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Telus Deploys Sigma for OSS
Telus has deployed Sigma Systems' Service Management Platform (SMP) to support service provisioning and activation of wireless voice and data services to more than 5.1 million subscribers. "We wanted a service management platform that streamlines our creation and launch of wireless data, voice, messaging and premium content services," said Kevin Salvadori, executive vice-president for Telus business transformation and CIO. As part of this deployment, Telus is integrating Sigma's SMP, which automates service provisioning and activation, service authorization and resource management for complex services on a multi-technology and multi-vendor service delivery network; Sigma Wireless Service Package for provisioning voice and data services; a topology manager; and a service profile manager.
Wana Selects Accenture, Telcordia to Drive Its Next-Generation Network
Moroccan-based Wana—which provides voice, Internet access, VPNs over CDMA, wireless local loop and fiber—has selected Accenture and Telcordia to provide a fulfillment solution to support its converged network infrastructure. The companies will help Wana gain efficiencies in operations, engineering, IT, marketing and sales. As the lead integrator, Accenture will provide application development support and help manage and align technology resources and solutions. Telcordia Granite Inventory product will support all of Wana's network infrastructure needs on a single platform.
KPN Selects Atreus for IP Service Provisioning
Atreus Systems announced that its IP Service Provisioning Solution has been selected by KPN, the incumbent operator in the Netherlands, for its VoIP business applications. KPN has signed Alcatel-Lucent to manage the deployment and integration of its IP network. Using Atreus's service delivery system, KPN will streamline service ordering and provisioning using self-management portals; simplify feature bundle creation and management capabilities; automate IP phone ordering, shipment and configuration; and simplify complex operational tasks, including PSTN interconnect, number portability, directory listing updates and emergency services.
T-Online France Deploys Comptel Provisioning and Activation Solution
Comptel announced that T-Online France has deployed its Provisioning and Activation solution as part of T-Online France's new automated fulfillment solution for triple-play services. With the growth of its triple-play services, IPTV and VOD, T-Online France decided it needed a new fulfillment solution to replace existing in-house solutions. Alcatel-Lucent's OSS/BSS and the software integration team provided operational design and system integration of this project. T-Online France, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, currently has more than 1 million subscribers.
CTM Selects Comverse Kenan FX
Comverse announced that CTM, an incumbent telecom provider in Macau, has deployed the Comverse Kenan FX Business Solution for customer care, fulfillment and billing functionality for its mobile network. The system will support CTM's planned 3G services expected to be rolled out in Q2. In addition, CTM is overhauling its mobile BSS infrastructure with the assistance of Tata Consultancy Services, Comverse and other vendors. CTM is a joint venture with Cable and Wireless, Portugal Telecom, CITIC Pacific and Macau Post.
CornerStone Telephone Selects OSG
OSG Billing Services announced that it will manage invoice presentment and distribution services for CornerStone Telephone Co., an integrated communications provider of local and long-distance phone services, specializing in small and medium sized businesses. The company will also use OSG Dynamic Messaging, an online application that enables graphics or photographs on the front page of the invoice.
SingTel Selects Axiom Systems
Axiom Systems announced that Asia-Pacific's SingTel has deployed AXIOSS for end-to-end service design, creation and delivery of its business and consumer broadband services. Providing order management, inventory management and service activation, Axiom worked with IT and communications engineering services provider NCS Group and systems integrator Fastwire on the project.
SingTel's international network provides direct connections from Singapore to more than 100 countries. The company is Asia's largest multi-market mobile operator, serving more than 100 million customers in seven markets.
Axiom Systems Launches Closed-Loop Service Life Cycle Solution
Axiom Systems launched AXIOSS Active Catalog, a closed-loop approach to service fulfillment. The product decouples product life cycle management processes from OSS, BSS and network engineering. This enables service bundles to be defined and commercial offerings created from tested, reusable building blocks, designed to make creating and launching highly customizable services faster and more efficient.
The product addresses the concept of customer fulfillment life cycle management, defined as an end-to-end service fulfillment process in which products and packages available to the customer are based on network capabilities, in order to eliminate or minimize service provisioning errors. This process manages service and resource catalogs, handles order and process orchestration, and can manage the end-to-end orchestration of the fulfillment cycle.
TTI Upgrades Service Assurance Product
TTI Telecom it has introduced a new module for its TrafficGuard service assurance tool. TrafficGuard monitors network behavior in near real time in order to anticipate performance degradations before their effects reach the end-user. The new module is more flexible, easier to operate by NOC staff and cuts problem identification time by up to 50 percent. It can also accept data directly from CDR/IPDR and third-party platforms such as probing and CRM platforms to further reduce processing time and problem identification time.
