van+ june july 2015 aw layout 1 - vanillaplus · european csps could realise €39 billion by...

PLUS: Comverse buys Acision for digital services expertise ■ Ericsson adds CENX service orchestration product to managed services offering■ European CSPs could realise €39 billion by re-imagining the network, says Arthur D. Little ■ NetCracker 10 launched to help redefine networkeconomics ■ Gabon Telecom modernises wholesale billing with CSG International ■ Redknee wins EcoMobile SaaS converged billing deal ■

Sigma Systems takes new venture capital investor ■ Read the latest news, opinion, blogs and features now at www.vanillaplus.com

T H E G L O B A L V O I C E F O R B / O S S

BILL &CHARGE

June / July 2015Volume 17 Issue 3

■ ANALYST REPORT Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan says the siloed billing era is ending

■ TALKING HEADS Joe Hogan warns that CSPs can’t save their way to greatness

■ REAL-TIME CHARGING Why the BSS happy hour can last a little longer

ISSN 1745-1736

Are CSPs ready for an on-demand, real-time world?

www.asiainfo.com

from

Make it Personal!

Empower your customers to personalize their experience while

4 EDITOR’S COLUMNGeorge Malim wonders if going large just means CSPs will get bloated withmore of the same problems

5 MARKET NEWSComverse to acquire Acision, Openet and NTT-AT collaborate onproduction-ready BSS using NFV

6 INDUSTRY NEWSEricsson adds CENX service orchestration to managed services offering,Sigma Systems takes new private equity investment

7 PRODUCT NEWSEricsson launches Adaptive Inventory 9.3, NetCracker 10 targetsredefinition of network economics

9 CONTRACT NEWSGabon Telecom modernises wholesale billing with CSG International, LGUplus chooses Syniverse for LTE roaming

10 HOT LISTThe latest vendor deals listed

11 PEOPLE NEWSWho’s on the move

13 WHAT’S ON VANILLAPLUS.COMThe pick of this month’s online content plus new VanillaPlus EditorialAdvisory Board announcements

15 VANILLAPLUS BILL & CHARGE INSIGHTOur VanillaPlus Bill & Charge Insight report contains 24 pages exploringhow the twin disciplines of billing and charging are breaking out of theirtraditional siloed approaches to enable greater flexibility.

The Insight contains a VanillaPlus-commissioned report from analyst firmStratecast | Frost & Sullivan and includes features and interviews to helpyou gain a greater understanding of the challenges facing billing andcharging as telecoms moves to an on-demand, real-time world

41 THE ROAD TO TELCO CLOUD SUPPLEMENTTen pages covering the likely journeys CSPs will make as they migrate totelco cloud architectures start here

42 INTERVIEWCharlie Thomas, the chief executive of Razorsight, says CSPs’ opportunityto participate in the cloud era will vanish if they fail to make use of their data

45 TELCO CLOUDNick Booth sees the cloud as a means to liberate telecoms from long-termplanned IT

48 EXPERT OPINIONPablo Martinez goes in search of dynamic value constellations

50 VIRTUALISATIONGeorge Malim explores how virtualisation is a step on the road to telco cloud

52 DIARYWhere to go and who to see

53 CLOCKING OFF!Nick Booth reckons the cloud could make us all less pretentious

C O N T E N T S

32

CLOCKING OFF!

3

IN THISISSUE

Joe Hogan warns thatCSPs can’t save their wayto greatness

Are CSPs ready for anon-demand, real-timeworld?

DIGITAL SERVICES

REAL-TIMECHARGING

37

53

EXPERT OPINION

39

1713

VANILLAPLUS MAGAZINE I JUNE / JULY 2015

n the CSP side it’s clear that scalingup is being seen as the way togenerate cost savings throughincreased purchasing power anddeveloping products and services fora larger market. Ultimately, that will

give CSPs even bigger big data that they’re stillworking out how to monetise. However, as – atbest – an amateur economist, I struggle with theconcept of how investing in more of the sameresults in a better position.

Admittedly, there is value in becoming a completeservice provider encompassing mobile, fixed andentertainment and we’re seeing a raft of CSPs

make moves to accomplish a complete portfolio –as witnessed by cable companies buying mobileoperators and vice-versa and CSPs such asBritish Telecom buying sports broadcasting rightsas well as a mobile operator. However, the marketconsolidation moves seem to make less sense.If you’re AT&T and bemoaning dwindling marginsin your core business, how does investing heavilyin the same sort of assets in Mexico represent anoptimum use of capital? Isn’t that just investing inmore of the same in a margin-constrainedbusiness that faces substantial challenges?

Scale for the sake of scale simply doesn’t work –there needs to be a reason beyond the notion of

potential cost savingsynergies. I don’tbelieve a massive CSPgroup will be able toachieve those across30 different operatingcompanies andnumerous campaigns,services andpropositions.

Maybe virtualisationand telco cloudpresent opportunitiesto reset the cost baseof CSPs, but thebenefits seem as

appealing to a smaller CSPas a large one, there’s justan order of magnitude toconsider.

The vendor sector in theO/BSS market is alsochasing scale. The last yearhas seen smaller BSScompanies Volubill andOrga Systems acquiredfrom distressed positionsby CSG International and Redknee respectively(the full story of the Orga Systems acquisition byRedknee is live at www.vanillaplus.com now).That suggests smaller vendors have less of a roleto play as their customers focus on becomingbigger and want to deal with companies that havethe scale to cope with their large and tangledoperating units – and can handle their demandsfor financing, managed services and costreductions.

My fear is that in this march towards supersizedCSPs and vendors, some things will be lost.Agility, innovation and non-standard approachesto unusual problems seem to be most underthreat from investment in more of the same.

Enjoy the magazine!

George Malim

C O M M E N T

EDITORGeorge MalimTel: +44 (0) 1225 319 [email protected]

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR& PUBLISHERJeremy CowanTel: +44 (0) 1420 [email protected]

DIGITAL SERVICES DIRECTORNathalie BisnarTel: +44 (0) 1732 [email protected]

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENTDIRECTORCherisse JamesonTel: +44 (0) 1732 [email protected]

DIRECTOR OF STRATEGICPLANNINGCharlie BisnarTel: +44 (0) 1732 [email protected]

DESIGNJason ApplebyArk Design Consultancy LtdTel: +44 (0) 1787 881623

PUBLISHED BYWeKnow Media Ltd.Suite 138, 70 Churchill Square,Kings Hill, West Malling,Kent ME19 4YU, UKTel: +44 (0) 1732 807411

DISTRIBUTIONUK Postings LtdTel: +44 (0) 8456 444137

VanillaPlus is distributed free to selected named individuals worldwide who meet the Publisher's terms of Circulation Control. Ifyou would like to apply for a regular free copy supplied at the Publisher's discretion visit www.vanillaplus.com If you do not qualifyfor a free subscription, paid subscriptions can be obtained. Subscriptions for 6 issues cost £99.00 worldwide (or US$150 / EUR125)including post and packing. VanillaPlus magazine is published 6 times per year.

All rights reserved. No part of this publicationmay be copied, stored, published or in anyway reproduced without the prior writtenconsent of the Publisher

EDITORIAL ADVISORS

Louis Hall, chief executive,Cerillion Technologies

David Heaps, senior vicepresident, Strategy, CSGInternational

Martin Morgan, vicepresident of Marketing,Openet

Simon Muderack, senior vicepresident for Marketing andAlliances, Sigma Systems

Justin Paul, head of OSSMarketing, Amdocs

Chris Yeadon, director ofProduct Marketing, Ericsson

Dr Reinhard Zuba, CMO,Vipnet (Telekom Austria)

© Prestige Media Ltd 2015

Going large for more of the same could leadto a bloated, lethargic telecoms industrySeveral times in the last month I’ve heard industry insiders emphasise the need for telecoms-related companies to gain scale.The comments come both from the vendor side and from the communications service providers (CSPs) and, while each facesdifferent pressures, there are similarities

O

4 VANILLAPLUS MAGAZINE I JUNE / JULY 2015

George Malim,editor, VanillaPlus

Comverse has agreed to acquire Acision, aprivately-held provider of secure mobilemessaging and engagement services,based in Reading, United Kingdom. Themove follows the sale of Comverse’s BSSassets to Amdocs earlier this year forUS$272m.

Comverse will acquire Acision for apurchase price consisting of approximatelyUS$135 million in cash, 3.13 million sharesof Comverse’s common stock, andpotential earnout payments of up to US$35million. In addition, Comverse will seek tomaintain Acision’s existing US$157 millionsenior credit facility following completion ofthe transaction.

The Boards of Directors of Comverse andAcision have approved the transaction,which, subject to satisfying closingconditions, is expected to be complete bythe end of the third quarter of this year.Following completion of the transaction, thenew company will be led by a team comprisedof executives from both organisations underthe leadership of Comverse president andchief executive Philippe Tartavull. Thecompany will remain headquartered inWakefield, Massachusetts, USA.

Comverse helps communication service

providers (CSPs) transition to digital serviceproviders (DSPs) and gain competitiveadvantage through a portfolio of solutionsthat help them monetise the coming fourthwave of digital services. The combinedcompany’s expanded portfolio will extendinto new digital application areas includingdata analytics, secure enterpriseapplication-to-person (A2P) messaging,credit orchestration, two-factorauthentication, and machine-to-machine(M2M) communication sas well as RichCommunication Services (RCS), WebRTCand APIs for rapid service creation.

“Continued consolidation in the CSP spacecreates the need for strong suppliers,” saidTartavull. “Our acquisition of Acisionunderscores Comverse’s commitment to

quickly building scale and marketleadership in the fast-growing digitalservices sector. This acquisition creates aformidable platform for innovation that isexpected to serve our customers’ currentand evolving needs. Acision brings adiverse portfolio of mobile monetisationand rich enterprise messaging solutionscomplementing Comverse’s digital servicesplatform. The combined portfolio will allowus to enable our service provider andenterprise customers to deliver andmonetise a new array of advanced digitalservices to their customers.”

Didier Bench, the executive chairman atAcision, added: “The acquisition is in linewith our growth strategy to broaden ourreach and capabilities, and brings twoleading companies together to deliver thevery latest monetisable, richcommunication services for mobileoperators and enterprises worldwide. Thetwo companies are well aligned in theirrespective visions and strategies, yet wereoperating in largely complementarymarkets. We believe that joining forces is inthe best interests of both our customersand our employees, and our commitmentto them and the products we provide willremain our highest priority.”

Comverse to acquire Acision to strengthen digital services capability

M A R K E T N E W S

5VANILLAPLUS MAGAZINE I JUNE / JULY 2015

Japanese systems integrator NTTAdvanced Technology (NTT-AT) has beenannounced as Openet’s latest resellerpartner. The deal will extend Openet’sreach into the NTT group and significantlyenhance its commercial footprint acrossAsia.

NTT-AT, which represents the technologicalcore of the NTT group, will re-sell Openetproducts and solutions to all subsidiaryoperators within the NTT group. NTT-ATchose to partner with Openet aftersuccessfully trialling a series of policy andcontrol functions across NFV (networkfunctions virtualisation) environments.Integrating solutions where NFV techniquesare applied to OSS/BSS enables the NTTgroup to deliver on the promises of NFV,such as system agility, faster time to

market, reduced TCO, increased elasticityand greater service availability. Followingthe successful test, NTT-AT will look to rollOpenet’s virtualised BSS technology outacross the NTT Group.

“Having rigorously tested Openet’svirtualised BSS solutions, we are extremelyconfident of the immediate value it willdeliver to the NTT group as a whole,” saidMasayoshi Nagao, the sales chief of theOpenet team at NTT-AT. “The level ofsupport offered by Openet will afford us theability to build increasingly agile systems toprovide service diversity and faster time tomarket for NTT subsidiary operators.”

Cyril Dolan, the global vice president ofIndirect Channels at Openet, added:“Our partnership with NTT-AT provides us

with a variety of newaccess points into one ofthe world’s mostinnovative operatorgroups. Our virtualisedBSS technology willdeliver a wide variety ofbenefits and new revenuestreams for subsidiarieswithin the NTT group andclearly demonstrate themutual value of our globalpartner programme. Weactively welcome newentrants to this programme and we believepartnerships between specialist systemsintegrators like NTT-AT and Openet offerCSPs the best opportunity to build an agileBSS environment.”

Openet and NTT-AT collaborate to deliver production ready BSS using NFV

Cyril Dolan:Partnershipprovides accesspoints into NTTgroup operators

Comverse says deal will accelerate it’s growth in thedigital services sector

CENX, a provider of service orchestrationsolutions for software-defined and virtualisednetworks, has partnered with Ericsson tointegrate CENX’s Cortx Service Orchestratoras a key element of Ericsson’s globalManaged Services Delivery Platform. TheCortx Service Orchestrator allows Ericsson’smanaged service professionals to proactivelymonitor customers’ data connectivityservices, providing real-time visibility into end-to-end circuit availability and performance,spanning multiple technologies. Cortx ServiceOrchestrator delivers a graphical dashboardto identify performance degradation – such asframe loss, latency and jitter, and simplifiesthe isolation of faults, significantly reducingmean time to repair (MTTR), increasing

network availability and enhancing customerexperience.

Ericsson will be able to identify degradation ofethernet circuits before they begin tosignificantly impact end users of the networkusing the CENX system, which also providesservice delivery teams with the ability tomeasure Local Exchange Carriers andAlternate Access Vendors’ performanceagainst key performance indicators and managethem in line with service level agreements.

“We are pleased to be working with Ericssonfor a global go-to-market strategy with anintegrated solution offering,” said Ed Ogonek,the president and CEO of CENX. “This

deployment has proven thatCortx Service Orchestratoris able to meet the usability,scalability and performancerequirements of one of theworld’s largest networkoperations.”

Jean-Claude Geha, the vicepresident and global headof Ericsson’s ManagedServices Business Portfolio,added: “This successfulpartnership is one exampleof how Ericsson ManagedServices is continually using innovative toolsto serve its customer base worldwide.”

Mobile devices to generate theequivalent of 10bn Blu-raymovies by 2019New research has forecast that mobile datatraffic, generated by smartphones,featurephones and tablets, will approachalmost 197,000 petabytes) by 2019,equivalent to over 10 billion Blu-ray movies,according to Juniper Research.

However, the research found that only 41%of the data generated by these devices willbe carried over cellular networks by 2019,with the majority of mobile data trafficoffloaded to Wi-Fi networks.

The research, ‘Mobile Data Offload & Onload:

Wi-Fi, Small Cell & Network Strategies 2015-2019’, estimates that the average monthlydata usage by smartphone and tablet userswill double over the next four years. Thedaily media consumption by mobile userswill continue to rise, bolstered by the rise in4G adoption and factors such as HDvideo usage.

Sigma Systems takes newinvestment from VC firmBirch Hill Equity Partners has made asignificant investment in Sigma Systems insupport of the vendor’s continued growthplans. In connection with the transaction,Sigma president and CEO, Tim Spencer,

and the existing Sigma management teamwill form a new partnership with Birch Hill.

“This investment by Birch Hill marks asignificant corporate milestone for Sigma,”said Andy Jasuja, co-founder and chairmanat Sigma Systems. “It is a recognition of thetremendous success Sigma has enjoyed inthe industry.”

Michael Mazan, a partner at Birch Hill added:“Sigma Systems is one of the leading brandsin the communications software market.They have a strong management teamcoupled with talented and experiencedpeople. We look forward to working with Tim and his team to execute their ambitiousgrowth plan in this dynamic industry vertical.”

NEWS IN BRIEF

I N D U S T R Y N E W S

Challenged by anticipated growth in fixed,mobile and IoT traffic, Europeancommunications service providers (CSPs)are devising new technology designs andstandards, drawing inspiration from highlyoptimised technology and the businessdesign of their cloud peers.

A new report from management consultancyArthur D. Little (ADL) and Bell LabsConsulting, the industrial research andadvisory arm of Alcatel-Lucent, ‘Reshapingthe future with NFV and SDN’, predicts thatthe shift to becoming a cloud carrier hasthe potential to significantly re-define howthe industry competes in the cloud era.

In the report, ADL and Bell Labs present ananalysis of the strategic value and impactof bringing network functions virtualisation(NFV) and software defined networks (SDN)into the carrier network. Key insights fromthe study include:

Network virtualisation technologies areopening up the market to new competitorsthat could rapidly erode traditional carriers’market share. As network ownership is nolonger a prerequisite for service delivery,virtually anyone can become a serviceprovider. Enterprise customers like banks,retailers or media companies couldbecome powerful alternatives to thetraditional telecoms network, encroachingon the mass telecoms market. Traditionalproviders should both observe andcapitalise on this new class of mass-market competitor and develop networkfunctionality that enable them to tap intohigher-value products and servicessegments such as the fast-growing €18billion IT security business and €17 billioncloud services market.

