Comarch Technology Review is a publication created by the experts and specialists working in Comarch Telecommunications Business Unit. It aims at assisting our customers and partners in obtaining an in-depth information about the developments and trends in the telecommunications, and the technological possibilities of addressing the most important issues. www.comarch.com IDC: The global nature of OSS/BSS market reinforced by Comarch Pre-paid post-paid convergence – The art of the real time billing Nowadays Roaming Issues Services goes global Triple-play: New standard for CATV and ISPs Convergent Multi-Discipline Cross-Domain Mediation Platforms UMTS – a leading 3G standard Enabling Mobile Virtual Network Operators Fraud Management and Revenue Assurance in Complex and Challenging Networks Comarch Telecommunications Business Unit 2005
Transcript
Comarch Technology Review is a publication created by the experts and specialists working in Comarch Telecommunications Business Unit. It aims at assisting our customers and partners in obtaining an in-depth information about the developments and trends in the telecommunications, and the technological possibilities of addressing the most important issues.
www.comarch.com
Comarch Technology Review is a publication created by the experts and specialists working in Comarch Telecommunications Comarch Technology Review is a publication created by the experts and specialists working in Comarch Telecommunications
www.comarch.com
IDC: The global nature of OSS/BSS market reinforced by Comarch
Pre-paid post-paid convergence – The art of the real time billing
Fraud Management and Revenue Assurance in Complex and Challenging Networks
Comarch Telecommunications Business Unit
2005
2 Technology Review
Welcome to the 2005 editionof Comarch Technology Review“Convergence” is one of the most fre-quently used word these days to describe what’s happening on the tele-communication world. A buzzword or a reality? Data-Voice-Video, Prepaid-Post-paid, Fixed-Mobile network are exam-ples of what convergence means in different contexts. In addition there is a growing gap between the providers of the physical connections and the actual provider of services, contents and appli-cations. The value chain is becoming more complex and alongside we have more and more complex billing proc-esses. At the same time there are more and more new players that are arriv-ing on the scene thanks to the growing deregulation of the telecommunication
IDC, the premier global market-ing intelligence and advisory firm in the information technology and telecommunications industries, in the report published in October 2004 written by Elizabeth Rainge, provides the analysis of Comarch strategies and product portfolio as an OSS/BSS vendor. Comarch is considered as the strongest exam-ple of the new player in the area of OSS/BSS systems.
With more and more interest-ing customer wins with the lead-ing French, Ukrainian and German mobile operators Comarch is seen as the company which is gaining more and more ground on the global mar-ket. IDC highlights a very strong posi-tion of the company on the Central and Eastern European markets and the fact of its growing visibility in the Western Europe and North America.
IDC notes that Comarch prod-uct portfolio for telecommunications (TYTAN Billing System and InsightNet Network Management System) are
sector. These evolutions are imposing new demands and challenges on serv-ice providers and require new way think-ing and new approaches in a number of strategic BSS/OSS areas.
In order to address those trends Comarch is continuing to develop an integrated comprehensive BSS/OSS port-folio of products and solutions, that supports industry standards and new trends. There is a lot of thinking behind what we offer as final products and solutions to our clients. This knowledge-oriented approach is presented in the new edition of Comarch Technology Review. We hope that you will find our insights interesting and inspiring.
IDC: The global nature of OSS/BSS market reinforced by Comarch
best suited for tier 2 and tier 3 service providers. Comarch strategy remains on the total solution of IT solutions for the business. Although the com-pany may have some degree of com-petitive advantage based on cost structure it is not primary reason for choosing Comarch products. Accord-ing to Elizabeth Rainge, Director of IDC’s Network and Service Manage-ment, Next-Generation OSS and Tel-ecom Billing “ – Comarch advantages lie in the relatively new generation of technologies supported by the prod-ucts. Especially for InsightNet, the architectural underpinnings of the product leverage the experiences of more mature products and advances in software and networking tools”.
Comarch products are described as relatively more agile than the systems of large vendors. “-Today, Comarch is becoming visible as a somewhat new but experienced player”. admits Elizabeth Rainge “– With time, the company’s track in non-European opportunities will give greater shape to its role in the market”.
Comarch is competing against the largest global vendors in the OSS/BSS area, and although the company still has to do a considerable job con-sisting in further building the repu-tation on the Western European and North American markets, Comarch is seen as a company with an attractive product portfolio, background and cost structure which already gives the company competitive advantages today and in the future.
