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A business customer places an order for tie lines into a Private Branch Exchange (PBX). Details of the customer's request are captured, including the selected feature set, requested activation date, address, contact and billing information. As part of the order, the customer also requests a block of telephone numbers, which are retrieved and assigned to the customer. Once the order is validated and submitted, a series of tasks can be spawned automatically. The internal provisioning group is notified to configure the switch and perform the required wiring. The field technicians receive advance warning of the new installation, which is kept in a pending state until the internal assignments are completed. As the internal provisioning group completes its tasks, the inventory can be updated automatically, and any other dependent tasks can be initiated. Each task follows its own workflow and once all tasks are complete, the overall service order automatically goes to a completed state and billing actions are triggered, once again, automatically. This simple scenario illustrates the integration capabilities of a telecommunications operational support system (OSS). Imagine the number of steps that would be required to move this order from end-to-end if it were processed manually or involved outdated automation.
Numerous groups, including ordering, provisioning, billing, number administration and technicians, would need to be coordinated to make it work. The potential for human error somewhere along the line is daunting. It can take a telecommunications service provider 25 to 40 separate tasks to provision a simple phone line. More complex services, like data connection, can involve more than 100 tasks. (Technology Research Institute, 1999) Moreover, each task takes time. Indeed, "Lucent Technologies reports that at one large carrier, the 60-day interval required to provision a data circuit represented only 12 hours of actual work. It took all of the remaining 59 days to hand-off information from department to department and system to system." (Technology Research Institute, 1999) Let's take this scenario one step further and look at the ideal for a fully automated, fully integrated telecommunications environment. Everything from taking service orders, to provisioning, to handling trouble tickets, to billing would be automated and in real time — and everything would be close to error free. Divisions and groups within a telecommunications organization would have end-to-end flow-through and the automatic data-exchange would be transparent to the user. Flow-through would extend from telecommunications provider to provider with ease, because all the players in the industry would be using the same standards — the gateways connecting them would function seamlessly without the need for expensive, time-consuming customized solutions or manual data entry. Ultimately, flow-through would extend to customers as well, because the customer would be able to use a self-service approach — phone line, a kiosk or the Internet — for his or her needs. Let's face it, though — we don't live in an ideal world. Not so Long Ago In the past, telecommunications carriers used disparate OSS that were not built to connect to each other. Manual processes and human error were rampant. Providers were forced to please regulators, and focused their R&D efforts on delivering the highest quality basic service and improving their networks. In the even earlier monopoly environment, there was little competitive pressure on telcos to be innovative. Plain old telephone service (POTS) was the major focus. Those days are gone forever. The race for the catchiest long-distance access number is on, and competition is white-hot. Today's customers are savvy. Contributing to this increase in competition are widespread deregulation of monopolies, privatization of telecommunications service and the swift arrival of new technologies. Customers know they have considerably more choice. New competitors have entered long-distance and local markets by the hundreds: nearly 1,000 Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs) are registered in the U.S. alone. The crucial battle among telecommunications service providers today concerns customer retention. The best way for a telecommunications service provider to ensure customer loyalty is to provide ever-improving services at stable or decreasing costs. This may seem like a contradiction of business basics that is sure to play havoc with the cost controls of any company. How can a carrier solve this essential problem? Automation was the answer for Henry Ford, and it is still the answer today. The solution is OSSs that integrate internal business management processes and, at the same time, make customer interactions with telecommunications service providers easy, quick and cheap. Bringing Down the Tower of Babel Today's OSSs can do more — and do it faster — than ever before. Most importantly, OSS today can link groups within a company and integrate with external systems. It's as if innovative OSS have brought the telecommunications industry down from the Tower of Babel. OSS get us back to basics — they help systems communicate. Today's OSS can share information both vertically and horizontally. What does this mean in practical terms? It means, for example, that order management can speak to service provisioning in the back office service management environment. But service management can also talk to billing, or network or operations levels, as well as the front office customer care division. So, an order comes in and is automatically routed where it needs to go: to service provisioning, to wholesale billing, to customer support (if necessary), to traffic management or to network planning (see Figure).  With complete end-to-end flow-through, data can travel throughout the company wherever it is needed. It is instantly and transparently available in real time, since it is automatically updated. In addition, OSS can allow access to common data stores, as needed, from any of the various layers of the company. Harmonizing the Back-office Noise What has changed? Why are today's systems such a striking improvement? End-to-end flow-through is the key. But achieving this goal is not a simple process. A myriad of languages make up the babel of back-office business systems. These will not communicate with each other until they are told how to do so. Building an end-to-end OSS solution is a complex process. It involves numerous systems and tools and takes time to implement. A pragmatic approach is to consider phasing in an OSS with a clear vision of the goal. For those with a customer or order-fulfillment focus, the foundation of telecommunications OSS for internal systems is order management in the service management layer. Order management coordinates the actions of all the other systems by establishing the workflow to track work, manage service levels, track jeopardies, handle errors and other tasks. The order management system provides the structure and configuration for the entire OSS environment, including data capture, inventory, service activation systems, billing systems, OSS gateways to hand off requests, and the workflow engine to flow the information around. All this can be automated eventually, but a phased-in approach means some manual steps will still be necessary along the way. Implementing an OSS involves making pragmatic business decisions that will give you the best "bang for your buck". Generally speaking, it is advisable to first put the data in order, including inventory systems, telephone number databanks and common data. Next, telecommunication service providers should think about making their organizations more customer-centric. These days, most businesses rely on their telecommunications service provider to help them gain and maintain competitive advantage. Whether they are delivering software, car care or fresh bread, they want the latest technology to help them provide better service to their customers and they want it at a reasonable price. By using telecommunications OSSs, service providers can offer tailor-made services, bundled services, and access to new technologies at a fraction of the cost of doing it manually. They can cut down on person hours and human error and, at the same time, deliver better, more up-to-date service to their customers. The Need for Common Languages The complexity of today's telecommunications environment also demands that providers who are establishing OSS consider interoperability — how to link various external systems as, for instance, when a CLEC and an ILEC interconnect for purposes of resale, number portability and unbundled access. OSS minimizes downtime and ensures quick and efficient service provision The need for industry standards is critical. Without common languages, the OSS industry will wallow in a babble of untranslatable voices. Some help is coming from the Telecommunications Management Network (TMN), a consortium of interested players within the telecommunications industry who promote the implementation of layered management functions and standardized interfaces between functions. The Ordering and Billing Forum (OBF), under the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions, is also developing standards for service ordering and billing for OSS systems. Looking to the Future In the end, telecommunications OSSs can help ensure minimum downtime for telecommunications customers, thereby minimizing of expensive penalties for income lost to delays for maintenance. Most importantly, telecommunications OSSs with end-to-end flow-through can ensure quick and efficient service provisioning. With widely agreed upon standards, new technologies constantly appearing along with smarter and smarter OSS, and the competitive environment to drive innovation, the future is looking bright. Someday we just may achieve the ideal telecommunications world and eliminate babel for good. From Current OSS, Fall 1999, Vol. 1, No. 1. Published by Eftia OSS Solutions. |