The Huawei edge: intelligent networks give operators new business opportunities

Telecommunications International, Sept, 2003 by Linda Shuai

IN THE CURRENT market conditions, operators must focus on protecting existing business and on capturing new revenue streams. For this, rapidly-deployed, cost-effective network technology platforms will be key. Amongst these, deploying Intelligent Networks (IN) will allow them to profit from new and exciting business models.

What Does IN Achieve?

IN splits value-added service delivery from infrastructure and network operations, and in doing so, may substantially improve operator service efficiency and cost effectiveness. But IN is also enabling new and different business models such as prepaid, now a huge market. Prepaid experience shows that operators will benefit from the many possibilities IN can offer.

What Is the Huawei Strategy?

Huawei believes that the new generation of IN offers major advantages to operators in terms of speed of deployment, service customization and scalability with flexible upgrade.

* Rapid deployment will enable operators to quickly respond to meet sudden or short-lived market opportunities. Huawei has worked with operators to deploy half-million subscriber capacity systems in 60 days from go-ahead to achieve fast service set-up. Overlay architectures using standalone SSPs can enable operators to deliver services very quickly.

* Customization will tailor systems to operator needs and different business models, for example, in payment methods. With better IN, many new services become feasible for operators to adopt. Off-the-shelf IN cannot meet this need for flexibility.

* Scalability and Upgrade Potential will allow operators to migrate as demand and networks grow. Huawei has supported the deployment of the world's largest IN networks operated by Chinese fixed and mobile operators; one Chinese network has the capability to manage over 250 million individual prepaid card accounts. We will see similar behaviour elsewhere. IN solutions must be scalable and offer smooth system migration. Huawei's TELLIN now supports over 300 million subscribers worldwide in many operators.

Underlying this is technical functionality. In voice services, for example, we emphasize our capability in charging (particularly real-time charging), routing and authorization functionality.

What will be the Huawei Evolution?

Huawei believes standards-based IN development based on protocols such as CAMEL 3 are critical for operators to be successful, confident and efficient. Whilst standards-based IN faces clear upgrade paths, Huawei believes that rapid response, customization and scalability will remain critical strengths. In next generation networks, there will be other factors. Protocols, for example, will be inherently open, and operators will need to accommodate new services and new service partners in their systems. The migration to these networks will need to be smooth and cost effective: businesses cannot afford disruption to network operation or marketing plans.

What Will Be the New Opportunities?

There are several key trends. Fixed and mobile carriers will continue to seek out new revenue and marketing opportunities from their networks. Customer behaviour will influence many business models (for example, prepaid is influencing postpaid). Next generation 3G carriers may well heavily deploy prepaid solutions to reduce business risk. In Huawei, we were the first supplier in the world to demonstrate W-CDMA prepaid operation in 2002; we have also enabled the first commercial 3G prepaid services in the world in the United Arab Emirates. In mobile, data services will be important. For fixed operators too, there will be new business models and access techniques (such as wireless).

Linda Shuai, Director of Services and Software International Marketing at Huawei Technologies