PRESS RELEASE BASED ON COMARCH OSS/BSS VENDOR PROFILE
PUBLISHED BY IDC, October 2004, Elizabeth Rainge. The full version of the report containing the detailed analysis
of Comarch strategy, product portfolio, target markets, competitive positioning,
case studies and opportunities, is available at IDC website www.idc.com
Convergent solution – Holy Grail of CSPsSince the introduction of mobile serv-ices, CSPs were seriously thinking about pre-paid services as the solu-tion for high-risk customers that gen-erate lower ARPU. Since there’s no ideal solution, pre-paid services also brought additional problems e.g. the cost of introduction of pre-paid serv-ices was much higher than cost of providing typical post-paid ones. Operators were trying to lower those costs by introducing hand-set based prepaid, hot billing but it was not sat-isfactory enough.
Fortunately, pre-paid services got warm welcome from the users as it appeared that not only low income customers are using them but also a large group of youth, parents buying second phone for their children and simply people who wanted to con-trol the costs and not worry about another “unwelcome” bill at the end of the month.
Customers are more educated today than they were five years ago and they demand convergent services that will give them the ability to enhance their lifestyles and adapt to their spending style.
Pre-paid post-paid convergence – The art of the real time billing
CSPs are trying to fulfill those demands by combining their exist-ing BSS and OSS systems with real time adapters, pre-paid billing sys-tems to provide pre-paid services at least in the particular market seg-ment. Today most of the opera-tors are maintaining two separate systems for pre-paid and post-paid which of course significantly increases OPEX and decreases the range of possible service models. Having those two separate solutions means that operators have to define two set of products, two set of rat-ing plans, maintain integration layer which as a result doubles the effort followed by doubled cost. Both sys-tems usually have different function-alities which cannot be mapped one on another. Having two systems usu-ally means that pre-paid customers don’t have the same customer serv-ice as post paid ones – even though the number of pre-paid users is rap-idly increasing and in some areas there are more pre-paid customers than post-paid ones. CRM systems are traditionally integrated with leg-acy post-paid billing system – addi-tional integration in case of real time pre-paid system is often too expen-sive and even not recommended by vendors of pre-paid software. It’s because pre-paid system is opti-mized for real-time authentication, authorization and accounting oper-ations while CRMs are designed for complex customer related data min-
ing. Such combination can have major impact on the performance of real time operation in a pre-paid sys-tem engine.
Today typical pre-paid services are history.
Entering 3G area accompanied by intensive expansion of IP based services is changing pre-paid from service into a method of payment.
Everyday more and more services require real time authorization even if they are to be paid at the end of the month in a post-paid mode. Such authorization not only checks customer balance but also verifies the user rights and privileges, parameters like QoS, maximum bandwidth, serv-ice usage limits etc. CSPs all over the world are currently looking for best available solution that could combine flexibility of post-paid solutions with real time process-ing known from pre-paid in order to deliver pre-post paid conver-gent BSS system. Such system not only allows to have one point of man-agement for all types of users and services, but also enables flexible dis-counting scenarios – that include cross service (and cross network type) discounts, cross account dis-
New communication services appear everyday. What was once just a comic book fantasy today becomes reality. Communication Service Providers are taking advantage of the new technology increasing their revenues and lowering risk of providing services. However with greater possibilities the great challenge comes, namely how to assure profits from the services and at the same time provide excellent customer experience.
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counts, customer hierarchy with dif-ferent payment methods, e-wallets that allow sharing balance between account and services and many more functionalities that are possible only thanks to centralization of all cus-tomer-account-session-event infor-mation in one place.
Network Interoperability3G takes the best out of two worlds: telecommunication SS7/C7 network and IP world. Users of both 3G tech-nologies UMTS and CDMA2000 are able to make voice calls, access con-tent and stream video to their offices and use their applications from their mobile devices. IP Multimedia Subsys-tem starts to play an important role in 3G and will become major area for service deployment in future releases of 3G/4G standards. Pre-post paid convergent solution can be divided into four major layers:
:: Network – IP or SS7/C7 net-work elements (routers, switches, media gateways etc.)