As the telecoms industry prepares toadvance its networking functionality to awhole new level of programmability, CSPs

must work even more closely together withmanufacturers, vendors and governmentsto ensure the new networks allow on-demand connectivity and are interoperablewith new types of computing and multipleoperator networks.

The report findings show that the efficiencyimpact of onboarding NFV and SDN forthese CSPs could be worth €14 billion peryear in the network domain alone, whichwill be augmented by a further €25 billionper year in non-network operating coststhrough greater automation andsimplification of business processes.“The time is now for Europe’s telecomsindustry to bring networking into the cloudera, it will not be trivial to executeprogrammability and automation at thescale required for success, but the prize issignificant,” said Jesús Portal, a partner atArthur D. Little.

Ericsson adds CENX service orchestration to managed services offering

6

European telecoms could realise €39bn by re-imagining the network

VANILLAPLUS MAGAZINE I JUNE / JULY 2015

Ed Ogonek:Global go-to-market strategywith Ericssonprovidesintegrated offering

NetCracker Technologyhas launched its latestproduct suite, NetCracker10, which combinescapabilities invirtualisation, cloud-baseddelivery of applications,embedded analytics andbiometrics onto a single,unified platform. Withthese capabilities,NetCracker 10fundamentally redefinesthe economics of networkdeployment andmanagement, IToperations, customer

experience and service creation and delivery.

“We are thrilled to announce NetCracker10, the next generation of our highlysophisticated end-to-end product suite,which redefines some of the fundamentaleconomics around network and IT,operations, deployment, customerretention and service creation,” said SanjayMewada, the vice president of strategy atNetCracker. “As service providers preparefor the inevitable shift from physical tohybrid to virtualised infrastructure andofferings, NetCracker 10 lays thefoundation for a risk-free and seamlessmigration, ushering in the next wave ofinnovation.”

Using its revolutionary single-platformapproach across network, service andcustomer domains, NetCracker 10 enablescommunications service providers tomigrate seamlessly from existingenvironments to the next generation ofvirtualised networks and IT infrastructure.

The capabilities incorporated in theNetCracker 10 suite have demonstratednumerous financial and operationalimprovements including: up to 40%reduction in total cost of ownership; morethan 30% increase in infrastructureutilisation; up to 30% increase in netpromoter score, according to NetCracker’sinternal benchmarking.

NetCracker 10 launched to redefine network and IT economics

Sanjay Mewada:As CSPs shift fromphysical to hybridto virtualisedinfrastructure,NetCracker 10lays thefoundation for arisk-free migration

Helix expands TEOCO’s unifiedservice assurance suite TEOCO, has launched Helix, itscomprehensive unified service assurancesuite. Helix brings together TEOCO’s marketperformance, fault, service and customerexperience management capabilities anddelivers further real-time analytics andmachine enhancements.

Helix enables CSPs to accelerate theirevolution to a Service Operations Centre(SOC) model and focus on delivering end-to-end service quality. By using TEOCO’sdomain, big data and process integrationexpertise, Helix reduces a CSP’s total cost ofownership (TCO) and enables the delivery ofbetter customer experience.

“Helix brings together service assurance withreal time analytics and machine learning,”said Shachar Ebel, the CTO of TEOCO. “Theplatform is a leap forward in the ability ofservice assurance software to offer crossdomain solutions that can boost networkand service performance, as well ascustomer quality of experience, whileprompting the implementation of predictiveautomated operations and processes fortraditional and virtualised networks.”

Amdocs introduces actionableanalytics for CSP marketing,network and careAmdocs has announced newcommunications-specific applications that

allow communications service providers(CSPs) to aggregate data from multiplemarketing, network and customer caresources and generate business andcustomer insights with actionablerecommendations.

The new applications build on Amdocs’ bigdata analytics launch last year whichintroduced an end-to-end, communications-specific big data analytics portfolio and thatmakes data clean, accessible and actionablefor service providers or third-parties toenable open innovation.

Amdocs’ new big data actionable analyticsapplications include: high definitionmarketing analytics, deep network analyticsand consumer and business satisfactionanalytics.

NEWS IN BRIEF

Ericsson has launched Adaptive Inventory9.3 to bring the full visibility and control thatcommunications service providers (CSPs)need. This includes autonomy to build newtechnologies, capabilities, web-based GUIsand applications.

Elisabetta Romano, vice president andhead of OSS & Service Enablement atEricsson, said: “Ericsson AdaptiveInventory builds on a powerful softwaresolution that is deployed around the worldand sees Ericsson continue to redefineinventory management with capabilitiesthat our customers need to be successful.Access to accurate network data positions

CSPs for better decision-making, includingthe ability to predict the future-statenetwork from a combination of current andproposed network plans. The latest toolsthat Ericsson Adaptive Inventory brings tomarket are easy use, deploy and maintain,helping operators thrive in an ever-changing environment.”

Ericsson Adaptive Inventory, formerlyEricsson Granite Inventory, uses data froma broad range of available sources to offerthe most complete view of a network atany given moment, including past, presentand future configurations. The result isfaster service rollouts, improved trouble

resolution and newnetwork efficiencies asmobile data and IP-centricservice delivery becomesmore fluid. It features anenhanced Unified InventoryEngine, intuitive webinterface, component-driven design automation,and system extension kit.Ericsson has created amigration path to EricssonAdaptive Inventory forexisting Ericsson GraniteInventory customers.

Ericsson unveils Adaptive Inventory 9.3 for full visibility and control

P R O D U C T N E W S


ElisabettaRomano:Accurate networkdata positionsCSPs for betterdecision making

Syniverse has announced that it is enablingSouth Korea’s LG Uplus to launch acommercial VoLTE (voice over LTE) roamingservice, featuring HD voice. Made possibleby Syniverse’s IPX network, the serviceallows LG Uplus subscribers to roam ontothe KDDI network in Japan and will allowLG Uplus to expand coverage and servicesin additional markets.

Syniverse’s IPX interconnects the networksto make LTE roaming possible. With nearly800 LTE roaming routes, Syniverse’s IPXreaches more than 200 CSPs in 44countries. This reach includes 104 direct

connections that enable Syniverse tolaunch VoLTE trials and deploymentsaround the globe. As a result, Syniverserecently enabled the transoceanic VoLTEroaming call and has direct LTEconnections with 14 of the 16 CSPs thathave launched VoLTE.

“Because LTE roaming is the prerequisiteto launch VoLTE, Syniverse’s reach tonearly every CSP that has launched LTEroaming enables us to achieve the criticalreach and coverage our subscribers willdemand,” said Hong Jun Choi, generalmanager, LG Uplus.

With the Syniverse IPX, CSPs have theflexibility to implement VoLTE through S8home routing, local breakout or VoLTEinterconnect, which are three key emergingVoLTE implementation models. LG Uplus islaunching VoLTE over IPX throughSyniverse’s S8 home-routed LTE dataroaming platform, which allows CSPs torapidly deploy VoLTE by using their existingLTE data roaming connections. In addition,the Syniverse IPX is prepared to offer otherIP-based multimedia service features suchas video over LTE (ViLTE) and richcommunication services (RCS).

LG Uplus launches VoLTE roaming over Syniverse IPX network

StarHub selects NeuralTechnologies fraudmanagement systemNeural Technologies has won a contract withStarHub, Singapore’s first fully integratedinfo-communications company. The deal isvalued at approximately US$1 million and isthe first strategic collaboration betweenNeural and StarHub.

StarHub is the second largest telecomscompany in Singapore. The companyprovides a full range of information,communications and entertainment servicesfor both consumer and corporate marketsand operates a mobile network that provides4G, 3G and 2G services.

The new supply agreement with NeuralTechnologies will provide comprehensiveprotection against a broad range of fraudtypes throughout StarHub’s entire business.

Stephen Kai Sui, the group chief executive atNeural Technologies, said: “It’s a realprivilege to work with StarHub. Singapore isregarded worldwide as an innovative market,and we think that the installation of ourMinotaur Fraud Management system herewill be a great example to operators in otherregions facing similar challenges. This newdeal continues to extend our global networkof customers and, on Neural Technologies25th anniversary year, it reinforces ourposition as the risk management softwareprovider of choice for global companies.”

Comptel wins TelefónicaArgentina analytics deal Finnish vendor Comptel has announced thatit has agreed the first deal for its newintegrated analytics solution, called theOperational Intelligence SoftBlade.

This strategically important deal withTelefónica Argentina Movistar demonstratesthe value of the Data Fastermind analyticsembedded to the customer’s existing DataRefinery and EventLink technology platform.The deal consists of software licenses andrelated services with a value exceeding€890,000.

NEWS IN BRIEF

Gabon Telecom is in production with CSG’sWholesale Business Management Solution.The implementation includes CSG’sInterconnect and Intermediate solutions,and will support the CSP’s wireless andwireline businesses. CSG now supports theoperations of the top three CSPs in Gabon.

“Revenue and net income growth aredependent upon the efficiency of ouroperations,” said Bernard Mbangangoye,the director for international andinterconnection at Gabon Telecom. “Withthe CSG solution we are able to control ourwholesale process from end-to-end,

correctly capturing data records, accuratelyinvoicing our partners, and shortening thetime to settlement. Thanks to CSG, we areable to monitor the operations through KPIdashboards updated daily and proactivelyaddress any anomalies.”

Gabon Telecom, which operates under theLibertis brand, was the first CSP in CentralAfrica to launch LTE, and made thestrategic decision to not just modernise itsnetwork but also the systems responsiblefor monetising its network traffic.

“CSG builds strong relationships with our

clients who recognise thevalue our solutions add totheir operations as well asthe domain expertise webring to everyengagement,” said GeorgeFraser, the vice presidentof CSG’s Europe, MiddleEast and Africa regionaloperations. “Our increasingfootprint in dynamicmarkets such as Africa is a testament toour knowledge and the functional depth ofour offerings.”

Gabon Telecom modernises wholesale billing with CSG

C O N T R A C T N E W S

George Fraser:Increasedcustomer base inAfricademonstratesfunctional depth ofofferings


H O T L I S T

Vendor(s) Client Country Product/Service Awarded

Alcatel-Lucent Windstream, USA Provision of Alcatel-Lucent Velocix content delivery network (CDN) system as well as professional services to enable IPTV launch 5.15

Allot Communications Vodafone, Germany Allot WebSafe Personal chosen to power new Secure Net security as a service proposition for mobile users 5.15

Amdocs Linkem, Italy Amdocs Virtualised Policy Controller and Home Subscriber Server chosen by Italian wireless broadband provider 5.15

Amdocs Telefónica, Chile Selection of Amdocs data management services for operating data store operations in Chile and Peru and Peru

Anite China Telecom, China Anite’s SAS platform selected for LTE throughput testing 5.15

CoralTree UPC, Poland Poland’s largest cable TV provider selects CoralTree Renaissance CRM to increase operational efficiencies across 5.15 customer services and sales functions

CSG International Charter Communications, Five-year contract extension to existing residential billing and customer care deal at fourth-largest US cable operator 5.15 USA

CSG International Gabon Telecom, Gabon Modernisation of wholesale and billing operations with deployment of CSG’s Wholesale Business Management Solution (WBMS) 5.15

Ericsson Telstra, Australia CSP selects Ericsson Media Delivery Network as a fully managed CDN service to support growth in IP video 5.15

MDS/Tech Mahindra iD, UK Provision of billing, customer management and services infrastructure for retailer Dixons Carphone’s new MVNO, iD 5.15

MycomOSI FarEasTone, Taiwan Selection of MycomOSI NIMS-PrOptima for LTE performance management 6.15

Myriad Group Vivo, Brazil Deployment of Myriad SMS service gateway to support Vivo Twitter SMS service 6.15

NetCracker Technology Consolidated Deployment of catalogue-based OSS offering to enhance service inventory and management at business and broadband CSP 5.15 Communications, USA

NetCracker Technology C-Spire, USA NetCracker converged billing and active mediation deployed to support pre and postpaid wireless services on a single 5.15 rating and billing platform

NetCracker Technology Andorra Telecom, Deployment of NetCracker end-to-end systems as part of complete BSS and OSS transformation 6.15 Andorra

NetCracker Technology Vivacom, Bulgaria Quad-play provider goes live with upgrade to NetCracker revenue management system to enable convergence of rating, 6.15 billing and charging

NetCracker Technology Schurz Expansion of relationship by establishing a standardised business process across all CSP’s properties using NetCracker’s 6.15 Communications, USA billing and revenue management system

NetCracker Technology Vast Broadband, USA Deployment of NetCracker revenue management system under multi-year hosted managed services agreement 6.15

NetCracker Technology Turkcell, Turkey Turkcell Superonline chooses NetCracker systems to optimise business to business and business to consumer service 6.15/NEC fulfilment and assurance

Neural Technologies Starhub, Singapore Replacement of fraud management system with Neural Technologies’ systems to provide comprehensive protection 6.15 across entire operation

OpenCloud Spark, New Zealand OpenCloud Rhino Sentinel VoLTE Application Server chosen by Spark to support virtualised VoLTE proof of concept 6.15

Openmind Life, Ukraine Deployment of Openmind Short Message Service Centre (SMSC) to enable bulk application-to-peer (A2P) messaging to 5.15 13.9 million users

Redknee EcoMobile MVNO subscribes to Redknee cloud-based converged billing and customer care fully managed, software-as-a-service 6.15 (SaaS) offering

Syniverse Ooredoo, Qatar Syniverse IPX Network Solution deployed to enhance 4G roaming service for Ooredoo customers. Deal builds on 5.15 20-year relationship with Syniverse

Syniverse LG UPlus, South Africa Syniverse IPX enables CSP to launch commercial VoLTE (voice over LTE) roaming service, featuring HD voice 6.15

VanillaPlus Hot List: June / July 2015

The Hot List below shows the companies informing us of recent contract wins or product deployments. If your contract is not listed here email the details to us now marked "Hot List" <[email protected]>

EcoMobile, an MVNO(mobile virtual networkoperator) that operates onthe Sprint network, haschosen a fully managed,software-as-a-service,cloud-based convergedbilling system fromRedknee.

Garvin Garmo, the chiefexecutive of EcoMobile,said: “We selected

Redknee’s cloud-based billing andcustomer care solution to support ourgrowth strategy, while minimising risk,reducing our cost base, and enabling us tolaunch new services quickly to the market.With Redknee’s end-to-end managed

solution we have the flexibility to efficientlymanage our customers from activation andretention to full customer care support.Redknee is providing us with fast time tomarket, which is crucial for EcoMobile toincrease market share and drivedifferentiation and innovation in acompetitive environment.”

Lucas Skoczkowski, Redknee’s CEO,added: “EcoMobile is the latest customerto launch Redknee’s cloud-basedconverged billing solution, which increasesour footprint in the US market and adds tothe growing portfolio of customers that areselecting Redknee’s cloud solution forgreater business agility. ”

Redknee’s cloud-based converged billing

and customer care system offers a fullyvirtualised platforms, enablingcommunications service providers (CSPs)to launch a new brand in a matter ofweeks. It provides Mobile Virtual NetworkEnablers (MVNEs) with an agile, flexible andmodular suite of solutions on which to builda profitable wholesale business. CSPs cantake control of the services and promotionsthey launch with a real-time billing, ratingand charging with integrated policy,promotions, analytics and businessintelligence. Provided as a SaaS offering,Redknee Cloud allows consumer brands orretailers, who may not be experienced inthe mobile sector or billing, to concentrateon their sales, marketing and distributionstrategies rather than the management oftheir billing system.

Redknee wins EcoMobile converged billing deal

LucasSkoczkowski:CSPs are selectingRedknee’s cloudservices forgreater businessagility

1 0 VANILLAPLUS MAGAZINE I JUNE / JULY 2015

P E O P L E N E W S

Ben McCafferty joins MDS as seniorvice president of Sales andAlliancesMDS, has announced Ben McCaffertyhas joined the company as senior vicepresident of Sales and Alliances. Reportingto MDS chief executive Mark Edwards,McCafferty has responsibility for drivingMDS’ sales growth and internationalexpansion.

McCafferty’s role will engage serviceproviders in thinking about how they willapproach digital transformation andincludes a focus on the increased demandfor managed services and cloud, whichMDS is well positioned to take advantageof. Partnerships will also be a key growtharea for the business and a way to delivereven more value to customers.

McCafferty joins MDS from Redknee, aBSS provider, where he was head of salesand responsible for growth in the MiddleEast and Africa markets. He successfullyclosed several new contracts andincreased revenue significantly in anemerging and dynamic region.

Previously, McCafferty was vice presidentof global sales for Volubill, a provider ofreal-time charging and policy solutions,serving mobile and fixed-line ServiceProviders, acquired by CSG. He built andmanaged both the global sales and pre-sales teams, launched a successful partnerprogramme and closed contracts withmajor operator groups and servicesproviders. He also held senior salespositions at Subex and ATOS, focused onthe service provider market.

