and OSS spend in 2005 was up to $40 billion—and that doesn’t include the cost of systems integration, which could inflate this figure to well over $150 billion. So where will the savings come from?
Given that between two-thirds and three-quarters of an OSS project spend comes from systems integration-related activities, reducing the amount of integration required should significantly reduce the cost of OSS. The TeleManagement Forum (TMF) has been working on this issue for almost six years as part of its NGOSS (Next Generation OSS) program. This work has resulted in the development of the Multi-Technology Operations Systems Interface, or MTOSI, standard, which arose from the TMF’s MTNM (Multi Technology Network Management) initiative for defining network management and element management interfaces. MTOSI’s aim is to encourage application inter-working, faster deployment and lower cost of ownership for next-generation operations systems.
MTOSI provides the first standard mechanism for telecom operations support systems to exchange data. The initiative is backed by Cramer, IONA, Lucent, Nortel and Siemens, with Cisco having recently thrown its considerable weight behind it. Solving the problem of OSS-to-network integration in a cost-effective manner will play a major role in reducing carriers’ total cost of ownership.
Standardization of the interfaces between the OSS and network is essential, if all the benefits of third-generation OSS are to be realized. This will happen as the architecture emerges and the major interfaces and standardization points become clear. For example, Cramer, Huawei and Nortel recently demonstrated in a TMF catalyst that independently developed MTOSI code could be integrated within hours—far quicker than the current industry average.
Converged Data Core Will Drive Service Fulfillment
Third-generation OSS is about supporting an end-to-end process with a single data core. But how are operators achieving this? Commenting on 2005 OSS investment patterns, Teresa Cottam says, “There is a trend amongst large operators, such as KPN and BT, to elevate inventory management to a central position in the next-generation OSS architecture.”
But this is not traditional inventory management. As independent OSS analyst Thérèse Cory points out, “Inventory management has come to be viewed less as a disjointed group of databases, but rather as the definitive source of all information about the service provider’s current assets and the resources that constitute the service to the customer.”
In other words, inventory is evolving into the process engine for the whole service fulfillment chain of applications. And the reason why major operators are putting inventory at the heart of their third-generation OSS is that an accurate, detailed and continuously updated inventory is the key to faster and more accurate activation and service provisioning, as well as enabling better planning and use of resources.
Having a central data core based on network inventory delivers huge benefits and considerable cost savings, as there’s no longer a need for separate inventory and activation systems. The cost and complexity of activation can be substantially reduced by using an activation system that is preintegrated with a service provider’s inventory system and therefore does not need its own inventory. This type of activation system—which is known as “thin activation”—simply coordinates a dialog with the network elements that require configuration. This is a much lower cost way of doing things but also allows complex activation changes—such as moving to an Ethernet DSLAM to support IPTV service—to be planned and scheduled without service interruption. The ability to plan and schedule activation of services also ensures accurate service fulfillment and controlled use of assets.
Phrases and catch-words like “next-generation services,” “convergence,” “telco TV,” “triple play” and “quadruple play” have become commonplace. Yet the telecom industry is undergoing seismic changes to bring about these offerings. Most importantly, change must take place at the OSS level. It is there that carriers must build enabling systems on a converged data core to support the many next-generation services.
About the Author
Don Gibson is a co-founder of Cramer and its chief technical officer. He is the principal originator of the Cramer product set and today has overall responsibility for product strategy.
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