I have been working for a new age service provider for over 3 years. Since last 2 years, I am part of the team responding to RFP's for modernizing major service provider networks including staging, testing and deployment of 4G/LTE services.I have been following the 4G/LTE trends at TMForum and other related information sources since then.
History
========
In the mid-70's Telecom networks underwent a important change, they introduced the common channel signalling to break-away from physical network path to virtualizing the call setup. This was enabled by a relatively open standard called Signaling System No. 7 (SS7). According to Wikipedia - "SS7 is a set of telephony signaling protocols which are used to set up most of the world's public switched telephone network telephone calls. The main purpose is to set up and tear down telephone calls. Other uses include number translation, prepaid billing mechanisms, short message service (SMS), and a variety of other mass market services."(Wikipedia )
The SS7 standard allowed the cutilvation of third parties to develop open extensable frameworks for voice deployment. SS7 helped Telecom companies to innovate faster into SMS and later into 2G/3G data services. The current LTE/4G mobile network evolution is looking more and more like the early part of Internet revolution that the data networks went through in the early 90's. The emergence on authentication, authorization,secure connectivity, identity managment, naming and directory services(LDAP,SSL,Radius etc) in this period was primarily geared towards richer, more secure, personalized services to the consumers on the Internet.
In the late 90's, These innovations were leveraged by consumer internet services like yahoo, hotmail and others. Pioneering intranet platforms such as NetScape SuiteSpot and Microsoft Site Server/MCIS followed by carrier class email platforms from Openwave and MiraPoint leveraged these innovations(specially LDAP effectively).These products were quickly adopted by some service providers for public facing internet services.
In early 2000, Netscape and Openwave's Service provider success was closely followed later by Sun’s Java Advanced Intelligent Networks and Microsoft Active Operations Support Systems (OSS)/MCIS. These attempts that tried take advantage for earlier innovations in Telecom networks and marry them with the Internet technologies to influence the then emerging field of Advanced intelligent networks(AIN) failed.
From 2005 to 2010, Apple and Google have proven the relavance of cloud/application Services and thier positive impact on revenues for service providers. Apple with its secure, easy to use and elegant appliances(iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone) and consistent push towards content(music, tv and movies) coupled with rich applications created iTunes. iTunes has helped fortyifing customers for both itself and AT&T. Google has taken on the challenge to create rich and open platforms(Andriod and Chrome) for helping all other service provider in getting a byte out of the application enriched mobile world. Google is mildly successful.
Road ahead
==========
In Persuing Quest for learning more about Pervasive Information Infrastructure, I had accidental oppurtunity to visit LTE Lab of a major service provider.
The public domain use cases being pursued on 4G-LTE were very interesting:
- Digital Signage - immersive customer service
- IPTV
- Triple Play (Quadraple play - ??? TV, Internet, mobile and cloud based applications)
These 4G-LTE use cases relied on and en-riched by geo-Location, advanced identity management and personalization. These features are provided by default on most Apple, Google and Microsoft operating system based mobile devices. The future is driven by richer experiences on thinner devices powered by the cloud services.
The Mantra of profile, presence and provisioning is gaining momentum as strategy for service providers. The un-paralleled success of iTunes as a unified profile management platform to provide commercial value by brokering application and content delivery using both internet and telecom networks. The Software-as-a-Service(SaaS) leaders such as SalesForce are persuing platform as a service(Force.com - PaaS) route to reach the consumers. Google, Microsoft and Oracle are attempting to provide integrated knowledge worker applications for one flat fee per month leveraging a common profile.This has prompted service providers such as AT&T to create cloud service brokerage portals(AppStores). All these trends reinforce importance of strong, open, federated profile. Profile and identity management based on open standards and/or published API's (LDAP, SAML,OAuth etc)ky to success of service providers in attracting software development community to embrace thier platforms/networks.
VoIP on LTE is emerging as a default approach to voice services followed closely by increasing use of Telepresence(Webex, Facetime and Skype).this trend is increasing the importance presence services. The presence enabling protocols such as SIP, SIMPLE and XMPP more relavant today. It is time to build presence aware applications for simplifying provisioing,metering and billing for application/network usage.
Service providers need to acquire customers Fast. This has to be done in a Correct manner to reduce/eliminate errors and to keep the customers Happy . The most important aspects of process efficiency is to identify the system dependencies and limitations in provisioning. This situation can be eased by implementing centralized profile management approch for devices such as CMDB(configuration managment database as defined in IT service Managment) and Configuration/inventory management (as defined in TMN). The mutiplicity of individual systems and connected networks is increasing the complexity of provisioning. The is complexity on user side can be reduced by leveraging common profile and active use of presence services.The active utilization of master data(profile and CMDB) and state information(presence and montoring) increases provision efficiency.
Call for Action
===============
Profile Management - The actions items for LTE equipment/application providers is - where ever possible, keep the option open to use protocols such as Diameter/LDAP/SAML for authentication, profile lookup, PCRF(Policy and Charging Rules Function) and PCEF(Policy and Charging Enforcement Function) of LTE(S6a and S7). Ensure there is a profile managment strategies(such as CMDB/inventory managment etc)for hardware and software resources in use, it is important expose the device/service profile information in a open standard.
Presence - Align the presence functions between a common set in protocols such as SIP, SIMPLE and XMPP to the LTE_Attached, LTE_Active and LTE_Idle states. Encourage the use of these functions and related dependencies for provisioning, Call Setup and Collaboration. There is a need to asses the impact and add it as key factor in the use cases for LTE applications.
Provisioning - The success of LTE is based on quicker adoption richer cloud services. Open protocols and standards for provisioning such SPML and use of Dynamic orchestration platforms that can interact with Profile and Presence Services are essential to Cloud Services Delivery Framework (CSDF) implementation.