“I am excited to join MDS,” statedMcCafferty. “A strong product, innovativecustomers, expert in-house team and anestablished private cloud services deliverymodel, provide a proven combination fordigital service providers (DSPs). I believethat MDS is perfectly positioned to enableservice providers seeking transformation toa cloud-based DSP business, and I amlooking forward to supporting MDS’customers and driving international growthwith strategic partners.”

Nexmo expands managementto accelerate growthCloud communications platform provider,Nexmo has announced the addition of a

chief marketing officer anda chief financial officer tohelp support thecompany’s further growth.The company hasappointed Lewis Blackas chief financial officerand Gabi Schindler aschief marketing officer.

“I am thrilled to welcomeLewis and Gabi toNexmo,” said Tony

Jamous, the chief executive of Nexmo.“Both of them personify our companyvalues of being disruptive, having a passionfor impact, valuing our customer’s successas much as our own, and having theintegrity and focus to get things done. Withtheir help, we will continue to lead andrevolutionise the cloud communicationsspace.”

Black joined Nexmo from Citrix Systemswhere he was most recently the vicepresident of Finance and Operations for theEnterprise and Service Provider Division.Prior to Citrix, he held leadership roles atAT&T, Lucent Technologies and Avaya.Schindler joined Nexmo from Amobee,where she was also chief marketing officerand helped establish the company. Prior toAmobee, she held marketing leadershiproles at Apple, AT&T, Saba Software andPalmSource.

“I have long admired Nexmo’s disruptiveapproach to be the leader in the globalcloud communications space, and I’mexcited to work with such a talented, globalteam as we continue to raise the bar in theindustry,” said Schindler.

Woon joins Etiya to leadinternational unitCatalogue-driven B/OSS for digital andcommunications service providers vendor,Etiya, has established Etiya International todrive its growth worldwide and appointedChun-Ling Woon as the group’s chiefexecutive.

Established in 2004, Etiya is now one ofTurkey’s largest corporate softwareproviders. With the formation of EtiyaInternational it is taking an integratedworldwide approach to meet globaldemand for its services.

“Our innovative, easily applied, flexible, and

affordable solutions enable us to stand outfrom our competition,” said Ali Durmus,founding partner and chief executive ofEtiya. “Etiya International will enable us tobring those solutions to a broader marketand to accelerate our growth andinnovation around the world.”

As chief executive of Etiya International,Woon will lead product management anddrive the business and innovation globally.He has more than 20 years of technicaland management experience in thetelecom industry. Woon has extensiveexperience with every aspect of thebusiness, from systems architecture andimplementation to driving products to themarket and brokering deals. He was vicepresdient of marketing and businessdevelopment at ConceptWave, which wasacquired by Ericsson, vice president ofmarketing at Nortel Networks and hasheld management positions at Ericsson,Architel Systems, which was acquired byOracle, and Siemens.

Anam recruits Carberry tomanaged SMS service teamTo support the launch of the ManagedSMS Service offering, Anam hasappointed Hugh Carberry as seniorcommercial analyst to its managedservices team. Prior to joining Anam,Carberry spent more than ten years atTelefónica O2 where his responsibilitiesincluded interconnect reconciliation andbilling, Premium SMS billing andsettlement, direct carrier billing andapplication-to-peer (A2P) SMS billing.

In his role at Anam, Carberry will use hisfirst-hand operator experience to advise onthe operational and budgetary challengesfaced by mobile operators so Anam’sservices are developed in-line with currentand future market expectations.

Brian D’Arcy, the chief commercial officerat Anam, said: “The development of theManaged SMS Services is designed toaddress some of the biggest challengesfacing mobile operators. They are unable toreap the rewards of the growth in the A2PSMS market due to traffic terminating ontheir network without their knowledge sothey cannot bill for it, and their subscribersare receiving spam. In order to leverage thebenefit of A2P revenue monetisation mobileoperators need a combination of technical,industry and commercial knowhow.”

Gabi Schindler:Admirer ofNexmo’s disruptiveapproach to cloudcommunications

1 1VANILLAPLUS MAGAZINE I JUNE / JULY 2015

Be the firstto know fromthe globalvoice of B/OSS

THEGLOBALVOICEOF B/OSS vanillaplus.com

NEWS ■ COMMENTARY ■ WEBINARS ■ ANALYSIS ■ INSIGHT

Orga Systemsexclusive update:Employees to beretained, dealprice fair notcheap, saysRedknee CEO

With its plannedacquisition of OrgaSystems from the

German equivalent of Chapter 11bankruptcy protection for €38 million,Redknee will gain what its chief executive,Lucas Skoczkowski, tells George Malim isa “great customer base”.

http://www.vanillaplus.com/2015/06/24/9403-orga-update-employees-to-be-retained-deal-price-fair-not-cheap-says-redknee-ceo/

Why aren’t bills customer-centriccommunications to build loyalty andcut the cost of calls to care?

“Imagine a customer buys a new device in-store and signs up to a $29.99 a monthplan, but the first bill is $54.00. Theywalked in mid-billing cycle so they havebeen billed for 45 days.” As Alan Coleman,founder and CEO of Brite:Bill tells Jeremy

Cowan, “This is problematic, the firstexperience seems a breach of trust.”

http://www.vanillaplus.com/2015/06/14/9026-why-arent-bills-customer-centric-communications-to-build-loyalty-and-cut-the-cost-of-calls-to-care/

ExecutiveSnapshot

Nan Chen, the co-founder andexecutive vice-chairman of CENX,talks ethernet andmartial arts in ourlatest executiveprofile.

http://www.vanillaplus.com/2015/06/01/8053-nan-chen-cto-of-cenx-talks-ethernet-and-martial-arts-in-our-latest-executive-profile/

How one OSS company was built fromthe need to see what happens tocustomers

In the second part of this interview, AnandGonuguntla, the chief and cof-ounder ofCentina Systems, tells VanillaPlus what

drove him and his co-founders to launchan OSS company against such giantopposition. The first part is also stillavailable online.

http://www.vanillaplus.com/2015/06/26/9444-how-one-oss-company-was-built-from-an-unanswered-need-to-see-customers/

Oracle Communications virtualisesproducts to support NFV initiative

Oracle has released four products thatunderscore its commitment to providecommunications service providers (CSPs)with a fully virtualised, network functionvirtualisation (NFV)-ready system portfolio.With new releases of Oracle CommunicationsSession Border Controller, OracleCommunications Converged ApplicationServer, Oracle Communications ServicesGatekeeper, and Oracle CommunicationsPolicy Management, Oracle is to helpCSPs conquer the layers of complexityinherent in bridging physical and virtualenvironments as they continue on theirjourney toward NFV.

http://www.vanillaplus.com/2015/06/23/9336-oracle-communications-virtualises-products-to-support-nfv-initiative/

The VanillaPlusEditorial AdvisoryBoard is in theprocess of addingnew members.We’re delighted toannounce thatMartin Morgan,the vice president ofmarketing atOpenet and JustinPaul, the head of

OSS marketing at Amdocs have agreed tojoin the refreshed line up and we arepoised to make further announcements inthe coming weeks.

Martin Morgan has more than 25 years’experience in mobile communicationssoftware and has worked in mobile billingsince the earliest days of the industry. Aprolific conference speaker and

contributor to thetelecoms tradepress, he hasserved on tradeassociation andcompany boards.At Openet, he isresponsible formarketing thoughtleadership andmarket interaction.

Justin Paul has worked in 17 years inproduct marketing and productmanagement roles for telecomscompanies. Prior to joining Amdocs in2013 he worked as an independentconsultant to the Scottish Government –Digital Strategy and Programmes teamrunning a technology innovation projectthat covered areas such as M2M, mobilebackhaul, social housing Wi-Fi and small

cell deployment.

He has worked for Airwave, the UK PublicSafety Network operator (TETRA) as headof product marketing, running the productmanagement, partner management andsolution architecture organisations. Inaddition, he has worked at Alcatel-Lucentas head of segment marketing for mobilefor the UK and Ireland; at Logica as headof business development for IntelligentNetworks; and at Nokia NetworksNetherlands as a system marketingmanager working on 3G networks.

Further board announcements areexpected shortly and we are especiallykeen to increase our members from theCSP sector globally. If you would like toput yourself or a colleague forward pleasecontact the editor, George Malim, at:[email protected]

Hot on VanillaPlus.com this issue

New appointments to the VanillaPlus Editorial Advisory Board

Lucas Skoczkowski

Nan Chen

W H A T ’ S O N L I N E T H I S I S S U E


Martin Morgan, themarketing managerof Openet

Justin Paul, the headof OSS marketing atAmdocs

BILL &CHARGE

Are CSPs ready for an on-demand, real-time world?

PLATINUM SPONSOR: SILVER SPONSOR:GOLD SPONSORS:

CONTENTS17 TALKING HEADS: CSPs CAN’T SAVE THEIR WAY TO GREATNESS Openet’s Joe Hogan says communications service providers (CSPs) need to move from a mentality of saving costs to one of creating new sources of revenue

20 BILL & CHARGE ANALYST REPORT Our specially-commissioned analyst report, authored by Karl Whitelock, the director of global strategy for Operations, Orchestration, Data Analysis and Monetisation at Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan and Troy Morley, a strategy analyst at Stratecast | Frost & Sulllivan

30 EXPERT OIPNION Eyal Amit and Jonah Pransky argue that billing and charging are critical enablers of great CEM

32 REAL-TIME CHARGING Jonny Evans says the BSS happy hour can last a little longer

34 INTERVIEW Redknee’s Chris Newton-Smith tells George Malim why CSPs of all types are turning to cloud and SaaS for billing and charging delivery

37 DIGITAL SERVICE Alam Gill explains why innovation in the digital world requires CSPs to let go of their heritage

39 EXPERT OPINION Vic Bozzo says it’s time CSPs get their M2M partner settlement ducks in a row

17TALKING HEADSJoe Hogan

32REAL-TIME CHARGING

34INTERVIEWChris Newton-Smith

37DIGITAL SERVICES

VanillaPlus Insight June/July 2015



IN ASSOCIATION WITH OPENET

Communications service providers (CSPs) need to move from a mentality of saving coststo one of creating new sources of revenue. Those can come from effective use of CSPdata, greater exploitation of the customer relationship and improved agility and flexibilityto introduce new services over virtualised networks, Joe Hogan, the founder and chieftechnology officer of Openet, tells VanillaPlus

anillaPlus: Every day we see CSPscutting prices and increasing datavolumes in bundles. Does this signify arace to the bottom and thecommoditisation of data? If so, how can

CSPs move from a commodity model to sellingbased on value?

Joe Hogan: The race to the bottom is happeningamong CSPs that are in danger of commoditising data

CSPs can’t save their way togreatness, new offers andservices will be their salvation

V

TA L K I N G H E A D S

�

Joe Hogan: BSS needs toenable CSPs to rapidlydevelop, launch andmonetise new offers

if they just sell data as a product. Every week we seeanother CSP announce data increases in their basicbundles and associated price cuts. This is fine ifyou’ve got a new source of revenue to compensatefor the loss but if you don’t, then there is a real dangerthat data could be commoditised.

We are seeing CSPs develop new revenue sources –from selling more products and services to looking atnew business models. Working with content partnersand upselling television, entertainment and musicservices, for example, is happening. Also providingbetter direct customer engagement is helping boostrevenues, such as from selling roaming passes oradd-ons. Either a data block at the end of the month,or a content upsell is helping augment the fixedmonthly data bundle revenues.

BSS needs to enable CSPs to rapidly develop, launchand monetise new offers – this is often not possiblewith service heavy legacy systems. BSS needs to beall real-time, have a centralised offer catalogue thatcan enable fast time to market for many, manymore offers.

VP: With free Wi-Fi becoming increasinglywidespread and reports that between 60-70% ofmobile data traffic currently being carried by Wi-Fi, is there a danger that CSPs could even loseout in the fight for basic connectivity? How canthey better harness Wi-Fi to their advantage?

JH: The importance of Wi-Fi is increasing. Just look atthe connectivity models for Google’s Project Fi. It’ll beWi-Fi connectivity where possible and then LTE as afallback. As long as the quality is good customersprobably don’t know and don’t care over whattechnology their mobile data is going. The key pointhere is that the customer will be happy as long as thequality is good. CSPs are selling high-speed LTEservices, people are watching television on theirdevices so the network experience must be goodotherwise customer will turn off.

In order to deliver the type of network experiencecustomers expect there is a role to play for networkselection intelligence. This is a combination of ANDSF(access network detection and selection function) andpolicy management. This not only identifies availableWi-Fi hotspots for offloading data traffic to but alsocan measure the quality of the Wi-Fi hotspot and alsoset the rules as to what traffic goes to Wi-Fi and whatstays on LTE. This could mean video traffic for some

types of customers on certain devices getsoffloaded, for example.

The cost saving implications of using Wi-Fi are hugebut in order to take full advantage, CSPs need toensure that they’re delivering the quality of servicesthat customers expect. The impact on BSS is that asCSPs look at multiple access methods – LTE, LTE-Uand Wi-Fi there does need to be a capability to extendpolicy to the device to ensure the customer networkexperience is as expected.

In many cases CSPs are losing out to free Wi-Fi. Someprepaid customers top up infrequently and then don’teven bother switching mobile data on. They use publicand free Wi-Fi. CSPs are offering service passes thatstress the convenience of cellular data as well as lowcost. For example, we see CSPs in some countriesoffer a one-day, 50MB data pass. We’ve also seenapplication service passes where CSPs offer a servicepass for WhatsApp. This is low cost and allows onlythe use of WhatsApp. We’ve seen this in countrieswith a large migrant workforce that uses WhatsApp tocall their family back home. Here the CSPs stressedthe low cost and convenience of WhatsApp servicepass, as opposed to walking around shopping mallsor public libraries trying to get free Wi-Fi.

VP: One of the main assets that CSPs have istheir customer base but when you compare thelevel of engagement a CSP has with itscustomers, compared to a say, Facebook orLinkedIn, there’s no comparison. Is it fair to saythat CSPs are not engaging with their customerbase and therefore are at risk of ignoring theirmost valuable asset?

JH: Yes, a CSP’s customer base is their mostimportant asset, but they have to ask some very hardquestions of how relevant they are to their customerbase and measure themselves against the competition.In this case competition can be the digital serviceproviders such as Google, Facebook or LinkedIn.These companies engage with mobile customers dayin, day out and, more importantly, customers engagewith them. The main reason is relevance. On thewhole most CSPs don’t really engage that much withtheir customers. Many customers just get a billemailed to them once a month, and some don’t evenopen the email. If they’re lucky they’ll get a call from acall centre once a year asking them if they’re happywith the service. The level of engagement is not great.Which is strange as CSPs have the data that can drive

�


TA L K I N G H E A D S

IN ASSOCIATION WITH OPENET

The cost savingimplications ofusing Wi-Fi are

huge but in order totake full advantage,

CSPs need toensure that they’re

delivering thequality of services

that customersexpect

meaningful, personalised and relevant customerengagement. For example, a subscriber spends a lotof time streaming music to their phone – perhapsthey’d like to try a free month of Spotify premium?

BSS needs to be able to drive real-time, relevantcustomer engagement – from upselling a new serviceto providing a customer notification on a loyalty offer.CSPs already have the data in their systems – the keyis harnessing this data and turning it into relevant andtimely intelligence to drive customer engagement.

VP: We hear about BSS moving to all real-time,but what about functions like businessintelligence? These have traditionally usedhistorical data to build a view of customers. Isthere an opportunity for real-time network andusage data to enhance business intelligence?

JH: As BSS moves towards all real-time so does theopportunity to use the data collected for deeperanalytics and to drive customer offers. BSS collectsdata on customer behaviour and usage in real-timeand this is passed to a data warehouse where it can beused to provide historical business intelligence, suchas churn propensity score, lifetime value, net promoterscore and customer experience indicators. However,while data warehouses provide a good historical viewof customer behaviour, they don’t provide a picture ofwhat’s happening here and now. This why streaminganalytics is being used on real-time data so that it canalso be used to provide a real-time trigger, along withthe historical customer business intelligence, toactivate context-aware offers.

The problem is not all CSPs are providing real-timecontext-aware offers, so many are missing out onadditional revenue streams. Traditional upsell offers arenot real-time; they are usually based on pre-plannedschedules or off-line processing based on historicactivity. Whilst CSPs continue to create innovativedata services to generate more revenue, they may notbe maximising their revenue potential with traditionalupsell approaches. Every time there is an opportunityto upsell, CSPs should be able to do so. This meanshaving the capability to take into account the real-timeand historical customer context to send the mostsuitable offers to their device in real-time; customersshould then be able to purchase and activate theservices instantly. The context can be based on acombination of historical and real-time data includingthe subscriber activity, usage, application accessed,location, profile and more. By enabling such real-time

contextual offers, CSPs can maximise upsellopportunities and the chances of uptake bycustomers as they receive the most relevant offers atthe most opportune time. In a recent survey of 87operators by Openet, respondents indicated that theycould increase offer uptake rates by 75% and datarevenues by 15% if they could deliver real-timecontextual offers.

