Operators face a host of challenges in managing services in a blended environment, as they seek to offer services across multiple platforms
Within the OSS/BSS environment, it is becoming essential for operators to be able to form customer offers in as rapid a manner as possible. To do this, marketing, product management, operations and technical staff need to be able to access systems in a controlled and flexible manner. To date product catalogues are held in different places, and customer information resides within certain disceet application databases. Having that information readily available in an organised manner is the challenge that OSS providers, and their customers, face.
This then leads on to a greater problem. how to manage services ina Telco 2.0 business world.
One aspect of the puzzle is the sheer number of touch points such a system needs to touch.
Writing in Mobile Europe's stablemate publication European Communications, Michal Illan, Product Marketing Director, Sitronics Telecom Solutions, outlines the benefits of his company's Product Catalogue solution, and also highlights the issue of where such a catalogue can reside.
In terms of integration, the functions supported by an ideal Product Catalogue will also define the OSS/BSS systems. Product Catalogue should be integrated with a market segmentation system (i.e. some BI or Analytical CRM), ordering, order fulfilment, provisioning, charging and billing and CRM. These systems should either provide some data to Product Catalogue or use it as the master source of the information related to market offerings. The necessity of integration in general is unquestionable; the only remaining issue is determining how the integration will be done and what will be the overall cost.
This complexity, the need for so many points of integration, is partly what is behind moves to create a new way of being able to manage services – that of the service broker. According to Yankee Group, the Service Broker Network Element has developed over the last 24 months as a result of broadening 3GPP discussion around the need to address service providers' requirements for a flexible, efficient and future proof application to network connectivity solutions.
Service Brokers focus on giving service providers an alternative way to protect and leverage their current network and application investments while also introducing new services over next generation networks (NGN) such as IMS.
Under the pressure of heavy market saturation and a toughening economic landscape, service providers desire re-usable software solutions that enable the fast introduction of innovative applications, while still flexible enough to take advantage of ARPU on legacy networks. Yankee Group has examined the new Service Broker product class, which provides an opportunity for service providers to minimise the risk associated with introducing new applications on NGN/IMS, while also maximising existing network infrastructures and the associated large revenue producing customer bases.
Traditional application deployment and inter-working solutions tend to be highly inefficient, proprietary, vendor-specific models which can be cumbersome, costly and time consuming. Findings show that the integration of Service Brokers allow Service Providers to future proof their infrastructure investments; yielding immediate cost savings and providing a future network migration path. Designed for worldwide tier one service providers, the Service Broker sits between the application layer and the core network to provide inter-working and manage connectivity to the evolving network.
"While we all cringe at the thought of another product category, this combination of legacy and NGN application blending, brokering, and orchestration can deliver value that justifies both the creation of a new category and the investment," says Brian Partridge, Director, Enabling Technologies for Yankee Group.
According to the report, there are a number of competing solutions on the market presently with nuanced approaches to solving the issue of application inter-working.
In addition to AppTrigger, other vendors cited in the report which provide Service Broker category solutions include jNetx, Convergin, Aepona, Tekelec, Telcordia and Alcatel-Lucent.
"As networks continue to evolve into true NGNs, integrating legacy application investments into NGN/IMS via a Service Broker Network element provides service providers competitive advantage by lowering costs and opening up application across all networks. The market is realizing the need for Service Broker capabilities and AppTrigger's Application Session Controller (ASC) meets the market requirements through its innovative combination of service extending, brokering and blending functions" said Chris Todd, President and CEO of AppTrigger.
And all this complexity is just as a result of operators' own internal systems. What about when services touch on other operators' services as well, such as in Web applications like IM?
Vodafone says on its Betavine wesbite:
"Developing and deploying applications across mobile operators can be frustrating: unlike fixed broadband, mobile network operators have traditionally placed a barrier-to-entry that has hindered developers from innovating on the mobile Web. Proprietary operator APIs, so-called 'Walled Gardens', and contractual differences have stifled the creation of cross-operator Web applications (such as buddy finders, where your buddies may all be in different networks). Meanwhile, some of the cool stuff that a network can do (authentication, seamless charging, location assistance, push messaging, connection awareness, etc.) are locked up and hence not utilised. This is a lose-lose for both operators and developers.
Whilst operators evolve their developer strategies to make integrations easier, there is also a place for a lightweight, Web-friendly, cross-operator API that will allow any Web developer to utilise network enablers and create innovative, portable applications, and hence reach out to the maximum number of subscribers: step forward the GSMA One API."
GSMA One API
The GSMA One API is in open, public Beta, run by the GSMA, as part of the '3rd party Access initiative'. You can join it at www.gsmworld.com/accessentry.
The One API includes functions for Messaging, Charging, Location, Data Connection Profile, and (subject to confirmation) User Profile. Profiles of existing standards are used, as well as exploring lightweight RESTful implementations.
The 3rd party Access project includes all major European operators, and some major Asian operators. Software vendors and aggregators are also contributing to the APIs which will be open source and will evolve according to community contribution
Deliverables include Developer and operator SDKs, and a Reference Implementation to test the APIs and portability of applications across operators.
The GSMA initiative reflects a situation over the last year that has seen mobile operators opening up a range of APIs to 3rd parties – for example billing, messaging, location, ad even user profile information.
The goal is to allow the operators to be able to create a blend of services with 3rd parties, but also to retain control of their own service management.
As well as Vodafone's Betavine project, which we quoted from above, Orange has had a long-standing Orange Partner Programme, which lends itself very well to this sort of initiative.
O2 was perhaps the latest to take this step, with the launch of its Litmus programme.
O2 says Litmus "will directly connect developers to an exclusive audience of tech-savvy O2 customers" to enable developers to test, cultivate, and commercialise their business ideas and applications, enriched with the customer insight the O2 Litmus Community will provide. If successful, the concept could be rolled out to other Telefónica businesses.
Developers will be able to work collaboratively with O2's customers in a live virtual laboratory enabling the community to build on each other's ideas and take advantage of complimentary skills and relevant experience.
Through the actions and feedback of the O2 Litmus community, they will be the shaping future product development plans for the entire O2 customer base in the UK. Members will receive exclusive access to content and services and be able to test the latest applications for their devices.
Tim Sefton, Customer Director, Telefónica O2 UK, said, "O2 Litmus is a great way of getting customers involved in the making of future O2 products and services – we want to know what they want from their mobile, so getting them to talk to developers from the beginning of the creative process will be of real benefit to everyone involved."
Getting customers involved in what they want really starts to point mobile operators into a customer-centric marketing model (see side panel on previous page) and also places the operators, seen for so long as a blocking entity in Telco 2.0 models, at the heart of that.
But to do that, operators will need to outsource much of the service development and operations, to parties like those outlined in Yankee Group's service broker sector.
This represents an opportunity for these players, which they are trying to grasp. But the bigger question that many are asking is, if operators risk being cut out of the action if they don't open up to third party services, then how are they going to make money even if they do?
Opening up APIs to network and user profiles may sound like a perfect example of the two-sided network business model, but how will operators actually monetise it? Of course, there is little user revenue in this. At least not directly. At the moment, much of the trust is being put in operators being able to put a value on such information to third party application providers and their supporters, such as advertisers. The problem for the operators is that if they stay where they are, they are sure to lose out.