One-track minds: providers are integrating software to manage service delivery - Supercomm Preview - Interview

Telecommunications, May, 2002 by Ted McKenna

Managing networks has gotten much more complicated since the days when customers received only the most basic phone service, and providers needed to program only a few switches to deliver it. Today's network management is just one piece of a total OSS solution consisting of software from a number of different vendors-- integrated. It's a topic sure to be on the minds of many Supercomm attendees.

Integration can be the most difficult aspect of putting back-office operations in place, and the degree to which it is achieved is key to network efficiency and lower costs. In many cases, integration can account for 70 percent of OSS costs, vendors say, and support costs for routers or switches can be three or four times that of the actual equipment, according to market research quoted by device management software vendor Intelliden.

Spending on OSS appears to be down less than spending on network infrastructure itself, since providers still in business are striving to get the best, most efficient services they can out of what they have in place. But carriers launching new types of technologies, such as new wireless networks, are the biggest buyers of OSSs these days.

Witness the buying spree of Hutchison 3G UK, holder of the United Kingdom's largest 3G license: It has signed contracts to use CMG's multimedia and unified communications platform; Automony's intelligent content retrieval system; TTI Telecom's system management solution for fault trouble ticketing, performance, configuration, inventory and other functions; and Business Object's business intelligence solutions for information reporting and sharing in intranet, extranet and wireless environments.

Delivering telecom service is a lot trickier than delivering a book or CD notes principal market analyst Dan Baker of Technology Research Institute. "We have the albatross of complex provisioning systems weighing us down. Unlike an Amazon.com, we can't just ship our products to whomever punches the 'Purchase Now' button. We've got to consider, for example, what products are available where and which customers can access them."

Eschelon Telecom's executive vice president of IT Arlin Goldberg would agree. In the interview that follows, he talks about how his company--a Minneapolis-based GLEC operating in several Midwest and Western states--went about setting up its OSS, and more importantly, how Eschelon makes it all work.

Q. what's the rationale behind how you've set up your OSS?

A. Around October 1999, we were preparing to put our first switch in operation. We needed an 055 that would support a facilities-based business plan, so we asked a couple of the bigger systems integrators to propose billing and order-entry systems. We didn't have time to do a full needs analysis. The switch was going operational in January, so we needed something running in January or February. I told my boss I could develop a fully integrated system in 24 months, but we didn't have time."

Q. That's a long time.

A. Well, it wasn't a long time to develop if you think about it now. We are 24 months from that time frame. If I had created a fully integrated OSS, it would be cool, but my boss said, "We need systems to support our switch in four months." So we went with the systems integrator's recommendation of ADC's Saville CPP and MetaSolv. We had the MetaSolv system running in four months and the Saville in five months, because obviously we didn't need to bill anything until after we'd provisioned it. That was the foundation. From there, we branched out. We do traffic management on the switches with TDC & E from TTC. We also use Onyx as our sales prospecting system and for customer care.

Q. What do you use to manage the elements themselves?

A. We work with Nortel to manage it, to monitor network operations.

Q. Your OSS is basically a best of breed or a mix of different software. Is there a downside, since it is not as integrated as something from a single vendor or that was created as a whole?

A. I agree. We have good systems, but the issue is efficiency. For example, if you have three systems--order entry, billing and trouble management--those are robust systems, but because they don't interface, you have three sets of customer profile information. We have done some extracts and imports: not a real-time interface, but we may extract customer information from the order-entry system in the evening and load it into the trouble management system, so that when a customer calls in the morning we have configuration information from the previous evening.

Q. How well does that work?

A. Generally, it's not an issue to have information current for the next day. It works fine. But it would be better if we made an entry in the order entry system and it automatically updated the configuration of the trouble ticketing system. Not having the systems integrated affects efficiency and accuracy. When a customer calls he'll get good service, because we have very accurate systems. However, is there a possibility the billing system may be out of synch with the order entry system? Absolutely.