VP: CSPs are reducing their network and ITcapex and opex budgets. Does this make themmore vulnerable, or is this a result of new dawnof agility and implementation of NFV and SDN?

JH: Reduction of capex and opex budgets are all partof CSPs becoming leaner and more agileorganisations. SDN (software defined networking) andNFV (network functions virtualisation) are playing amajor role here. CSPs are looking to turn up servicesin minutes rather than months. With CSPs looking atNFV it’s important to examine how NFV impacts BSS.Many CSPs’ existing network operations models andOSS/BSS systems are not prepared for emerging newtechnologies like NFV.

New thinking is required on how legacy OSS/BSSsystems will need to evolve in order to support NFV.Simply extending existing OSS/BSS models toaccount for virtualisation will not be sufficient, becausethis approach will not support the new value-addedcapabilities and services provided by NFV. In addition,there is also the need for real-time processing of ahuge amount of data, including data analytics, basedon several data sources. Structured and unstructureddata from the infrastructure is a further key challengein the OSS/BSS and NFV context.

On its own, network functions virtualisation is notenough. NFV concepts need to be applied in theOSS/BSS to deliver on the promises of NFV such asagility, reduced total cost of ownership, increasedelasticity and greater service availability. This isparticularly important for policy and chargingfunctions. There is little point in having a dynamicnetwork if the monetising, access control, andrevenue handling systems are not similarly endowed.

The nirvana, which is five to ten years away, is runningNFV over SDN and that is where the capex and opexreductions will really become significant. It will come insteps but if you’re just hacking away at budgets youwon’t get the agility you need to stay in business. Idon’t think you can save your way to greatness.


www.openet.com

As BSS movestowards all real-time so does theopportunity to usethe data collectedfor deeper analyticsand to drivecustomer offers


Globally, the vast majority of consumers receivebroadband access through a mobile networkoperator. But, customers continue to ask why is itso hard for these operators to offer servicesthrough the same type of self-care mechanism asinternet-based retailers do and at the speed of theinternet as well? Must all customers subscribe tothe same data plan offerings? Are pick and chooseservice options something of a nirvana that cannotbe delivered by the global CSP community atlarge? Are there alternative ways to pay the bill forservice access beyond a pre-defined pricing plan orprepaid data usage bucket? From these andseveral other questions, it is easy to see that whatcustomers really want is a better experience based

on their expectations from working with internetretailers and ecommerce providers.

Billing and charging solutions installed to addressthe consumer services market more than five toseven years ago were implemented as solutionsilos tied to support for a particular type of networktechnology, with little thought about the overallcustomer experience involving services frompotentially multiple service silos such as voice,broadband and video. These systems containmultiple databases, duplicated functionality, and areintegrated through rigidly-defined businessprocesses. But times have changed and businessrequirements today are much more complex. In

The authors are Karl Whitelock, the director of global strategy for Operations, Orchestration, Data Analysis andMonetisation (ODAM) at Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan (left) and Troy Morley, strategy analyst for ODAM at Stratecast |Frost & Sullivan (right)

ntil approximately four years ago, automation of the charging and billingprocesses centred almost exclusively on the business-to-consumer (B2C)model in support of millions of customers. The largest part of any mobile

and fixed-line communications service provider (CSP) business today continuesto focus on the business challenges from consumers. And for good reason.Addressing the service and billing needs of millions of customers is not easy andcomes with multiple business challenges

Introduction

U

ANALYSTREPORT


fact, it is not uncommon to hear the frustration ofCSP chief marketing officers (CMOs) – the installedbusiness and operations support systems,especially the monetisation systems, areconstraining the CMO’s ability to increase revenueby attracting new customers and in introducingnew services.

Enter the world of real-time monetisation solutionsdesigned around the customer experience. Thesenew solutions incorporate the benefits of policymanagement with real-time rating and chargingalong with contextual awareness and nearinstantaneous customer notification. Discussionabout the real-time world of charging and billing forconsumer services is the first part of this story.Though very important, B2C (business-to-consumer)is not the full billing and charging story thecommunications marketplace must address today.

With the advent of cloud services, some of thebilling industry momentum tied to consumers hasshifted to the back office business-to-business(B2B) relationships that make complex serviceswork for the B2C marketplace. B2B wholesale

relationships are the lifeblood for any large businessor enterprise. However, the operations andmonetisation needs of the B2B world are similar,but still different, from those that support B2Cretail services.

In the pursuit of providing customers a betterexperience, most industries are not only blendingmobile communications capabilities with the goodsand services they have always delivered, butnetwork technology advances, computingdynamics and data storage capacity are allowingthem to bring to market solutions that extend wellbeyond their traditional business focus. Such newmarket solutions include shopping malls that bringcustomers and retailers together through onlineaccess, to better facilitate customer interaction.Other solutions involve healthcare institutions thatprovide gourmet cooking clinics as part of apatient’s wellness programme; automobiles withmobile access; insurance services based onconsumption and driver performance; and supportof other customer needs within industries such aspublic services, education, publishing, financialservices, logistics and the transportation sector.

Figure 1: The global communications marketplace is at the centre of the transformation experiencestrategy of all other industries

Multi-part business ecosystems are redefining how thecommunications marketplace of the future will address theneeds of industry from the Internet of Things (IoT) solutions tovirtual services offerings. Operations and monetisationcapabilities within the B2B world form the second part of thecharging and billing story.

Consumer-focused B2Ccharging and billingThe global billing solution supplier community has done a goodjob with delivering systems that can address the end-to-endbilling process for the consumer-based marketplace. However,most installed solutions lack a real-time element, and havegrown together in a tightly woven architecture that was neverdesigned to address rapid change or market-based serviceinnovation. In fact, most CSPs believe the greatest businesschallenge they presently face in meeting the needs of newbusiness opportunity is directly linked to the multi-systembusiness solution environment they now maintain. Timelychange management and system redefinition often fall short ofexpectations, especially when modifications across multi-vendor functions require market-speed flexibility.

Many CSPs still have multi-vendor business solution architecturesToday’s competitive mobile services environment involvesapplications, content and cloud services suppliers working withnetwork operators to rapidly deliver innovative, optimised, and

value-added customer service offerings. For many CSPs,installed systems and processes no longer meet the needs oftoday’s business environment. Yet, today, rapidly-emergingcompetitors are making a big play for customer attention,customer mindshare, customer loyalty and the customer’spocketbook. CSP competitors such as Amazon, Apple,Facebook and Google, have a very different IT-systems mindsetand solution structure that enables a fast and adaptableresponse to customer needs, and rapid optimisationcapabilities developed in the internet industry.

CSP systems have remained divided into functionality sets tiedto various business processes from their earliest beginnings.The end-to-end monetisation process, often supported througha multi-vendor best-of-breed environment, consists ofmediation, policy management, rating and charging, invoicing,collections, customer notifications, partner settlements andnow, usage insight analysis. This environment provides apowerful ability to address the needs of millions of customerswith a relatively small number of service offerings. However,when business change is rampant, and competitive pressuresare significant, a lack of configurable systems and flexibleprocesses fails to satisfy rapidly emerging customeropportunities. This level of change often requires simultaneousupdates across all systems. In spite of disparate IT systemssuppliers’ valiant efforts to keep pace with change, agility andflexibility is simply not practical in a multi-vendor and multi-system integrated architecture.

Systems silos across several customer management,

ANALYSTREPORT


Figure 2: Real-time charging and revenue management systems for consumer billing

monetisation and service assurance processes operate in aless than optimally-defined solution definition environment.Systems silos tend to create data duplication issues,functionality mismatches, cost excesses, upgrade complexity,slow responsiveness to market change and, ultimately,dissatisfied customers.

To interact, monitor and understand end-user behaviourrequires real-time functions and services such as real-time self-service and real-time policy-enabled charging. Real-time end-user interaction is also required for contextual customernotifications and optimal offer conversion. This user engagementcapability is a critical gap that is significantly limited by mobilecarriers in comparison to internet services competitors.

An inflexible monetisation environment is no longer conduciveto meeting the rapidly-changing business needs defined by newnetwork technologies, virtual networking and virtual data centreservices. A lack of responsiveness from existing systems andprocesses leaves a gap that can negatively affect the way newbusiness models are enacted and consumer needs areaddressed. If left unchecked, such gaps will result in missedcommitments, lost opportunities and unmet financial objectives.

Cloud-based mobile services enablement architectureWith the realization of cloud-based software solutiontechnology, important differences exist between what can bedelivered by traditionally integrated multi-system, multi-supplierbusiness support architectures, and what is now possiblethrough a cloud-based, single supplier design focused on theneeds of mobile customers.

To compete in an increasingly aggressive market, CSPs shouldconsider a solution in the newly emerged category of customer-engaged mobile services enablement. The three definingelements of this architecture are:

• Agile cloud-based service platform – To enable service agility and service innovation, CSPs need to move key mobile business support functions to a single integrated business logic stack and database. For operational efficiency and rapid responsiveness to change, this stack should reside in a cloud-based environment defined by a single supplier. A

multi-supplier cloud-based configuration would be subject to the same limitations that presently-deployed solution architectures suffer when a rapid response to changing market conditions is needed. A single supplier cloud-based approach always provides a solution with the most recent features and functions. This integrated stack is not related to network functions virtualisation (NFV), which is tied to the network traffic plane.

• Contextual user engagement – To efficiently reach the customer, the solution stack includes a new architecture element – the user engagement platform – which is essential and fundamentally designed to work with on-device, real- time user experience software to: - Sense the current real-time context of the user: what is the user doing now? - Deliver real-time, on-device interaction, based on user context, to help users understand their service or ecommerce options; and to complete transactions including service purchases based on those options. - Be definable by business logic in the back-end, and be adaptable in real-time. - Set mobile services policy to address issues concerning network efficiency. - Provide on-device, out-of-the-box, account and device activation capability.

• Integrated service creation environment – To truly allow service innovation by the network operator, the system must be managed by a single, secure web environment to allow a small team of marketing and IT professionals to very quickly design, beta test, perfect and commercially launch the following aspects for services and ecommerce offers: - Service plan offering catalogue, service allowances for each plan, pricing for each plan, on-device catalogue appearance/branding for each plan, on-device contextual marketing triggers for offering plans and services with immediate user actionable notifications. - ecommerce offering catalogue with pricing and contextual marketing triggers for offering ecommerce goods and services on-device. - On-device marketing via user interface (UI) notification definitions, and contextual trigger conditions to present


actionable marketing offers. - Integrated segmentation capability for targeted services, and improved monetisation and sub-brand creation, plus micro segmentation for agile new service testing.

Major reductions in IT vendor costs accrue when moving from amulti-vendor, hardware-based architecture with high IT projectcosts, to a cloud-based, single supplier service creationsolution. In addition, a rapid service definition and deploymentprocess allows CMOs to validate winning services ideas withcustomers, which reduces the cost associated with launchingnew services. It also eliminates the sizeable percentage of theIT and marketing budgets associated with unsuccessful servicelaunches. Such actions free resources for promoting the mostproven services on a larger scale.

The benefits from a cloud-based mobile servicesenablement solutionA cloud-based mobile services enablement architecture wouldbe comprised of various software modules that display solutionflexibility when market conditions change or customer servicepreferences transform. The solution would involve customerinteraction and reduce the need for custom softwaredevelopment. It would also sharply decrease the time-to-marketneeded by more traditional approaches. The advantages of thistype of mobile enablement solution are:

• On-device presence and user engagement – Within a cloud-based business solution construct, on-device user engagement and ecommerce enablement can be designed into the mobile services solution. User context awareness, analytics and on-device policy enhancement can all be made available. Incorporating these functions in a common set of business logic and tightly integrated functional modules results in a holistic architectural approach to a mobile operator’s business needs. This solution environment can also deliver flexible service offerings and ecommerce capabilities at a lower implementation cost compared to traditionally defined solutions. Most, if not all, of the

functionality to support new service ideas is already included in the solution.

• Best of breed service experience – Modern mobile born- in-the-cloud competitors and cloud-client solution providers have used the power of devices to uplift their value proposition towards end-users. By incorporating different categories of devices into the design of a solution, a more elegant and compelling user experience is developed to engage customers; for example, discovering new services in a contextual fashion, enabling a one-click purchase customer journey and transforming the perceived value of the CSP offering.

• Solution flexibility and agility – A cloud-based, single- supplier, mobile services environment would manage all aspects of service policy, rating and charging, ecommerce and user engagement through a seamless set of business logic, without the functional boundaries imposed by API integrations. Through this approach, end-users are exposed to new service offerings via a product catalogue. The catalogue can address individualised customer service plans, and handle any level of change without incorporating the time-consuming step of an IT project to define, update, test and then release software each time change is needed. In addition, on-device user content can be incorporated to qualify all aspects of network policy, self-help user interaction, and ecommerce offers. The cloud-based mobile services approach delivers a seamless end-to-end design of service and user experience.

• Rapid innovation through an integrated service creation environment – All aspects of network policy, pricing, charging and on-device user self-care for new service offers are programmed into a single graphical service design and deployment environment. This type of approach eliminates IT project time – and cost – associated with updating each system and API definition. The cloud-based mobile service architecture and service creation environment enables CSPs

ANALYSTREPORT



to rapidly create, test, optimise and then launch new consumer services in a matter of weeks rather than the months that are typical when defining new services through the traditional service creation process.

The rapid service design model, which an integrated, cloud-based, mobile services solution enables, allows a CSP to market-test and optimise multiple service offerings in the time a traditional monetisation architecture could launch a single service. This technology actually eliminates certain steps within the traditional service delivery model because the rapid design model incorporates some service creation steps as built in capabilities.

Another advantage of the rapid service design model is that multiple service ideas can be tested simultaneously with different customer groups, thereby accelerating the pace of responsiveness to changing market conditions. Still another advantage for any CSP engaging in this rapid service design approach would be quick recognition by its customer base as an innovator of services and capabilities designed by direct customer feedback. Such a label is what breeds customer loyalty.

Enterprise-engaged B2B charging and billingCSPs are challenged today to address the billing needs ofbundled network services such as voice, text messaging anddata access for their consumer and small business customers.They have the added challenge of profitably providingbroadband connectivity to their enterprise customers; andmanaging multiple B2B relationships with solution partners forseveral new business endeavours – some of which includemcommerce, cloud-based virtual services, IoT communicationsand enterprise use of mobility services within their productofferings to deliver a more enhanced experience for theircustomers. Monetising this complexity, including compensationto a growing number of business solution partners as revenueis received from customers, means that CSPs must adopt newbusiness strategies, new business models and new business

management solutions.

• B2B services need flexibility and negotiable pricing Enterprises demand personalised and individualised contracts containing service definitions and pricing agreements that are unique to the organisation. In addition to usage-based charges, enterprise monthly billing requirements involve complex components such as service packaging and pricing without restrictions, monetisation of managed services, and pricing based on a variety of business models. Addressing these needs requires a flexible and configurable approach to service selection, pricing and usage monitoring.

Enterprise B2B agreements are binding business contracts that define the terms and conditions that an enterprise negotiates with its services supplier for each of its data service and applications options. The contract contains pricing discounts, loyalty focus and payment schedules for these services. In addition, an emerging table-stakes requirement for any deal now is the provider’s ability to show consumption tracking against agreed upon terms. This level of tracking is essential to prevent enterprise-level bill shock and to eliminate endless manual calculations in determining how charges are computed, and whether they are part of an agreement. Automating such tracking capabilities within the regularly delivered enterprise payments invoice would save onsiderable reconciliation time for both the data services provider and the enterprise.

Stratecast believes that enterprise data services providers need the business support infrastructure to innovate their own pricing and selling models; and that they must have the ability to distribute and monetise their offerings to customers and partners in a fully automated manner. Without this capability, these providers will struggle to meet the market demands of an increasing customer base, as they continuously update their customised business support solutions.


• Monetisation of enterprise data services is no simple task Enterprise data services take on many forms, and quickly create behind-the-scenes complexity for the service provisioning, business management, and monetisation processes. For example, enterprises typically purchase broadband connectivity from one or more network operators according to geographic coverage needs, pricing flexibility and service availability. This provides evidence from the general enterprise marketplace that CSPs are the best suppliers of network connectivity. Enterprises also purchase data centre services such as unified communications, remote data storage, elastic bandwidth, and computing capacity from one or more cloud services providers. In addition, enterprises purchase cloud-based applications including ERP, customer care, office automation, sales management and specialty applications from these same cloud services providers; or, in some cases, directly from the developer, according to business relationships and service needs.

While some enterprises are now considering network access and virtualised data centre services from a single supplier, setting aside the reasons for this trend and focusing on the enterprise market in general, the most important aspect associated with enterprise customer billing is the need by enterprise customers for unique contract agreements and the tracking of usage to agreement terms.