:: Mediation – which communi-cates directly with network ele-ments, in some cases being active network element (Service Control Point). It’s important that media-tion has to serve both networks using eg. MAP, INAP, WIN, WIN2, TUP,ISUP, H323 or SIP – especially SIP which lately becomes most commonly used session manage-ment protocol in IP networks
:: Session control – based on the events from mediation layer it manages session for each service usage (voice call, WLAN session, VoD etc.) and of course handles authentication and authori-zation. Events rated in real-time decrease balances on customer’s e-wallets.
:: Payment, Billing & Invoicing – rated or pre-rated session events from session control layer can be invoiced if customer wishes to pay them in a post-paid mode.
Having such architecture enabled, the operator is able to provide inter-operable and convergent services. Of course each layer can be provided by different vendor, which on one side is giving opportunity to use best of breed components, but on other side
it generates additional costs of inte-gration and incompatibilities of those components. What has been happen-ing on the market so far, is that the vendors of network elements are try-ing to go into mediation, session con-trol while BSS systems providers are integrating their solutions with medi-ation and session control going into OSS area.
Organizations like 3GPP or UMTS Forum are helping out in the process of standardization of the interfaces and protocols of communications between network elements and software components. Two most important standards today that have already been mentioned are SIP (Ses-sion Initiation Protocol) for session and accounting management in IP networks and Parlay/OSA, an open application programming interface that simplifies service delivery and management in heterogonous envi-ronments. Implementation of Parlay/OSA enabled hardware and software in CSP network – significantly lowers the risk of incompatibility of the par-ticular components. Major vendors of network equipment and BSS/OSS solutions have already implemented Parlay/OSA in their solutions.
Migration methodsMost of the CSPs today are not in this comfortable situation of being start-ups or already having pre-post paid convergent systems. There are several methods of migrating existing BSS system in order to achieve real time services.
:: Full replacement – probably the most painful but as a reward instantly bringing results. One point of management, one inter-
face to CRM, one rating. In the long run it’s the most profitable solution.
:: New services only (pre-post) – it’s a phased approach leading at the end to the first scenario. Only new services are managed by the new platform. Old post-paid calls are still rated in the legacy sys-tem. Much safer approach than the first one however it generates additional cost of maintaining two systems at the same time
:: RT enablers – since legacy BSS system is in place CSP may decide to try to enable if for real time services by adding 3rd party com-ponents like real time mediation and session controller. Depending on capabilities of BSS system such integration provides various levels of convergence.
Comarch’s convergent BSS/OSS suite In 2005 Comarch announces the release of pre-paid post-paid conver-gent billing platform based on Tytan product family. Tytan Real Time Bill-ing Solution is based on Tytan Billing System billing and invoicing system, Tytan Data Processing Server, real time rule based rating and process-ing engine, Session Manager – Parlay/OSA enabled component managing user sessions with the eWallet func-tionalities, and Real Time Mediator SS7/IP network active element.
Written by: Andrzej Przewięźlikowski
Product Manager, Telecommunication Business Unit, Comarch
Today, when more and more people everyday are traveling around the world, the need for fast and efficient communication becomes extremely visible. Roaming customers are not satisfied anymore by basic voice or SMS/MMS services.
T E L E C O M M U N I C AT I O N S
Customers expect services like Voice Conferencing, Presence-
and Location- based services and many others. As such were simply not available in the past, or roaming of those services was technically diffi-cult and would not ensure reasonable return of investment (ROI). The chal-lenge for operators is to enable those services for roaming users in the areas of roaming architecture, real-time authorization and rating as well part-ner’s settlements.
Future services and roamingTechnology of today allows for expan-sion of mobile networks and at the same time gives new possibilities of data transfer. Mobile Operators (MO) hope that thanks to new suite of available services not only they will maintain customers loyalty buy also increase their revenues (ARPU). New mobile services are expected to grow rapidly thanks to increased bandwidth of 3G and later 4G networks. There are finally available completely new or improved services like:
:: Multi user (Voice Conferencing, Video Conferencing, Remote Office);
:: Server-to-User (Dynamic Push/Streaming, Click-to-Dial, Click-to-Chat, Games/Gambling, Presence, Personalized Radio/TV streams, Location-based services, Loca-tion-based advertising and pro-motions, Content and services in the user’s home language and priced in the home currency).
What’s more users want to use those services not only in their home net-works but also while roaming without loosing quality (QoS) or availability of those services.
Another concern that operators have to consider is the risk of intro-duction of new services. In case of home network, Home Operator is tak-ing all the risk, while roaming services puts the risk on both Home and Vis-ited operator.