TrafficGuard, launched as an add-on to Netrac PMM in 2006, analyzes performance data in correlation with historical data on traffic trends to anticipate traffic-related faults through correlation between near real time measurements and historical data. Netrac provides a unified network view integrating fault, performance and service management.
Amdocs Introduces Amdocs ExTra
This week, Amdocs introduced Amdocs ExTra (EXperience-driven TRAnsformation), a business process framework designed for customer experience management. The framework combines Amdocs' technology, consulting and implementation services and business process management (BPM) best practices. The core makeup of the offering is Amdocs Scenario Optimization Modeling (ASOM), a set of tools and methodologies to capture and promote best practices. Amdocs has been applying a business process approach to its product development and project delivery efforts, and as a result has built a repository of practical industry business process expertise, which now includes more than a dozen macro-business scenarios and more than 100 more granular business process flows.
Amdocs' portfolio of customer experience systems is another component of the new framework. The company has built a modular suite of integrated products that include open interfaces and are based on Amdocs BPM best practices. Amdocs also extends its BPM best practices to non-Amdocs legacy and third-party applications. It has also expanded alliances with IDS Scheer and Cognos to further integrate leading BPM-enabling tools into its products.
BT Selects VPIsystems
British Telecom is currently working with VPIsystems to plan its 21st Century Network (21CN) transformation project. VPI's OnePlan network planning OSS is designed to enable BT to plan, design and build out the network as efficiently as possible. Thus far, VPIsystems has completed a proof of concept project that validated a market-driven cross-domain approach to network planning, performed pilot deployments and demonstrated a set of task-oriented best practices for planning converged IP-based networks.
BT will be implementing the solution across the full user base during 2007, focused on planning the migration of voice and data services onto BT's 21CN. When the multi-phase project is completed, BT will roll out "demand-aligned capacity," enabling the carrier to defer capital expenditures until demand for these services requires it. BT will also be able to more tightly align service delivery to actual demand by dramatically reducing its planning cycles.
Vodafone Italia Expands Relationship With Tektronix
Vodafone Italia has expanded its relationship with Tektronix by selecting its customer experience management product for 2.5G/3G mobile data services. Vodafone Italia is currently working with Tektronix to manage the performance of its mobile data network and to troubleshoot service-affecting issues across its GPRS and UMTS infrastructure.
The customer assurance component provides customer-centric information about the quality of network, commercial and proprietary services. It provides real-time visibility into service delivery performance and will enable Vodafone Italia to analyze corporate and high-value accounts in relation to the service performance levels offered on such data-based applications as Internet browsing and corporate access.
Telarix Launches iXLink
This week, Telarix launched its iXLink global electronic business network. Founded in conjunction with some of the world's largest carriers, iXLink is a business-to-business information exchange platform that enables service providers to quickly and efficiently access and share business documents among their trading partners.
Today, service providers must manage business connections with hundreds of other international carriers, each of which is sending multiple rate and dial-code change notifications as well as invoices, declarations and dispute letters each month. However, the lack of widely accepted standards and the increase in volume of information exchanged between the carriers have significantly increased the daily operations workload. As a result, the costly, labor-intensive processes and legacy systems used to manage these interconnect agreements are now struggling to meet today's requirements.
As a neutral business exchange service for the telecom industry, iXLink reduces the costs and complexities associated with interconnection, including the purchase and sales processes; international dial code management; billing; invoice validation; and settlement.
One of the first services available is Price List Receipt, which automates buy and sell transactions among service providers for international wholesale voice. A typical carrier has agreements with hundreds of other carriers, each of which is sending multiple rate change notifications each month. Each offer can contain pricing for hundreds to as many as 1,000 international destinations, forcing carriers to track as many as 500,000 details per month for each trading partner.
iXLink Price List Receipt enables service providers to have all of their trading partners' price lists automatically validated and translated into a single format and electronically delivered in near real time, eliminating the costly manual processes and financial risks in managing large volumes of cost data.
When a price list is received, iXLink immediately time-stamps and validates each price list against the specific data template established for each unique seller. The system also enables buyers to apply user-defined rules to each price list in order to meet their internal business objectives and obtain greater financial controls.
Comments and feedback welcome, please email Jill Morgan at jmorgan@billingworld.com.
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