These agreements are based on numerous factors, such as the enterprise customer’s changing business needs, willingness to spend and flexibility demands pertaining to pricing options, usage discounts, loyalty focus and brand awareness. In addition, there is a high probability that different partners will be involved with the delivery and maintenance of each service combination package that a cloud service provider sells. From a monetisation perspective, this means complexity as services are billed, revenue is collected and partners are compensated.

Managing the impact from multiple terms and conditions for each exchange or use of goods or services – an event – can be complex, but necessary to provide proper accountability

of charges and distribution of payments. In addition, business needs can change quickly; so, to swiftly negotiate or change agreement terms enables a service provider to differentiate in this complex environment by adapting to the needs of new markets, new business models, or competition.

Given the complexity associated with virtual service offerings, or enterprise-level services of any kind, the monetisation processes should fit the business model a company chooses to run, rather than forcing the business model to match what the billing system can address. Billing systems should also allow a company to define its products and pricing strategies in a way that provides flexibility to react to changing market and customer needs at the speed of business, not at the speed of IT, which is usually measured in weeks or months.

• The key requirements for addressing enterprise B2B billing complexity To better understand the complexities that virtual services now bring, key requirements that a billing solution should address in support of today’s new business realities include:

Pricing models – Pricing model support should include on-demand, reserved, usage-based, location-based, free trials, promotions, bundling, peak and off-peak business scenarios.

Usage rating for hybrid clouds – Usage rating must include support for any computing model; allow creation of product bundles from multiple sources; and bill channels or partners for the components defining each.

Chargeback for private clouds – Deliver ability to chargeback or bill IT departments that use transfer pricing and departmental chargeback policies.

Corporate and settlement hierarchies – Allow for configurable billing and settlement hierarchies, including grouped commitments across corporate hierarchies.

Virtual bundle support – Allow service bundle billing

ANALYSTREPORT


based on partner contributions and revenue sharing agreements.

Channel compensation and multi-party settlement – Manage channel behavior through creative compensation options – incentives, discounts, and penalties – and support multi-party settlement – retainer, residual, shared, and settled. Settlements should include ability to handle multi-party agreements where a single transaction can involve three or more relationships.

Enterprise agreements – Support individualised negotiation for enterprise agreements.

Online bill – Provide customisable online billing with re-branding for partners and customers.

Dynamic scaling – Dynamically scale to flexibly accommodate peak periods, including bursting from private to public clouds.

Product changes – Ability to change product pricing quickly – in hours or at most days – to respond to market demand and competition positioning.

Combined payments processing – Account for enterprise customer billing and third-party payments, commissions and incentives from the same platform.

SLA enforcement – Provide automated support for contract commitments tied to service level agreements (SLAs). Though this is less of a function of billing and more a concern of the service delivery and quality of service processes, it is an important topic for network operators and cloud providers. Regardless of the exact terms and conditions an SLA agreement may require, a clear audit path defining all billing-related customer charges and partner settlement payments is essential for not only the customer and partner management processes, but the SLA management function as well. Beyond both of these, such detailed accountability is mandatory to satisfy corporate governance requirements.

ConclusionDigital service personalisation has changed the course ofdirection for nearly all CSPs throughout the world.Unfortunately, most installed systems do not allow them toreact to changing market conditions quickly enough to take fulladvantage of the opportunities the market now provides.

The longer-term billing implication is that as customer servicesare consumed, all parts of the end-to-end service definition andsupply chain process must be reconciled in shorter and shorterintervals. To achieve future business success, it is imperativethat new service offers and new business models not besaddled with the limitations of currently defined systems thatcan not show a high degree of flexibility and configurabilityalong with the business processes they support.

Some billing suppliers understand the changing businesslandscape, inside and outside the communications sector, andare now satisfying those needs with solutions originally intendedto address complexities found only within the communicationsindustry. The difference between suppliers that can support thebilling needs of multiple industries, lies in how these systemsare engineered. The complexities of the continuously changingCSP environment, to include simultaneous support for multiplebusiness models will no doubt affect the way billing suppliersmeet the future needs of this changing environment.

If a single billing solution, initially made for the communicationsindustry, can simultaneously address hundreds of businessmodels that define the operations needs of complex enterprisesin multiple industries, such as a large international airport today,imagine what could be accomplished with a similar solution inmeeting the business relationship and monetisation needs ofbusiness strategies yet to be defined.


COMPANYPROFILES

Company summary

Founded 1982

HQ Chesterfield, Missouri, United States

Employees More than 22,000

Revenue US$3,564 million (2014)

Customers Over 250 CSPs in 80 countries worldwide. Key customers include: AT&T, Bell Canada, BT, Comcast, Deutsche Telecom, MetroPCS, Sprint, Telefónica, T-Mobile, Verizon and Vodafone.

Partnerships Strategic partnerships with EMC, HP and IBM. A wide range of partnerships with systems integrators and independent software vendors.

Financial Status Publicly Traded (NASDAQ:DOX)

Bill and charge products

Amdocs Customer Amdocs CES brings together a full suite ofExperience OSS/BSS functionality, including revenue Solutions (CES) management. A selection of revenue management related offerings include: • Amdocs Convergent Charging – Real-time convergent charging across all services, networks and customer types. • Amdocs Policy Controller – Serves as the policy decision function, providing real-time usage metering, and service control for advanced data services. Ties in closely with the convergent charging engine. • Amdocs Master Enterprise Catalogue – Centralised data repository that manages all products defined through various CES modules and external OSS/BSS. • Amdocs Mediation – The mediation platform supports all networks, services and processing modes. It operates in real-time or batch mode, with active or passive interaction. • Amdocs Partner Management – Provides a comprehensive partner management and settlement system to support the complete partnership lifecycle. • Amdocs Invoicing – Creates all charges, including recurring charges, discounts, taxes and invoice totals. • Amdocs Accounts Receivable – Enables CSPs to gain an instant and accurate snapshot of their financial position at any given time. • Amdocs Collection – Facilitates an accurate and manageable collection process.

Key differentiation and competitive pressures

Amdocs meets the OSS BSS functionality needs of any size of CSP asshown by its current customer base. The Amdocs CES solutionmodules operate as pre-integrated suites or as standalones accordingto functional need. Amdocs features a global services organistion toinstall and operate its solutions. The company has a strong innovativespirit that allows it to address the needs of any organisation, whilemaintaining a leadership position within the global billing marketplace.

Company summary

Founded 1999

HQ Dublin, Ireland

Employees More than 800

Revenue Undisclosed

Customers Key customers include: AT&T, A1 Telekom Austria, Bell, Charter Communications, CTBC, Orange Group, Softbank, Sprint, Telus, Time Warner Cable, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Videotron and Vodafone.

Partnerships A wide range of partnerships with equipment vendors, systems integrators and independent software suppliers.

Financial Status Privately held


Openet High performance framework utilised by all of the Fusionworks company’s modular software products. TheFramework framework centralises common functionality, provides support for custom logic and eases integration.

Openet Policy Enables CSPs to dynamically control network Manager resources with real-time policies based on service, subscriber, or usage context. These policy rules do not just control network capacity and quality of service, but also enable new business models and innovative new services.

Openet Evolved Pre-integrated with the Openet Policy Manager, Charging Openet Evolved Charging can be deployed as a standalone online charging system or as an adjunct system. It supports spend alerts to reduce bill shock, dynamic pricing models with real-time notification triggers, shared device plans with usage dashboards, and service bundling – for fixed and mobile, family plans and dual persona enterprise plans.

Openet An enterprise-wide platform with the scalabilityConvergent and configurability to address the billing mediation, Mediation network event processing and data collection challenges within fragmented and diverse operator networks.


Openet offers a real-time data collection, analysis and managementsolution capable of addressing both customer experience and businessmanagement needs. Its data management capabilities can beconfigured to address multiple mediation, rating and charging, or policyrequirements. The company has proven it can deliver on the datamanagement challenges for some of the largest CSPs in the world.Competition within the rating, charging, mediation and now dataanalysis domain space is fierce, but Openet continues to remainaggressive and innovative in addressing the changing needs of thecommunications marketplace.


Company summary

Founded 1996

HQ Vienna, Virginia, United States

Employees 160

Revenue Undisclosed

Customers Global customer base includes tier one CSPs and OTT providers in Asia, Europe, North America and South America. Key customers are: América Móvil, AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Twilio, Sprint, Switchco, Telefónica and Verizon.

Partnerships The Telarix Technology Alliance Partner Programme includes: Amdocs, Arptel, Ascom, IceHook, NxtGn, PurgeFraud and XConnect.

Financial Status Privately held


Telarix iXTools The company’s solutions focus on wholesale charging and billing. A selection of revenue management functions addressed by the iXTools suite include: • iXBill – Ensures billable activities are captured, rated and billed, allowing CSPs to address agreement types and rating scenarios such as multi-party settlements and revenue sharing partnerships. • iXConnect – Is a business intelligence platform, for collecting and managing information. iXConnect defines and manages agreements between CSPs and partners, and applies rates to different types of traffic within the scope of each agreement. • iXRoute – Enables CSPs to identify and implement optimal routing strategies, to keep the network profitable. • iXTrade – Allows CSPs to simplify and automate the buying, pricing and selling processes within the wholesale interconnect business. • iXAudit – Streamlines the validation of interconnect invoices, reconcile charges, and manage settlements.

Telarix iXLink iXLink is an information exchange platform that enables CSPs to automate theexchange of business documents for the interconnect processes and toelectronically share documents, such as pricing quotes, rate and dial codechanges, numbering plans, invoices and declarations. iXLink has more than 4,000members with 40 million transactions monthly.


Telarix addresses what it calls interconnect business optimisation, which aims formore efficient carrier-to-carrier relationships through its portfolio of wholesalesolutions. iXTools can be a pre-integrated suite or delivered as standalonemodules. The iXLink exchange service allows members to apply business rulesthat are specific to each partner and/or service to validate transactions, meetinternal business objectives and capture errors so that the sender can be notifiedimmediately. Telarix is a market leader within the wholesale charging and billingdomain, though it continues to face competitive pressure from other suppliers andclearinghouses.

About StratecastStratecast collaborates with our clients to reachsmart business decisions in the rapidly evolvingand hyper-competitive Information andCommunications Technology markets. Using a mixof action-oriented subscription research andcustomised consulting engagements, Stratecastdelivers knowledge and perspective that is onlyattainable through years of real-world experience inan industry where customers are collaborators;today’s partners are tomorrow’s competitors; andagility and innovation are essential elements forsuccess. Contact your Stratecast AccountExecutive to engage our experience to assist you inattaining your growth objectives.

About Frost & SullivanFrost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company,works in collaboration with clients to utilise visionaryinnovation that addresses the global challenges andrelated growth opportunities that will make or breaktoday’s market participants. For more than 50years, we have been developing growth strategiesfor the Global 1000, emerging businesses, thepublic sector and the investment community. Is yourorganisation prepared for the next profound wave ofindustry convergence, disruptive technologies,increasing competitive intensity, Mega Trends,breakthrough best practices, changing customerdynamics and emerging economies? For moreinformation about Frost & Sullivan’s GrowthPartnership Services, visit www.frost.com.


As communications service providers (CSPs) focus more and more on creating differentiationthrough superior customer experience management, it has become clear that billing andcharging are critical enablers of great CEM, write Eyal Amit and Jonah Pransky

ut a group of different telecoms professionalsin a room, mention customer experiencemanagement, and each person will thinkyou’re talking specifically to them – that’s howfocused the telecoms industry has become

on how to deliver the right customer experience. Soyou’ve got the network engineers bringing up quality ofservice and experience, the care team talking aboutcall handling and resolution, and with the billing team,it’s all about bill accuracy and clarity.

They’re not wrong though – customer experiencemanagement definitely means different things todifferent people, but you can break it down into twomajor aspects.

• The experience your customer has when actually consuming your products• The experience the consumer has when interacting with their service provider

Most of the customer’s daily experience is aboutbeing a consumer, when they are actually using theirdevices and applications. Unless quality of service iseither really good or really bad, the service providerisn’t consciously – or actively – associated with thisdaily experience.

Yet there are also those moments when the consumerbehaves like a customer – shopping for and orderingnew products, contacting the call centre, receiving andpaying a bill. It’s in those moments that CSPs need toshine in order to keep their relationship with thatcustomer, and maximise the value of that relationship.

That’s where charging and billing come in – when itcomes to delivering an exceptional customerexperience, charging and billing play a key role in bothof these aspects.

Online charging is movingcentre stage in real-timeWhy the focus on real-time? As part of an ongoingprocess to protect consumers against bill shock,governments and legislative bodies have beencollaborating to establish a unified code of conduct.So European Union legislation currently mandatesCSPs to notify their end customers at the exactmoment they have consumed €50 worth of services intheir monthly billing cycle. This applies whether theyare roaming or in their home country.

In parallel with this, CSPs have also been workingtowards giving their customers the ability to set theirown personalised preferences when it comes toreceiving notifications, such as when nearing the endof their service allowance. The customer also gets todecide the course of action following that notification:whether to end the service, freeze it, add funds and soon. These courses of action necessitate real-timenotifications, which are driven by constant real-timemetering of the customers’ allowances.

The online charging system is the primary componentresponsible for performing these processes, assuringnotifications are accurate and sent at the right time,managing top-up payments and more.

Proactive online charging is also critical for supportingpersonalised plans, which service providers hope willhelp keep their customers loyal. Service providers areramping up their quality of experience beyond justtechnical capabilities, by making it personal – theywant to give customers the ability to createindividualised plans so they can to choose the exactservices they want, the networks they will run on, thevalidity period and so on.

Customer experiencemanagement relates to you,billing and charging professionals

P

�

IN ASSOCIATION WITH AMDOCS

Proactive onlinecharging is also

critical forsupporting

personalised plans,which service

providers hope willhelp keep their

customers loyal


Shared data plans – a single data/voice allowance forall members of a family or group, and hybrid plans,which combine prepaid and postpaid customers into asingle entity, are both particularly challenging to support.

In order to ensure that quality of experience is metwith these service plans, the parallel consumption ofdata or voice services need to be monitored in real-time. Consumption notifications must be provided tousers ahead of time by the online charging system, aswell as a wide range of system services, including planactivations, real-time changes and quota re-allocationfor group members.

A new billing experience is interactiveWhile the monthly bill may be a CSP’s most consistent– and usually most frequent – interaction with theircustomers, most customers don’t regard it a positiveone. Receiving and paying bills often leavescustomers questioning the value of the service theyreceive, and the bill itself is generally business-like andunclear to the average consumer. Not to mention thattoday, a paper bill, or even a PDF, leaves a lot to bedesired in terms of a ‘wow’ user experience.

And despite pressure to go green, in reality CSPshaven’t been able to replace the paper bill withelectronic bill presentment – although many have tried.In fact, a recent Amdocs survey of global serviceproviders found that an average of only 22% of theircustomers have gone paperless. This may be due tothe perceived convenience of the paper bill mailed

directly to the home, as opposed to online self-servicechannels which are guarded by logins and passwords.

This leaves CSPs spending large amounts of money onpaper bills that at best leave customers feeling unengagedand at worst, confuse or upset them, thus drivingthem to contact the call centre. Clearly, it is time for anew billing experience – not just paperless, but alsointeractive, and one that customers will find easy to use.

As part of our CES 9.3 release, Amdocs has launchedthe Omni-Channel Billing Experience solution – anend-to-end system for bill processing, bill generationand bill presentment. It allows CSPs to easily designand personalise bills for print, PDF and online channelsand ensures that data is consistently displayed acrossthose channels. But most importantly for the customerexperience, it also includes new interactive email billfunctionality. This provides customers with aninteractive HTML bill where they can simply tap orclick for explanations of their charges, information onpromotions or to pay or dispute a charge. Theinteractive email bill is pushed conveniently to yourcustomers’ mailbox, giving them the best of bothworlds – the convenience of a push communicationwith the interactivity of digital bill presentment. This willhelp CSPs provide a better billing experience, anddrive higher adoption of paperless billing.

So for all of you billing and charging professionals. Thenext time you are in a room and someone brings upcustomer experience management, raise your hands.They are talking to you. www.amdocs.com

The authors, Eyal Amit(above) and JonahPransky, are productmarketing managersin the revenuemanagement divisionof Amdocs


Billing and charging for CSPs now encompasses a wide range of one-time services in additionto flat rate bundles. Traditional systems are no longer fit for purpose, but what is required forCSPs to continue to bill for their own services and charge for the services of others in a real-time, on-demand world, asks Jonny Evans?

ommunications service providers’ (CSPs)billing processes are becoming increasinglycomplex as they work to support traditionalservices side by side with new andsometimes unpredictable OTT business

models – and all in real-time.

Jennifer Kyriakakis, the co-founder and vice presidentof marketing at Matrixx Software, says: “Billing andcharging in real-time for any service presents a rangeof complications for CSPs, from authorising theservice, to delivering it, then tracking it and ensuringthat it is being billed for correctly.”