Roaming operators’ challengesProviding next generation services brings challenges for roaming opera-tors in five major areas:
:: Roaming architecture:: Real-time authorization and rating:: Cellular-to-WLAN Roaming:: Fraud Management:: Settlements between roaming
partners
Figure 2 – HPLMN roamingu with GRX present
Figure 1 – From Circuit switched to IMS-based services.
IP Multimedia Subsystems (IMS)Multi-User:: Voice Conferencing:: Video Conferencing:: Document Sharing
User-to-User:: Voice (rich):: Video:: Text (chat & IM):: Push to talk (PTT)
User-to-Server:: Dynamic Push Services:: Click to Dial:: Click to Chat:: Presence
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RoamingUser 2
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IP connection
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Roaming architecturesMost of implemented services use IP network as a transport layer. There are two most commonly used archi-tectures:
:: ISP Roaming – when VPLMN (Vis-ited Public Land Mobile Network) provides access to IP network;
:: HPLMN Roaming – where access to IP network is secured by HPLMN (Home Public Land Mobile Net-work) (where VPLMN keeps con-nection with user and can be treated as “gateway” to HPLMN).
Currently the preferred approach is HPLMN roaming because it gives bet-ter control over the customer. Unfor-tunately, such solution is also an expensive one mainly because of the necessity of establishing dedicated IP connections with Roaming Partners for delivery broad connections. To lower those costs operators are using services of 3rd entity, GPRS Roam-ing Exchange (GRX), which provides IP backbone connectivity between many roaming partners.
Cellular-to-WLAN RoamingThanks to cellular-to-WLAN roaming mobile users will get seamless access to services from a single provider, whether they are on the move or in a hotspot, using mobile handset.
Operators expect that implemen-tation of such roaming will utilizes existing network infrastructure. There is a proposition by HP and Transat Technologies, Inc. “Transat’s innovative WAIN (Wireless Access Internet Node) server integrates on a single platform the ability to automatically link multi-ple public wireless LANs (PwLANs) and multiple cellular networks, and enable roaming using existing SS7 inter-oper-ator signaling infrastructure. It utilizes SIM cards (smart cards which contain account information) to authenticate and bill customers.”
The users expect to have one handset with integrated WLAN and mobile functions. There is a proposition by Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) which gives specifications for extend-ing mobile voice and data services over fixed wireless LANs. The companies involved include Alcatel, AT&T, BT, Cin-gular, Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, Nortel Networks, O
2, Rogers Wireless, Siemens,
Sony Ericsson, and T-Mobile USA.
Handset manufacturers see new possibilities by introducing dual mode, UMA-enabled handsets.
AAA – real time servingUntil recently mobile networks were used in majority to provide voice call services. Today mobile operators are rebuilding their networks to use IP as a backbone for providing serv-ices. Well known problems in IP world like authentication, authorization and accounting in real time also can be found in mobile networks – and in roaming they become major issues.
MOs are looking for solutions to support AAA (authentication, author-ization and accounting) operations to provide services like personalized web pages, access to premium con-tent or on line payment using m-wallets. Management of user virtual account when user is not in his/hers home network is not so trivial any-more. Operators have to ensure that proper information for authentication (who you are), authorization (what services can you use) and accounting is available on line.
The challenge here is to integrate software components, network layer and communication between Home and Visited Network.
Fraud managementNew services are unfortunately also potential area of new fraud attempts. Current FD systems support roaming fraud detections and present special reports. The information about fraud-ulent usage can be exchanged using e.g. High Usage reports (HUR).
The problem is that currently there are no standards for definition of HUR templates. GSM Association is now proposing several procedures in field of fraud prevention and for data necessary in verification reports.
Along with the evolution of fraud detection methods, templates and mechanisms for fraud related data exchange, the operators endeavor ways of shortening time of exchanging information about fraud. It’s becom-ing a critical issue to shorten this time because of introduction of high-cost services and growing number of serv-ices available in roaming.
Figure 4 – TAP/RAP operation
Figure 3 – Roaming with dual-mode handset
Celluar Radio Acces Network (RAN)
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IP AccessNetwork
Unlicensed WirelessNetwork (e.g., WiFi,
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7Comarch Telecommunications Business Unit
Settlements between roaming partnersAs important as providing services to subscriber is the ability to settle with roaming partner. Current standard of exchange of billing information in GSM networks is TAP3, which has been evolving for many years now, and it’s used by most of the mobile operators.
