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EDITOR'S PERSPECTIVE
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Exit stage left
By Tim McElligott
The TM Forum has been creating artifacts for years, decades even
(heavens to Mergatroid). I've never been comfortable with this word
choice, artifacts, but who am I to argue? The forum uses the term
correctly -- it is an object produced by human craft, often used as a
tool -- but I always felt it was tinged, perhaps through the forum's
association with telephone companies, with the archaeological or
historical part of the definition. After all, service providers are
still fighting the dinosaur reputation.
These artifacts are the backbone of this organization. And somehow, the
forum and its members are going to have to communicate their importance
to new players in the communications value chain. Either that or be
left
out of it.
However, these artifacts won't be enough. The TM Forum knows this. Its
members know this. So to its credit, the forum has launched important
initiatives over the last two years to address this. The first is a
benchmarking program that helps vendors know where their performance
stacks up against the marketplace. At first sight, the resulting
reports
may seem esoteric, but they were illuminated this week (made more
generally consumable) with a
report update by OSS Observer and the TMF's
Tonia Graham. The forum also has formed a
cable interest group to address the needs and concerns of its new cable
provider members. It spawned a group to develop a common service
delivery framework -- the lack of which spells doom for the
industry.
This week it announced a program to develop standards and/or practices
around user device management -- a real must if service providers wish
to maintain their presence inside the home and with it their brand
strength.
Perhaps most important is the telecom media convergence group that was
formed last year and whose relevance could be seen this week in a
showcase called
Content Encounter
sponsored by
AT&T. The intersection of telecom with media and content (including
over-the-top Internet) companies will create the single most important
opportunity for success that service providers have seen in a century.
It also could create the single most important opportunity for failure.
The historic drama that is about to unfold will be played out right
here
in the back office where every vendor member of the TM Forum, and even
those vendors who don't belong, earn their livings. OSS/BSS will have
center stage for the next five to ten years.
That's why I had to shake my head this week as I heard, over and ove,r
quotes like these:
"Yeah, it's not a bad idea, but the TMF is probably reaching too
far."
"It's probably a good idea, but I don't know what will come of it."
"Those media companies don't care about what's going on here."
This sounds very much like it is coming from what should be an
artifact:
an archaic telephone company mindset -- Bellhead even. Heavens to
Mergatroid.
E-mail me at tmcelligott@telephonyonline.com.
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NEWS FROM THE SHOW FLOOR
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IN PRINT
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Let
it bleed
Verizon's Fiber Optic Service is one of the most
anticipated and closely watched technology rollouts in telecom's modern
era. However, what deserves an even closer look is the underlying
software infrastructure for enabling the services that will make FiOS
more than just another very fast network. Click
to continue.
|
The
next platform up
By Patrick Kelly. Globally, the telecom market
has entered a disruptive phase. It is moving from a highly regulated
market with some competition toward a market with many competitors
coming from the Internet, other media, and new providers in the mobile
and residential broadband areas. Web services, fixed/mobile
convergence,
regulatory changes and strong demand from businesses and consumers for
wireless broadband communication services will drive investments for
more innovative services in the future telecom market. Click
to continue this in-depth analysis by OSS Observer.
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A TELEPHONY PODCAST
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CATALYST SHOWCASE (FULL-LENGTH)
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Time for Time Warner Cable to
be a Catalyst
By Tim McElligott
Leave it to a cable company to come in and identify a long-standing and
growing concern that mobile operators have been too busy growing to
address. Time Warner Cable sees market potential in wireless backhaul
and chose to explore its potential further by championing the Mobile
Backhaul Management Catalyst.
TWC joined the TM Forum about a year and a half ago. Jonathan Anderson,
vice president of network operations for Time Warner Cable, said his
company joined for reasons similar to many cable companies who have
since joined the forum: "We are trying to meet the needs of our
customers and TMF has shown they can offer resources that help
companies
in that direction," he said.
One of the ways TMF can help is providing a forum for these Catalyst
projects. Anderson said one of the noteworthy things about this project
is how many companies have gotten together for this project.
The rest of the cohort for this project includes Alcatel-Lucent, BEA,
Cisco Systems, Cognizant Technology Solutions, IBM, Nakina Systems, Sun
and Telcordia, with Cognizant acting as the team leader.
Based on industry estimates that say backhaul costs account for as much
as 35% of mobile operators' network operating expenses (30-40% of total
operating expenses,) the group sees opportunity here. They say the
growth rate of minutes-of-use and of new services, such as wireless
broadband and mobile video, present a scalability planning dilemma for
mobile operators.
This project addresses the monitoring and management of a specific
Cable
Commercial Service known as Mobile Backhaul Service. The group is
trying
to create a blueprint for a robust, flexible and open platform for this
purpose using proven standards such as MTOSI (multi-technology
operations system interface) and common interfaces from the TM Forum
such as OSS/J. It also will utilize the TMF's shared information and
data (SID) model and eTOM standard.
A mobile backhaul network is a classic example of the multi-vendor,
multi-technology environment. These networks also often cross service
provider domains from their access points back to the operator
environment. TWC wanted to create a realistic environment through which
it could better ways to provide this type of service were it to proceed
in this direction.
"This Catalyst is an R&D project for us," Anderson said. "We are doing
it to learn more hands-on what would be involved in order to do
backhaul
in general."
Anderson expects to learn more about how to maximize certain processes
and technology, but more important, how to scale them and how they
integrate with network and service management in general. He said last
week that TWC had not committed to entering this space. "We do lots of
R&D, not all of which comes to fruition," he said.
However, TWC Chief Technology Officer Mike LaJoie made the prospect
sound more certain in his keynote address to the forum on Tuesday. "It
is a simple product but new to us and one which we are now embarking
on," LaJoie said. "We want to generate revenue by providing that
service
to mobile operators. They need an end-to-end solution."
The demonstration will include Ethernet backhaul technology. In its
first phase, it will concentrate on the fault management and inventory
aspects of mobile backhaul. In addition to the standard interfaces
mentioned above, it will apply a service oriented architecture
framework
and focus on governance. The goal through multiple phases is to develop
a blueprint for standards-based OSS for managing these services.
One lesson Anderson said the group learned from this already is that
while the MTOSI 1.0 standard is available and being used for some fault
and trouble management, they are eagerly awaiting the next version.
"Until MTOSI 2.9 comes out, we won't be able to do some of the fault
and
performance management things we want to do," he said. "That's why we
see this as a Phase I project, getting off the ground with the first
release and when [MTOSI] 2.0 becomes available, we can look at some of
these performance aspects."
Anderson said it is important for a company like TWC to be mindful of
which vendors incorporate standards such as MTOSI and OSS/J because
they
will be inherently more adaptable that those who don't.
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