C

Is it sunset for traditionalBSS or can happy hourlast a little longer?

�

R E A L - T I M E C H A R G I N G


Jennifer Kyriakakis:Billing and charging inreal-time for anyservice presents arange of complicationsfor CSPs

Vic Bozzo:It’s more important thanever that CSPs have aunified system in place

Michelle Nowak:Capabilities need to benetwork, service andevent agnostic to supporta wider range of services

Martin Morgan:CSPs are going for anadjunct approach andputting a real-timecharging system in placeto cater for all data trafficfor all customers

Authorisation isn’t simple From over-the-top (OTT) service access privileges tocurrent data and credit allowances, CSPs need to beable to accurately query multiple systems in real timeand deliver services within agreed SLA parameters.Handling such queries against CSP, OTT and othersystems demands lots of interoperability.

“Billing has always been complex. Add in these newservices and it’s more important than ever that CSPshave a unified system in place to ensure not just thebilling but rating, trading and routing are donecorrectly,” says Vic Bozzo, the senior vice presidentfor worldwide sales and marketing at Telarix.

Parimal Mohile, the chief architect at Tech Mahindra,advocates the necessity for a real-time chargingmechanism. “In terms of billing, CSPs will move to areal-time charging mechanism, irrespective of whetherthey bill the customer in real-time or not,” he says. “Inthe future the charge records will form the basis forsupplying billing intelligence to consumer systems likebill formatting and printing, electronic bill presentmentand payment (EBPP), self-care, enterprise resourceplanning and dunning. These charge records will bedumped in a big data lake for analytics, businessintelligence and real-time action perspectives. This willalso bring in, at the required low cost, extreme billingflexibility which will become the mainstay for allbilling needs.”

Michelle Nowak, the vice president for productmanagement of global BSS solutions at CSGInternational, all of this capability needs to beavailable regardless of the service or network type.“These capabilities need to be network, service andevent agnostic to support a wider range of servicesthat add perceived value to the CSPs overallcommunication services,” she says.

CSPs can try to meet the future by patching existingsystems, but this may not be ideal in the long-term,adds Bozzo. “CSPs need to be in a position to notonly deal with the issues they have now but also anynew innovations the future may bring. In many casespatching existing systems doesn’t solve the problembut rather creates even more complexity.”

Mohile warns patching and extending existingsystems may not be viable, or worthwhile. “CSPsneed to atomise the capabilities provided by theircurrent systems and aggregate these atomic functionsthrough a common data model into a service layer,”he says. “Not all systems can provide suchcapabilities and these must be marked for sunset.”

So, extending existing systems may not always be thebest way forward, but that’s not to say adjunctsystems can’t do the job, at least at times. “Itdepends on if the systems they have are meeting theirneeds and how sophisticated they are,” says Bozzo.

The rapidly evolving market means CSPs need toremain flexible as they develop billing systems,observes Timo Ahomaki, the chief technology officerof Tecnotree. “There is currently no sensible statusquo available to build rigid contractual structures or ITsystems around,” he says.

Deploying support for third-party services is very newto some CSPs: “Some have simply not offered third-party charging as an option, but they may findthemselves missing out on any potential OTT businessin the future,” warns Tony Poulos, market strategist atWeDo Technologies. CSPs must ensure any adjunctsystems they may deploy don’t cause othercomplications in their system.

Facing such a complex mix, some CSPs are choosingto roll out new solutions strategically, says MartinMorgan, the vice president of marketing at Openet.“Increasingly CSPs are going for an adjunct approachand putting a real-time charging system in place tocater for all data traffic for all customers,” he says.“Rated data records are then sent to the billing systemfor inclusion on the bill. This enables them to phaseout legacy systems in line with the move all IP servicesand avoid the risks of high cost, lengthy billingtransformation projects.”

Poulos adds: “CSPs that have not yet undergonesome major transformation of their legacy back-officewill have no choice but to work with adjunct systems –but in the long term, the exercise may not be cost-effective.”

For Kyriakakis, virtual network operators havedemonstrated that integration of new systems can beachieved rapidly and cost effectively. “The rapid rolloutof MVNOs in recent years is proof that integrating newsystems into a network can be done rapidly and costeffectively,” she says. “The benefits of being able tooffer new services to customers and bill for them inreal-time will, over time, offset the initial cost and timeof overhauling a billing solution.”

Some CSPs have implemented separate platforms,such as for MVNE operations, others have taken thechance to create fresh brands to serve specificverticals. “Relatively few, on the other hand, havemanaged to successfully combine radically newbusiness models with the mainstream businessprocesses and IT systems,” says Ahomaki.

One BSS system to cater for all possible scenariosseems unachievable. Focusing on core businessneeds and remaining open to unforeseenopportunities while collaborating with extremelyinnovative partners may be the best way to squarethis rapidly evolving and complex CSP environment asbusiness models, customer demand and foundationaltechnologies continue to undergo extensive disruptionand systemic change.

Chris Newton-Smith, the vice president of marketing at Redknee, which has just signed up USMVNO EcoMobile to its cloud-based billing and customer care solution, tells George Malim thepay-as-you-grow, success-based model is appealing to CSPs of all types

s communications service providers (CSPs)turn to cloud-based IT, often provided on asoftware-as-a-service (SaaS) basis, someare willing to trust on-demand IT to supportservices as business critical as billing and

charging. Few of the largest CSPs are prepared tojump with both feet into the cloud era when it comesto these systems, but they are willing to engage withthem to support specific offerings, or in areas of theirbusiness where the accelerated time-to-marketoffered by cloud systems is appealing.

“I tend to divide the market for cloud and SaaS-based billing and charging systems into a fewdifferent categories,” explains Chris Newton-Smith,the vice president of marketing at Redknee. “From aretail perspective, tier one and tier two CSPs have adifferent approach than tier two and three MVNOs.Larger CSPs want to maintain full control over theircore retail businesses, but the others, particularlynew entrants, see the benefits of cloud and SaaSservices.”

Newton-Smith sees two key areas of appeal forthese types of CSPs. “With a lower capex, it is easierto get up and running more quickly, allowing theseservice providers to focus more on marketing andsales,” he says. “In the retail sector, there is a splitbetween larger and smaller CSPs, but even thelarger ones are adopting some of the technologiesbehind cloud and SaaS. After all, these sametechnologies are driving the overall trend towardsvirtualisation, where even the largest CSPs aregaining some of the benefits of a cloud system.”

It’s when we move away from the large CSPs’traditional heartland – away from their core retailbusiness – that they begin to show a greater

A

Billing-as-a-service benefitsbeat the capex burden and

constraints of in-house systems

�

I N T E R V I E W


IN ASSOCIATION WITH REDKNEE

Chris Newton-Smith:CSPs are looking tofocus their efforts onactivities that givethem the greatestopportunity

willingness to adopt cloud and SaaS systems. “Otherareas of the business, such as wholesale, B2B,machine-to-machine (M2M), hosting MVNOs, andeven parts of the enterprise market, are all areas inwhich CSPs are very open to SaaS models,” addsNewton-Smith. “You can see the trend towardsdelivery of IT services as a cloud offering in thebroader enterprise IT market, but for networkoperators, the challenge is how to interact in real-timewith the other core systems. The technical challengeis surmountable, but issues such as service levelagreements, real-time integration and networkattributes need to be taken into account.”

Cloud for adjunct systems“For larger service providers, their primary interest inSaaS comes when they realise they can’t do certainthings with their existing systems, such as introduce anew service or address a new market quicklyenough,” he explains. “CSPs of all sizes and in manymarkets use our system because, upon evaluatingtheir in-house systems, they realise that the time andcosts involved would be too high for the businesscase they are pursuing to actually work. Even for avery large CSP it can make sense to move towards aSaaS approach.”

Elimination of capex is the clear headline attractionhere, but Newton-Smith identifies a series of otherbenefits for CSPs, regardless of their market segment.“CSPs like seeing a system up and running in thecloud; they like the pay-as-you-grow, success-basedmodel, and they like that they can start prototypingservices and launch them to market very quickly,” hesays. “In addition, the risks associated with cloudbased solutions are significantly lower. A new CSPfocused on sales and marketing doesn’t want thefinancial risk of building a complete IT stack.”

“Such players often don’t have the necessaryexperience – especially if they’re an entrant from anindustry outside of telco, like many MNVOs,” he adds.“Worse, in some markets, they can’t even find thenecessary skills. The workforce just isn’t there. In theUS or Europe it’s quite easy, although highly competitive,to get the right people, but in other markets it can bedifficult to recruit people with the right sets of skills, sothe idea of using cloud based billing and charging as away to improve operations and share resources isappealing. It means you don’t need the same staff inplace in every point of presence.”

Even where the skills are available to set up andoperate in-house systems, there’s a potential cost forCSPs to pay in terms of lost focus on their prime

business goals. “The issue of focus is important,”explains Newton-Smith. “CSPs are looking to focustheir efforts on activities that provide their businesswith greatest amount of opportunity, but replicatingbilling and charging functionality doesn’t achieve that.They really want to focus on sales, new services andtheir go to market plans.”

“SaaS gives them the opportunity to free up resourcesto focus on what’s important to the business,” headds. “The added benefits are that they know thesystem will be continuously upgraded and it has toadhere to service level agreements.”

Taking the IT headaches away and moving towards aservice-based model resonates well with the mood ofmost CSPs. “They want to innovate and experimentand bring new services to market, but if they have tomake a large IT investment to do so, it becomes ahigh risk approach,” Newton-Smith says. “SaaS givesthem the means to try new things without committingto a large upfront expense, and that is what’s drivingcloud and SaaS adoption.”

Follow the business caseNewton-Smith adds that for those concerned aboutceding control of such critical systems to an IT serviceprovider that this doesn’t have to be a permanentstate. “It makes sense to go with a cloud or SaaSapproach first because you always have theopportunity to bring things back in-house if thebusiness case justifies it,” he explains.

In addition, he thinks many of the cultural, technicaland regulatory barriers are starting to recede. “There isa cultural aspect to deciding whether or not to deploya cloud system, but it’s not the prime issue, which isreally more about understanding what your startingpoint is,” he says. “Some CSPs have been in businessfor decades and have built up extensive IT assets andthey want to get the most out of these assets aspossible. Some look at SaaS systems as just anotherset of partners to manage and another system toinvest in that you can’t even see.”

“CSPs have understandable caution to issues such asdata protection, which is why they’re testing cloudand SaaS in areas adjacent to their core businesses,”he adds. “These barriers will decrease over time, andif there’s a good business reason, CSPs will make theinvestments required. It requires time and experiencefor people to become familiar with these models, butthe drivers are there for more uptake of cloud andSaaS – after all, on a personal level, we’re all familiarwith and using cloud services now.”


www.redknee.com

In 1950, 750 Million people lived in cities

Today 4 Billion people live in citiesIs your city ready for another 2 Billion*…?

Smarter cities survive and thriveSmart suppliers help them do that

Frost & Sullivan works with both cities and their suppliers toaddress the challenges of urbanization and create smart andsustainable market growth

*Six billion people are expected to live in urban areas by 2050, per projections by the United Nations and United States Census Bureau

Roberta GamblePartner | Energy & [email protected]+1.650.475.4522


Not so long ago, communications service providers (CSPs) had large IT staffs to managemassive infrastructures, designed to support a small number of products and services sold tolarge volumes of customers. Now, the dynamics have changed and IT must do more with lessstaff and stagnant budgets, writes Alam Gill

he uptake of digital services by consumers isstaggering and continues to surpass allprojections. Today, almost three billion people– that’s 40% of the world’s population – areusing the internet, with many accessing this

superhighway of content through their smartphonesand other communication devices.

Nowhere is the growth trajectory more impressivethan in the developing world, where, according to theInternational Telecommunication Union, nearly two-thirds of the world’s internet users – 1.9 billion in 2014– are from. And while the figures continue toskyrocket, so too do the challenges and opportunitiesfor CSPs. As they transform into digital serviceproviders (DSPs), CSPs are faced head-on with thechallenge of managing the two speeds of IT.

As research firm Gartner puts it, two-speed IT is theconundrum that many IT organisations in telecomsand other industries face in today’s accelerated digitalworld. On one hand, they must continue to optimiseand maintain legacy systems that are responsible forthe very fundamentals of the business: from billing toorder management, mediation, network managementand beyond.

But they must also focus on implementing new ITinfrastructure and business processes that can delivera seamless customer experience, manage increasingly

complex partner relationships and rapidly launch newdigital services to seize market share.

Gartner’s 2014 poll of CIOs showed conclusively thatbusinesses now face the challenge of straddling asecond era of enterprise IT and a new, third digitalisationera – moving from running IT like a business within abusiness, into a period characterised by deepinnovation beyond process optimisation, exploitation ofa broader universe of digital technology and information,more-integrated business and IT innovation, and aneed for much faster and more agile capability.

And while there is pressure internally to innovate withinIT to support new services, Gartner’s CIO surveyshowed that IT budgets are only marginally growing.All of this begs the question: how do CSPs continueto innovate in this rapidly evolving digital world? Cancost cutting the legacy environment fuel theinvestment required on its own? If so, is that a longterm sustainable funding model?

There are many questions without straightforwardanswers, but one emerging response is to giveanything that is not a core competency to trustedpartners.

Not so long ago, the telecoms industry had large ITstaffs to manage massive infrastructures, designed tosupport a small number of products and services sold

TInnovation inthe digitalworld requiresletting go

D I G I TA L S E R V I C E S

Alam Gill is seniorvice president ofinternationalmanaged services,at CSG International

�

T


to large volumes of customers. They had theresources internally – and often complemented by anoff-shore strategy – to manage existing systems andadd new ones as the business demanded. Theirteams had unique skillsets so they could support thespecialised applications humming along in theirinfrastructure.

Now IT must do more with fewer staff and stagnantbudgets. It’s no wonder that many CSPs are moving toa managed services model as they evolve into DSPs.Managed services has become a viable model formany CSPs as they look to free up internal resourcesto innovate new revenue-generating services.

A study led by Technology Business Research showsthe appetite for managed services will continue togrow – in fact, TBR predicts that the IT outsourcingmanaged services market in the telecoms industry isexpected to exceed US$12 billion by the end of 2016.TBR’s research shows the trend toward managedservices is growing worldwide, driven by the need toinnovate faster to retain customers, deepen the varietyof products and services, and often to expand thereach of services to new geographic markets.

Telecoms providers from across the world are alsolooking for outside experts to offer skill sets that areoften in short supply – those needed to optimise,manage and maintain existing key systems likewholesale, retail and enterprise billing, data mediationand beyond. Because managed services partners areoften tapped to handle a CSP’s critical systems likebilling, they must be a proven and trusted partner.After all, if you can’t bill for a new service properly,driving a profit becomes nearly impossible. Managedservices partners deploy and operate newenvironments to help underpin their rapid growth intodigital services – often the key to future growth for the

CSP. As a result, today’s managed servicespartnership is becoming re-imagined as more of anintegrated business partnership than the old schoolvendor vs customer relationship.

At a time when IT organisations are trying to push thepedal to the metal while simultaneously stepping onthe brake, the re-imagined managed servicespartnership provides a viable model that gives CSPsagility like they’ve never had before. Some key benefitsto this model that we are hearing from CSPs are:

• Lowered capital expenditures and other costs.With shrinking profit margins and costly rollouts fornew digital services, lowering capex continues to be abig push for CSPs in moving to a managed servicesmodel. In fact, nearly 73% of those polled in TBR’ssurvey said that reducing costs through outsourcingwas a key driver for shifting to this approach. Theevidence is clear that lowered capex costs is a realbenefit to managed services. With lowered costs,CSPs can implement new services and the systems tosupport them; invest incrementally in other businesspriorities and reinforce their bottom lines.

• CSPs want partners in transformation. Whilelowering costs is an integral part of managed services,it isn’t the only one. Managing change effectively is acritical component as well while CSPs areexperiencing business transformation at all levels –from business models to people, process andtechnology. CSPs say they are looking for experts tonot only run core systems, but also to help managethis wave of change. As a result, they are increasinglylooking to partners to play this role. And it makescomplete sense. Why not entrust the companies thatactually make the platforms to operate, optimise,maintain and evolve them?

Through these managed services partnerships, CSPsgain trusted partners who can play a long-term role insupporting their business today while planning for thefuture and helping to manage future risk.

• Freedom to innovate. A common theme we hearwith our clients and prospective clients is ‘we don’thave time to innovate.’ This sentiment is echoed bythe TBR survey, in which 53% of CSPs surveyed saidthat the managed services model frees up additionalresources within the company to support newinitiatives.

With new services, the ecosystem of partners andcontent continuing to grow at great speed, innovationis critical to the success of a CSP. Time spent onmanaging existing systems could be better spent onplanning for the future, accelerating the rollout of first-to-market services and collaborating with internalstakeholders like marketing and customer service tocreate a differentiated offering.