Innovative use of profile,presence and provisioning enables fast and correct process to acquire happy customers for service providers.
History
========
In the mid-70's Telecom networks underwent a important change, they introduced the common channel signalling to break-away from physical network path to virtualizing the call setup. This was enabled by a relatively open standard called Signaling System No. 7 (SS7). According to Wikipedia - "SS7 is a set of telephony signaling protocols which are used to set up most of the world's public switched telephone network telephone calls. The main purpose is to set up and tear down telephone calls. Other uses include number translation, prepaid billing mechanisms, short message service (SMS), and a variety of other mass market services."(Wikipedia )
The SS7 standard allowed the cutilvation of third parties to develop open extensable frameworks for voice deployment. SS7 helped Telecom companies to innovate faster into SMS and later into 2G/3G data services. The current LTE/4G mobile network evolution is looking more and more like the early part of Internet revolution that the data networks went through in the early 90's. The emergence on authentication, authorization,secure connectivity, identity managment, naming and directory services(LDAP,SSL,Radius etc) in this period was primarily geared towards richer, more secure, personalized services to the consumers on the Internet.
In the late 90's, These innovations were leveraged by consumer internet services like yahoo, hotmail and others. Pioneering intranet platforms such as NetScape SuiteSpot and Microsoft Site Server/MCIS followed by carrier class email platforms from Openwave and MiraPoint leveraged these innovations(specially LDAP effectively).These products were quickly adopted by some service providers for public facing internet services.
In early 2000, Netscape and Openwave's Service provider success was closely followed later by Sun’s Java Advanced Intelligent Networks and Microsoft Active Operations Support Systems (OSS)/MCIS. These attempts that tried take advantage for earlier innovations in Telecom networks and marry them with the Internet technologies to influence the then emerging field of Advanced intelligent networks(AIN) failed.
From 2005 to 2010, Apple and Google have proven the relavance of cloud/application Services and thier positive impact on revenues for service providers. Apple with its secure, easy to use and elegant appliances(iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone) and consistent push towards content(music, tv and movies) coupled with rich applications created iTunes. iTunes has helped fortyifing customers for both itself and AT&T. Google has taken on the challenge to create rich and open platforms(Andriod and Chrome) for helping all other service provider in getting a byte out of the application enriched mobile world. Google is mildly successful.
Road ahead
==========
In Persuing Quest for learning more about Pervasive Information Infrastructure, I had accidental oppurtunity to visit LTE Lab of a major service provider.
The public domain use cases being pursued on 4G-LTE were very interesting:
- Digital Signage - immersive customer service
- IPTV
- Triple Play (Quadraple play - ??? TV, Internet, mobile and cloud based applications)
These 4G-LTE use cases relied on and en-riched by geo-Location, advanced identity management and personalization. These features are provided by default on most Apple, Google and Microsoft operating system based mobile devices. The future is driven by richer experiences on thinner devices powered by the cloud services.
The Mantra of profile, presence and provisioning is gaining momentum as strategy for service providers. The un-paralleled success of iTunes as a unified profile management platform to provide commercial value by brokering application and content delivery using both internet and telecom networks. The Software-as-a-Service(SaaS) leaders such as SalesForce are persuing platform as a service(Force.com - PaaS) route to reach the consumers. Google, Microsoft and Oracle are attempting to provide integrated knowledge worker applications for one flat fee per month leveraging a common profile.This has prompted service providers such as AT&T to create cloud service brokerage portals(AppStores). All these trends reinforce importance of strong, open, federated profile. Profile and identity management based on open standards and/or published API's (LDAP, SAML,OAuth etc)ky to success of service providers in attracting software development community to embrace thier platforms/networks.
VoIP on LTE is emerging as a default approach to voice services followed closely by increasing use of Telepresence(Webex, Facetime and Skype).this trend is increasing the importance presence services. The presence enabling protocols such as SIP, SIMPLE and XMPP more relavant today. It is time to build presence aware applications for simplifying provisioing,metering and billing for application/network usage.
Service providers need to acquire customers Fast. This has to be done in a Correct manner to reduce/eliminate errors and to keep the customers Happy . The most important aspects of process efficiency is to identify the system dependencies and limitations in provisioning. This situation can be eased by implementing centralized profile management approch for devices such as CMDB(configuration managment database as defined in IT service Managment) and Configuration/inventory management (as defined in TMN). The mutiplicity of individual systems and connected networks is increasing the complexity of provisioning. The is complexity on user side can be reduced by leveraging common profile and active use of presence services.The active utilization of master data(profile and CMDB) and state information(presence and montoring) increases provision efficiency.
Call for Action
===============
Profile Management - The actions items for LTE equipment/application providers is - where ever possible, keep the option open to use protocols such as Diameter/LDAP/SAML for authentication, profile lookup, PCRF(Policy and Charging Rules Function) and PCEF(Policy and Charging Enforcement Function) of LTE(S6a and S7). Ensure there is a profile managment strategies(such as CMDB/inventory managment etc)for hardware and software resources in use, it is important expose the device/service profile information in a open standard.
Presence - Align the presence functions between a common set in protocols such as SIP, SIMPLE and XMPP to the LTE_Attached, LTE_Active and LTE_Idle states. Encourage the use of these functions and related dependencies for provisioning, Call Setup and Collaboration. There is a need to asses the impact and add it as key factor in the use cases for LTE applications.
Provisioning - The success of LTE is based on quicker adoption richer cloud services. Open protocols and standards for provisioning such SPML and use of Dynamic orchestration platforms that can interact with Profile and Presence Services are essential to Cloud Services Delivery Framework (CSDF) implementation.
Innovative use of profile,presence and provisioning enables fast and correct process to acquire happy customers for service providers.
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