It’s clear that it’s a new world, and traditional modelsare breaking down. In their place, exciting newopportunities are emerging. These new modelspromise to put CSPs in the driver seat for deliveringnew services in this digital world – but not withoutskilled partners as their trusted co-pilots.

D I G I TA L S E R V I C E S

A study led byTechnology

Business Researchshows the appetite

for managedservices will

continue to grow


The rise in partner settlement complexity needs to be addressed to ensure IoT success, writes Vic Bozzo

nalysts are predicting there will be up to onetrillion potential M2M (machine-to-machine)connections by 2020 – a number that morethan doubles the size of the telecomsmarket today. That’s a lot of growth over the

next few years, and its growth that isn’t coming fromthe traditional set of services such as voice andbroadband. It’s coming from the connection of things,with communications service providers (CSPs)creating new platforms for partnerships withenterprise businesses and OTT players that want tooffer new applications and connected solutions totheir customers.

A partnership explosionNew partnerships and connected ecosystems arepopping up like dandelions in the spring time, and asall of these various partners scramble to figure outhow to best participate in the new M2M economy anddetermine what business model works best for them,it’s important not to overlook a very important piece –partner billing and settlement. Telecoms companieswill need a way to manage potentially thousands ofnew partners and a highly complex value chain. M2Mwill give CSPs the ability to derive new revenues fromsettlement and interconnect opportunities, and manyof these M2M transactions will need to be accountedfor based on usage, with often complex keyperformance indicators (KPIs), commissions andrevenue share deals to account for.

New complexity, new challengesTraditional telecoms services such as voice are wellcovered by revenue assurance, however, as TMForum states in a recent report, coverage of servicesidentified as ‘the future growth engines’ for CSPs,such as digital services and IoT, is still low, and furtherinvestment is needed in these areas. There is nodoubt that the increase in these highly complex M2Mrevenue streams will give rise to new avenues ofrevenue leakage. Revenue leakage thrives oncomplexity and change, and it can spell huge lossesfor companies and affect business profitability.The question is, how can all of these new high

volume/low value M2M transactions be managedwhen many of today’s service providers are usingoutdated settlement and revenue assurance systemsthat were built for another era, and often still dependon manual processes? In addition, many revenueassurance teams are lacking experienced personnel,yet they are about to encounter a tsunami of data thatneeds to be audited and validated. Billions of differenttypes of events require rating and analysis;agreements are complex and quality of servicerequires constant oversight. In such an environment,CSPs need a partner settlement solution that canmanage new service launches with complex tariffplans and revenue-share agreements.

It’s all about automationExperience shows that vendors overcharge anaverage of 4-9% of the total invoice value, and 50/50settlements of disputes are often agreed to onlybecause CSPs lack the compelling evidence to windisputes. There is real money at stake, and it’s onlygoing to get worse as the number of transactionscontinues to climb.

The only way around this dilemma is throughautomation. Billing, settlement, and disputemanagement functions need to be highly automatedand designed to mutually support each other. TheTelarix solution gives the billing and settlementsprocess a major revenue assurance boost as itvalidates data upon receipt, normalises that data, andremoves the errors that always occur wheneverhuman hands touch high volumes of data.Traditionally, lack of automation has made auditingone of the most overlooked components of acomprehensive revenue assurance strategy, but nowis the time to get your proverbial ducks in a row whenit comes to partner billing and settlement. Ensuringyour back office can manage tomorrow’s front officechallenges is the only way to protect your investmentas partner complexity and data transactions continueto climb at a frightening pace. The opportunities M2Mis bringing to CSPs are tremendous, just be ready forthe challenges.

It’s time to get your M2M ducks in a row

AThe author, VicBozzo, is the seniorvice president ofworldwide sales andmarketing at Telarix

www.telarix.com

IN ASSOCIATION WITH TELARIX

You use telecom-specific analytics to know what customers want and advanced Service Enablement to create and deliver it, fast. You can manage the cloud and virtual network in real time. You swiftly roll out networks with accelerated plan-to-provision. You let partners use your component-based catalog to build on your assets and increase your revenues. You are an Agile Operator, powered by the Ericsson Agility Suite. And you are changing what’s possible in telecom.

YOU MAKE MONEY WHERE OTHERS DARE NOT TREAD

YOU ARE THE AGILE OPERATOR

ericsson.com/ossbss @EricssonOSSBSS

Exclusive interview with Razorsight’s CEO, Charlie Thomas

June / July 2015Volume 17 Issue 3

ISSN 1745-1736

PLUS: How cloud is liberating the telecoms industry from the constrained choices of five-year planned IT economies ■

Ericsson’s Pablo Martinez on why network functions virtualisation is a critical step on the journey towards telco cloud■ Can telco cloud provide the flexible environment for CSPs to run their businesses efficiently and agilely? ■ Read thelatest news, opinion, blogs and features at www.vanillaplus.com

Charlie Thomas:Some on-demand, burstable

services will become the new norm


I N T E R V I E W

As communications service providers (CSPs) set out on the road to telco cloud, they’re utilisingvirtualisation technologies that enable them to reset the economics of their infrastructure cost.Cost economy gains aside, the big strategic question remains how will they grow revenues andovercome significant changes to their business models in the face of increased competition,revenue compression and subscriber saturation. The answer resides in the vast volumes ofdata passing through CSP networks regarding customer location, activity, preferences andbehaviour. Banding together and deriving insights from that data could put them in an enviableposition to monetise the impending on-demand era of burstable consumption via the cloud.Charlie Thomas, the CEO of Razorsight, tells VanillaPlus that CSPs are well positioned – if theythink differently and move quickly. He suggests that making use of cloud app driven data,coupled with predictive analytics, would enable CSPs to proactively know what users want andwhen, and enable whole-hearted participation in the cloud ecosystem. Using their knowledgeand their infrastructure could put CSPs at the heart of the market, rather than positioning themsolely as broadband providers connecting users, app and content providers

If your data flows throughyour fingers, so does youropportunity to participatein the cloud era

�

IN ASSOCIATION WITH RAZORSIGHT


VanillaPlus: What do you see as the key cloudofferings that CSPs are moving towards offering?

Charlie Thomas: They have already migrated tosome offerings. They have some B2B offerings,especially in the data centre market, and enterprisesare all moving to VoIP and hosted PBXs as well aslooking to move their own IT infrastructure to the cloud– often provided by CSPs.

Some have dabbled in apps by putting up app storesbut I don’t think they’ve been very successful.

They could be in a very good place to play in thesecurity market. We now hear of security breachesand hacking that has jeopardised consumer andenterprise data. With mobility and cloud becomingever more ubiquitous, I see security and protection,such as proactive fraud monitoring, being the sortsof applications that CSPs will be in a unique positionto offer.

The chief executives of CSPs are thinking beyondparticipating in cloud-based delivery toward providingturnkey services and solutions. For example, certainapplications – such as healthcare and financial –require constant network quality so quality of servicefor delivery becomes extremely important with fargreater consequences for failure.

VP: What do CSPs need to be successful inoffering cloud services?

CT: Some on-demand burstable services will becomethe new norm. Hence, being in a position to managethose will require the ability to react very quickly. CSPs

are normally reactive to rapidly changing customerdesires and behaviours so having the right set ofanalytical tools will become essential in order toproactively understand changing demands on theirnetworks and the propensity for burstable demandemerging at specific times of day or in specific locations.

VP: To what extent are CSPs in a unique positionto capture, collect, analyse and react in real-timeto rapidly shifting consumer and businessdemands and desires?

CT: I think CSPs are in the best place of anyone in theentire ecosystem to use the data to deliver proactive,superior customer experiences. They’ll be in a betterposition even than Google, although Google is nowmoving into some aspects of the network, and ofcourse controls the operating system in the majority ofmobile devices. CSP’s ownership of the network andaccess to the data that passes through networks,provides a substantial opportunity to benefit frombeing at the epicentre of all the data.

They can use that data to understand consumptionpatterns and become much more proactive. They’re ina better position than anyone when it comes tolocation data.

However, thus far, CSPs have yet to realize the valueof this data. They have not demonstrated they can beinnovative when it comes to creating exciting newapplications and they tend to move in a me too orherd mentality. Telefónica was an early leader inlooking at ways to monetise mobile data and all of thetier one CSPs have had teams all looking to do this forseveral years. That said, the innovation continues to

�

I think CSPs are in the best place of anyone in

the entire ecosystem to use the data to deliver

proactive, superior customer experiences


come from application developers and OTT apps. TheCSPs need to move beyond looking at only theirsubscribers as that relegates them to a closedecosystem. They need an open systems approachthat links with all other CSPs in order to deliver theubiquity that users demand. For example, if Sprintoffers data driven, targeted based ads to Audi, basedonly on the preferences of its 50 million subscribers,it’s missing 95% of the market. CSPs would benefitgreatly by working collaboratively to deliver all-encompassing insights based on the full ecosystem ofusers and data driven insights – powered by predictiveanalytics – across the full spectrum of networks.

CSPs have been very closed and somewhat myopic.They would collectively benefit from a more openapproach and across all infrastructure, not just theirown. If they don’t, they risk the OTT providerscontinuing to outrun, outthink and outpace them.

There is no question that, when it comes to thedelivery model, CSPs will migrate to cloud and there isno question that they’ll deliver business applications toenterprises. That said, the true innovators will fullymonetise their data to better serve the desires of themarket. Imagine what Google or Facebook would do ifthey continue to evolve toward the communicationsservices market.

VP: Is this a chance for CSPs to finally moveaway from being network operators and redefinethemselves and their role?

CT: Yes. it really is an ideal time. I believe that this isone of those opportune moments for the telecomsindustry. You can’t argue with the success CSPs haveexperienced, but they’re now at another one of thoseinflection points that poses both opportunity and risk.Growth has reached a plateau and price compressionis accelerating. We’re seeing massive consolidation ona global basis to offset these trends and this isincreasingly a scale business.

CSP business models need to shift and shift quicklyand those that do will be in a great position. It’s notenough to hang on to what they have for as long asthey can. That approach will result in continuedcustomer and market erosion.

They can deliver valuable services to businesses andconsumers and ultimately they have a greatopportunity if they can create, innovate, design anddevelop solutions. The question remains whether theywill rely primarily on network equipment vendors,

device manufacturers and OTT providers, or are theygoing to participate themselves and layer on value andmonetise such?

I believe they are in a great position to capitalise but itrequires new thinking, new business models and usingthe data that today flows right through their fingers.

VP: How does Razorsight complementand enable CSPs in the progression towardsall things cloud?

CT: We have a range of analytics solutions that areproductised for the specific business needs that CSPshave. Our products address business challengesaround the delivery of data insights. We provideexecutive insights which deliver key business andoperational metrics in real-time that reflect networkconsumption and utilisation by both consumers andenterprises.

When you look at the much broader and on-demandarena of cloud service delivery, for example increasingdata capacity just for a big upload – something that isburstable in nature – it’s readily apparent thatpredictive insights into available capacity versusdemand would be very valuable.

The way Razorsight participates is multi-faceted. Oneway is by helping CSPs understand networkconsumption on a real-time basis. The most powerfulproducts we have are predictive analytics, whichwe’ve deployed across tier one, two and three serviceproviders as well as content and OTT providers. Oneexample is our predictive product that helps CSPsproactively know by customer and market whenthey’re most likely to migrate from TDM to IP. Thus far,CSPs have been reactive with regard to visibility forthis migration.

IP offers greater bandwidth at a more economicalprice but the rapid shift is hurting the tier one CSPswho haven’t had the analytical tools to understandwho is leaving or who is at risk of leaving.

I see a similar parallel in the migration to all things cloudbecause, without proper analytics tools and insight tounderstand consumption, demand and customersentiment, CSPs are likely to encounter manysurprises – much like occurred with AT&T when itintroduced the first iPhone. CSPs will benefit greatly byutilising predictive analytics to forecast likely demandand behaviour with a very high degree of accuracy asthey accelerate along the path of all things cloud.

I N T E R V I E W

www.razorsight.com

There is no questionthat, when it comes to

the delivery model,CSPs will migrate to

cloud and there is noquestion that they’ll

deliver businessapplications to

enterprises


The cloud is liberating the telecoms industry from the horrors of Soviet style, five-year plannedIT economies, but the struggle is just beginning writes Nick Booth

The past is a foreign country, they do thingsdifferently there. The modern state thattelecoms operators have evolved into –communications service providers (CSPs) –is a perfect example of this phenomenon.

When the cloud ushered in a completely different wayof working, it created both cultural changes and awealth of business options so vast that they have yetto be fully explored. If cloud computing is an offering,many CSPs have yet to walk the full length of thecounter, because they have so many choices toconsider.

Gone is the old fashioned Soviet style centrallyplanned IT economy, where committees would haveto agonise over platform purchasing decisions, forsystems that had to last at least five, often more,years. If an IT manager got it wrong, they’d be sent tocareer Siberia, amongst all the clunking grey boxes ofproprietary hardware and remote silos of information.

Cloud computing offers all the exciting purchasingchoices of the free market. Never mind five-year plans,with cloud computing you can rent five apps in fivenations for five milliseconds each. Every component,from processing power to petabytes, can be rented inthe cloud.

The freedom to make small purchasing decisions withfar more frequency, has liberated decision makers andmade for a faster business culture where new projectsget signed off more quickly.

The elasticity of supply and demand is initially beingused to helps CSPs face the universal challenges ofmanaging costs while meeting the demands of theircustomers, says Guru Grewal, global head ofVirtusa’s telecoms division.

“Cloud creates elastic pay-per-use services likeinfrastructure as a service for lines of business toconsume on demand,” says Grewal. At the same

T

CSPs wary of cloudas years of limited ITchoices come to an end

T E L C O C L O U D

�

Cloud computing

offers all the exciting

purchasing choices of

the free market

T E L C O C L O U D


time, it helps them create new business by enablingCSPs to crunch masses of consumer data, work outwhat the customer wants and deliver those servicesover a newly created seamless omni channel ofpersonalised customer experience.

In previous industrial eras, cloud would have been amachine for slicing and dicing resources andrebadging them. Infrastructure, office software andcustomer relationship management systems have allbeen virtualised.

This changed the customer base too, Grewal says.The cloud gives small and medium enterprise (SME)clients access to powerful computing – not just fordevelopment but for hosting and productdevelopment. Now a small video player in the UK canwork with a games developer in Poland and a socialmedia expert in San Francisco. They retain theadvantages of being an SME, such as rapid decisionmaking and low overheads, and can match theweaponry of their bigger opponents. They can nip inand out of markets, make quick gains and then getout once the bigger beasts enter the competition.

“In many ways cloud enables SMEs to out-innovatetheir competition and helps them punch above theirweight,” says Grewal, “these days businessapplications are designed with the mobile cloudin mind.”

The CSP’s business and operational support systems– the BSS and OSS – need to be equally fluent as thecloud market but, for continuity’s sake, many are stillrooted in the past.

The cloud and the attendant hyper automation ofapplication development could help CSPs get thesesystems updated faster. Modern cloud-deployed

BSS/OSS functions should be managing, marketingand monetising the entire range of CSP activities, saysGerry Donohoe, Openet’s technical director

The agility, faster time to market, breadth of serviceand lower liabilities will not be achieved withoutchallenges, warns Donohoe. Unlike typical enterprisesor hyper scale cloud players, CSPs face strict latencytargets and fine-nines availability. “They need to beengineered into a telco cloud architecture in order toachieve carrier-grade [reliability and resilience],” saysDonohoe.

On a new front, cloud services could arm CSPs in theOTT wars with the makers of over the top videos,films, music and social media.

“CSPs can retake ownership of the user experiencefrom their OTT rivals by taking the enabling role inproviding all cloud content to the subscribers,” saysChris Halbard, the executive vice president andpresident, international at Synchronoss Technologies.

The key to this is establishing and securely curating aunique digital profile for each of their subscribers.Gathering that personal information means you canact as the subscribers’ identity in the cloud, saysHalbard. By simplifying things for your subscribers,you will win their affections and loyalty in a way thatcustomer relationship management systems neverachieved.

The cloud, in other words, sets subscribers free and,as a consequence, they will keep coming back. Thetiny increments of cloud services could create theunobtainable magic quality – customer loyalty – in away that big old fashioned, authoritarian systems ofmanagement could never match.

Guru Grewal:Cloud creates elasticpay-per-use serviceslike infrastructure as

a service

Chris Halbard:CSPs can retake

ownership of the userexperience from their

OTT rivals


EXPERTOPINION

The author,Pablo Martinez, isproduct marketingdirector of OSS at

Ericsson

A critical step on the road to telco cloud is network functions virtualisation (NFV). Pablo Martinezexplains how the technology is moving communications service providers (CSPs) to an agileenvironment that enables rapid new service introduction and improved operating margins

s every businessperson knows, there aretwo ways to make more money: increaserevenues or decrease costs. Many wordshave been written about the new servicesand revenues that network functions

virtualisation (NFV) will make possible, thanks to itselasticity and flexible support of new business modelsand ecosystems. However, very little is said about thesecond, perhaps more immediate, benefit ofvirtualisation – its ability to decrease service costs andimprove operating margins.

NFV enables the on-demand instantiation of functionsin a format that is easier to load balance and scale upor down. It allows you to move functions dynamicallyacross distributed hardware resources in the network,while maintaining service continuity and maintaining oreven improving quality of service (QoS). With that kindof real-time fluidity, virtualisation can be exploited tomorph a network automatically. Its functions can beexecuted on the nodes running at the lowest cost atany given time, to maximise operating margins. This isan aspect of NFV that is often overlooked.

NFV lets you factor in both technical and financialoptimisation. You can dynamically calibrate the rightlevel of operational flexibility into virtualised functionsto reduce operational costs, improve operatingmargins and confidently implement more profitablebusiness models – even for existing services. In turn,by maximising the financial value of services, youmaximise business performance.

Figure 1: Financial value and operational flexibilitylead to enhanced business performance throughvirtualisation

This kind of consideration drives the business case forNFV. Even if you do not immediately use virtualisednetwork functions (VNFs) to offer completely newservices, you can use them to increase the profitabilityof any service, and without increasing prices.

Orchestrating better marginsNFV is all about flexibility – making services andnetworks more responsive to customer needs withan infrastructure that is more elastic. But without theright kind of orchestration, this flexibility may stillimpair profitability.

VNFs are automatically instantiated to run on specifichardware resources based on factors such as

A

NFV transforms passiveCSP value chains intodynamic value constellations

�

IN ASSOCIATION WITH ERICSSON


resource utilisation, workload levels and service levelagreements (SLAs). But to fully harness the benefits ofvirtualisation, a comprehensive type of NFVorchestration is needed – one that is able to considerall aspects of a virtualised function, including thefluctuating costs of running it on any given hardwareresource at a specific time.

This is the subject of the TM Forum catalyst project‘Maximizing Profitability with NFV.’ It addresses theanalytics and policies needed to dynamicallydetermine orchestration decisions for well-roundedNFV instantiations. The mission of the project is todelineate an operational environment where VNFs areinstantiated and dynamically adjusted according topolicies that optimise both business value – minimalcosts, maximum profitability – and customerexperience.

As shown in the following figure, this operationalenvironment consists of a closed-loop systemconsisting of monitoring, mediation, analytics andpolicy-driven instantiation and restoral. The resultingNFV orchestration considers the technical andfinancial metrics that make up the cost, revenue andQoS aspects of service offerings. Orchestration isoptimised against a wide range of financial andtechnical objectives, such as infrastructure operationalcosts, network performance and service levelagreements (SLAs). Policies are structuredaccordingly. The goal is a level of business agility notpreviously possible, enabled by the inherent flexibilityof NFV orchestration.

This capability is critical. It is possible to assignfunctions in a way that maintains service quality but iseconomically inefficient at a given point in time. Thiscan result in satisfied customers but an unsatisfactoryor even negative operating margin on the providedservice. Ideally, functions should run whereveroperational costs are the lowest, as long as SLAs andother key criteria are also met. Some of thisinformation is already monitored by data centres andother third parties and is accessible to CSPs. Forinstance, the cost of electricity can be monitored indata centre locations and network nodes and factored

into cost calculations. Obviously, NFV orchestrationwill require a data analytics-enriched policymanagement capability, programmed with analgorithmic equation, to make the proper real-timedeterminations and maintain the specified operationalcost thresholds.

The complexities of NFV require tight coordinationwith a highly automated OSS/BSS. For this reason,NFV orchestration should be able to work withOSS/BSS product catalogues in the larger serviceorchestration framework. This ensures consistencyacross all functions, including planning, ordering,provisioning, configuration and activation.

NFV as a source ofoperational efficiencyNFV removes barriers between the financial andtechnical aspects of running networks. This enables amore cohesive business, where customer experience,services and the network are part of one orchestration– capable of optimising business value, such asoperating margins, while coordinating resources,service quality and lifecycles. The elasticity ofvirtualisation expands existing value creation systems,transforming them from passive value chains intodynamic value constellations. These may make itpossible to operate emerging digital serviceecosystems at the lowest possible cost withoutcompromising service quality. By dynamically movingVNFs in real time, even across service providerboundaries, you can comply with and moreconfidently guarantee SLAs while you also maximiseoperating margins – something not possible with onlyphysical functions.

New product development is widely seen as a sourceof greater profitability, but it is not the only source.Higher profits can also come from a more prosaicsource: operational efficiency. This is achievable withNFV orchestration that allows combined business andfinancial objectives to play a more direct role in the dailyoperation of the underlying infrastructure. As a result,service providers will have more control over theirreputations, branding and financial performance. www.ericsson.com

Figure 2: The virtualised operational environment consists of a closed-loop system

NFV removes

barriers between

the financial and

technical aspects of

running networks

V I R T U A L I S AT I O N


The twin innovations of NFV and SDN will see communications service providers move awayfrom hardware-defined networks to software defined, virtualised architectures. The move willtake several or many years but the end game is telco cloud, a flexible agile environment inwhich CSPs run their businesses using cloud based software – even for OSS/BSS, writesGeorge Malim

aking such systems as services from thirdparties has a series of benefits, among whichspeed of deployment and flexibility are keyattractions but the end game of telco cloudseems a distant prospect. In addition, the

downside for CSPs is a perceived loss of control andownership of the software that supports theirbusinesses. Put simply, CSPs have to look at clouddifferently to other enterprises.

“It’s cloud, Jim, but not as we know it,” says JustinPaul, the head of OSS marketing at Amdocs. “Theterm cloud in the network context is misleadingbecause it makes assumptions that telco networksare synonymous with IT networks, when in reality theyare very different. CSPs will certainly embrace networkfunctions virtualisation (NFV) and software definednetworking (SDN) to make their networks more ITcloud-like, particularly in terms of business agility andflexibility in which areas they do aspire to emulate theIT cloud, but in other areas telco-cloud will have itsown unique identity.”

For Gerry Donohoe, the technical director of Openet,it’s the traditional five-nines imperative that sets CSPsapart. “All CSP systems must now be engineered forfive-nines – this is where a telecoms providers’ needsdiverge from those of a typical enterprise customer,”he says. “Cloud-based SaaS offerings present a seriesof challenges for the CSP. One such challenge is aCSP’s need to provide low latency, high capacity linksto public or hosted clouds. Another is the concern overdata security, in particular personal data governed byincreasingly strict data protection regulations.”

Dr Andy Tiller, the vice president of product marketingat AsiaInfo, thinks BSS is just too complex for public

cloud models. “We are not seeing a trend to BSS-as-a-Service in the public cloud for CSPs because BSSis too complex for a lowest common denominator,one size fits all models to work,” he says. “However,we are seeing a trend to private cloud deployments ofcentralised systems within a large operator group. Forexample, we have helped China Mobile and ChinaUnicom to standardise and centralise their BSSacross their numerous operations in China, and weare in the process of helping Telenor develop astrategy to centralise and standardise BSS acrossmultiple business units in Europe, using multi-tenancy.”

Others thinks CSPs will target specific systems andreap cloud benefits where they appear. “CSG hasdelivered cloud-based BSS as a service to CSPs formany years,” says Rob Morrison, director of productmanagement, CSG International. “It enables themto re-focus on innovation, to better serve theircustomers and to do so faster to differentiatethemselves from the competition. It can stop thembeing a software development house for day-to-dayapplications and processes.”

Andy Stubley, the vice president of strategy atSysMech shares that view. “Some CSPs are alreadyembracing cloud-based services, and some arehosting their own services in their own private clouds– the technology is proven, but the commercial andoperating models are still in their infancy,” he says.

Tom Griffin, the vice president of systems engineeringfor EMEA at SevOne, advocates caution andacknowledges there is mistrust of cloud propositionsamong CSPs. “For OSS/BSS systems there’s aninherent risk and mistrust from CSPs to deploy off-premise,” he says. “They will always be deployed

T

It’s cloud Jim, but notas we know it for CSPs

�

All CSP systems

must now be

engineered for five-

nines – this is where

a telecoms providers’

needs diverge from

those of a typical

enterprise customer

in-house even if the management and administrationof them is outsourced.”

There is, in effect, a SaaS line that CSPs won’t crossfor some systems. “SaaS is most suited to solutionsthat can be commoditised, and anything the CSPconsiders as a differentiator will be difficult for a SaaSdeployment model,” adds Donohoe. “Billing wouldcertainly be considered as a differentiator by CSPsand typically involves significant customisation.Instead CSPs are looking to virtualisation technologyto better suit their BSS needs. This is because it offerssome of the benefits promised by SaaS includinglower operating costs and faster deployment, whilststill providing control and ownership of the softwareand infrastructure.”

There’s obvious value in passing on the integration,upgrade and management burden to a third partycloud service provider but CSPs are still cautious ofthe economics of shifting their previous systemoperation investments to a monthly, rental model.“CSG has found CSPs actually save money by movingto a service based model,” adds Morrison. “Whenentering into such partnerships with customers CSGdelivers immediate cost savings to the business andcontinues to deliver value as we help CSPs transformtheir operations and architecture for the future.”

Donohoe thinks a standard SaaS model isn’t going towork for all CSPs. “A typical SaaS consumptionbased model is less than ideal for CSPs that needpredictable costs over longer time periods and a wayto capitalise investments,” he explains. “However theelasticity required to handle things like intermittentpeak activity or fail-fast innovation, are hampered bythe traditional licence models. CSPs need a better

way to balance the capex and opex cost. This is mostlikely to come in the form of licence flexibility forvirtualised deployments than in the form of true SaaS.”

In spite of their concerns, executives think at leastsome form of telco cloud will emerge, most likecomposing a hybrid situation. “A hybrid cloud andnon-cloud situation will of course continue to exist, atleast for the foreseeable future,” says Donohoe. “Yetthe pace at which technologies such as NFV andSDN are progressing will increase the speed at whichthe telco cloud adoption becomes a reality. Proof ofthis comes as many CSPs start to merge andconsolidate their network and IT groups, evolving to acommon cloud-based architecture for both telecomsand IT domains.”

Morrison warns of conflicting definitions. “Thisdepends on how you define telco cloud,” he adds.“Outsourcing network infrastructure and operations tothird parties as a service is already a reality, as it is forBSS. If you define telco cloud as only being NFV, thenthis vision is a long way off. Traditional infrastructurewill be in place for many years to come.”

Paul at Amdocs is convinced that telco cloud willbecome are reality. “It is not simply the adoption of ITcloud in the network domain, but a unique approachto implementation of cloud principles in a manner thataddresses the core requirements of the robust andresilient CSP network,” he says. “While we are seeingthe rapid adoption of software-defined networking andsome very advanced NFV proof-of-concepts, hybridnetworks will become the reality for the next five-to-ten years, with only the occasional greenfield CSP orearly adopter breaking the trend.”

Justin Paul:Telco cloud will haveits own uniqueidentity

Dr Andy Tiller:BSS-as-a-Service istoo complex for onesize fits all modelsto work

Rob Morrison:Telco cloud can stopCSPs being a softwaredevelopment housefor day-to-dayapplications andprocesses

Tom Griffin:For OSS/BSS systemsthere’s an inherentrisk and mistrustfrom CSPs to deployoff-premise


D I A R Y

DIARY Upcoming events

Cloud Latin America1-2 September, 2015

Sao Paolo, BrazilOrganiser: Informa

latam.cloudworldseries.com

Super Mobility Week9-11 September, 2015Las Vegas, USAOrganiser: CTIAwww.ctiasupermobility2015.com

Telco Big Data Summit @Super Mobility Week9 September, 2015Las Vegas, USAOrganiser: Informausa.telcobigdata.com

Network Virtualisation Forum15-17 September, 2015Madrid, SpainOrganiser: Informanetworkvirtualizationeurope.com

LTE Voice Summit 201529-30 September, 2015London, UKOrganiser: Informavoice.lteconference.com

Be the first to know fromthe global voice of B/OSS

THEGLOBALVOICEOF B/OSS vanillaplus.com

NEWS ■ COMMENTARY ■ WEBINARS ■ ANALYSIS ■ INSIGHT


C L O C K I N G O F F !

echnology always has unintendedconsequences, many of which are terrible butoften they are brilliant. The cloud couldunexpectedly change some horrible socialattitudes.

Technology changes us in ways we don’t anticipate.Historians have identified the invention of glass, forexample, as the catalyst for massive strides in theadvance of civilisation. Letting light in on homes, pubsand work buildings allowed the population to see theirway to create cleaner environments, which cutdisease and gave them more hours in the day whenthey could function more usefully. By cutting deathrates and raising productivity alone, glass had afundamental role in fomenting the industrial revolution.Its other roles in the creation of machinery are toonumerous to go into here but the point is that glasscreated changes in society that its inventors wouldhave never dared to dream of.

On the other hand another product of silicon, thecomputer, has had mixed effects on our culture. If –as some Latin scholars insist – education is aboutbringing out our qualities, then social media seems anawful side effect of the IT revolution. It seems to bringout our basest instincts and has inspired us tobecome a community of pugnacious trolls. Who couldhave predicted that something with a cute name likeTwitter would be a modern Pandora’s box?

Cloud computing is another technology whose namegives it lovely fluffy associations. This issue, we makethe argument that this technology liberates CSPsfrom the tyranny of centralised, rigid, plannedeconomies and gives them access to a vibrant, fastmoving free market economy for IT resources.However, there is another consequence of the cloudwhich I’m far more excited about. I’m indebted toMark Edwards, the CEO of billing company MDS, forpointing this out. The cloud could civilise theexecutive classes.

When companies like MDS offer their services toclients, the model of delivery changes. Since they getpaid on a pay per use model, that concentrateseveryone’s minds. Since MDS doesn’t start earningmoney until the system is up and running, everyone isincentivised to get the job done as quickly andefficiently as possible.

This has changed the dynamic of meetingscompletely. Once a gathering of telecoms executiveswas a place where it was important to be seen andheard. My experience of creating a channel study fora large British telecoms company indicates thateveryone in a big corporation feels they mustcontribute something in every meeting – or riskcorporate social death. The fact that theseinterventions multiply the complexity of the project isthe least of their worries. So projects could take tentimes longer and cost ten times as much, but it didn’tmatter because somebody else was paying.

A telecoms engineer – who didn’t know he wasspeaking to a journalist – once told me how he’dspent a day at a Harley Street clinic, playing solitaireon his laptop and listening in to patient phone calls.He was stringing out the job by looking busy. Fixing aPBX was the work of minutes, but he had to stay onthe premises to justify the massive fee the client wasgoing to be charged.

Cloud computing has changed that social dynamic.Payment by results means that nobody wants to bethe one who extends meetings longer than they needto. Anyone who wants to modify the project will needto be absolutely certain that they are contributing animprovement. Once, a development meeting was likea long leisurely lunch. Now they’re conducted with theurgency of half-time team talks – everyone is on theirfeet and the basic realities are discussed.

The cloud has also changed the nature of applications.Some traditional office apps, for example, were offeredin much more basic form once Microsoft beganselling them on the cloud. We don’t need 95% of thestuff in most applications anyway. Whatever doesn’tadd – according to the editing mantra – detracts.

Now that there’s a mutual incentive, between clientsand CSPs, to get the job done as quickly andefficiently as possible, everything is starting to change.Often the cloud provider will try and coach the clientto keep things simple, which would never havehappened in the days when fees were based on theamount of work that could be created.

Some CSPs are changing faster than others. Thattelecoms engineer I met at the parents’ evening?Judging by his van, he’s still in a job. I wonder howlong he’ll be playing solitaire though.

The author,Nick Booth,is a contributor toVanillaPlus and atechnology journalist

T

Cloud computing could change meeting cultures and timewasting at the clients’ expense, writes Nick Booth

The cloud could makeus all less pretentious

A telecoms engineer –who didn’t know he wasspeaking to a journalist– once told me howhe’d spent a day at aHarley Street clinic,playing solitaire on hislaptop and listening in topatient phone calls

With data growth exploding, today’s service providers need a quick and easy way to launch new services and content to their customers.

Redknee Unified provides real-time charging, policy management, billing and customer care. Start launching new content and digital services more quickly with a flexible, real-time monetization solution that also provides over 100 marketing campaigns right out of the box.

Redknee Unified is available on premise, or as a cloud-based Software-as-a- Service solution that can be scaled up or down as needed. Redknee Unified is the way to monetize new digital content and services more quickly and cost-effectively.

Redknee Unified

Visit www.redknee.com to find out more about our solutions.

BILLING OVER THE CLOUD: THE FASTEST WAY TO MONETIZE NEW DIGITAL SERVICES

.redknee.com wwVisit wto find out more about our solutions.

.redknee.com to find out more about our solutions.

van+ june july 2015 aw layout 1 - vanillaplus · european csps could realise €39 billion by...

Documents