TAP (Transferred Account Pro-cedure) was developed by the GSM Association, the world’s leading wireless industry body. The work-ing group dealing with TAP is called TADIG (Transferred Account Data interchange Group).
Starting from 3.10 version, TAP3 introduces support for next genera-tion services including location based services, video telephony and WLAN services. TAP 3.11 gives, among others, changes connected with introduction of IMS – IP Multimedia Subsystem.
IMS provides IP transport in core network and enables end-to-end IP
Services, increased potential for serv-ice integrations and easy adoption and integration of instant messag-ing, presence and real-time conversa-tional services.
Legal issuesNowadays there can be observed more pressure for lowering roaming cost of services for end users. Thus Euro-pean Commission (EC) started analy-sis of international roaming charges. Due to cross-border context of roaming service, nor EC, nor national regulators does not have formal law to influence changes of operator pricelists.
Nevertheless there can be expected further actions to lower charges. Expecting that, operators would like to start new services which in result will follow to take actions at many areas: technical structure, exchanging information and co-oper-ations between networks and pos-sibilities of software (operation and business support systems).
Triple-play: New standard for CATV and ISPs
IP revolution that we have been witnessing in recent years, today reached the point, when this technology became a serious threat to the traditional service providers such as ILECs and CATV operators.
People are spending more time online than they do watching
TV or talking over the phone. Being aware of this challenge the opera-tors are expanding and transform-ing their businesses to become MSO – Multiple Service Operators. That gives them a chance to diversify their income, reduce costs and maintain loyalty of their customers.
Improving Customer ExperienceSOHOs and residential customers never had a chance like that – to get all the communication and enter-tainment services from one provider and what’s more, to be able to pay
for it with one bill that includes a vari-ety of cross service discounts. Before the MSOs era, everyone was forced to pay separately their phone bills, cable TV bills and very often also bills for the Internet access. Now the cus-tomers may talk on the phone and if they reach 100 minutes per month and download at least 15MB of con-tent – next pay per view event will be provided at no charge at all. That’s all possible because MSO is providing all IP, Telephony and Video services over one single wire. Such combina-tion is referred to as Triple-Play. Sev-eral technologies are available on the market. Usually depending on the his-torical origins of the operator, they are based on copper (xDSL), coaxial (HFC)
or fiber (FTTx) networks. Emergence of WiMax (IEEE 802.16) broadband access technology will enable WISPs (Wireless Internet Service Providers) to join that group.
MSOs all over the world have been building their position over the past few years. CATV operators were ena-bling Internet Access in their HFC net-works, launching VoIP Long Distance services. Now most of them are look-ing into local telephony services. ILECs have launched xDSL services, now they are trying to enter media market by deploying Service Selection Gate-ways (SSG) in their IP networks. SSG technology enables control of the con-tent and other web services as well easy deployment of video streaming
services like iTV multicasting, Video on Demand (VoD), or Pay Per View (PPV). Next step for ILECs is obvious – to ena-ble IP Telephony. On one side it looks like enabling competitive technology in operator’s own network – on the other side it is still the operator net-work – and there’s always a margin to make this service profitable to opera-tor. Of course unless the competition gets it much earlier.
The benefits of introduction of tri-ple play services are obvious:
:: New revenue streams for oper-ator – New services, not neces-sarily restricted to access services, but also the availability of a wide range of content, video streams, and applications. Even if MSO itself does not manage the con-tent, there are plenty of content aggregators on the market just waiting to get new provisioning channels. Introduction of new services has a chance to signifi-cantly increase ARPU
:: Competition – serving a wide range of services historically pro-vided by separate operators reduces access to the customers by competing telcos.
:: Churn Reduction – combination of price and quality is available thanks to triple-play services. This increases customer satisfaction and significantly reduces churn
:: Optimization of network uti-lization – using new generation network management systems the operators are able to make better usage of their existing net-works and plan expansion to remove bottlenecks and deliver services to new areas.
MSO SolutionsUntil today, especially CATV and ISP operators have been using simple solutions for their billing, customer care and other BSS/OSS functions. They were ideal for them because the business was relatively straightforward. Today, when they become MSOs, they need to seriously consider switching to next generation convergent solutions originally addressed and reserved for telecommunications companies.
The picture above shows the functional blocks of end-to-end BSS/OSS suite for MSOs. Convergent Bill-ing System – enables flexible bill-ing and discounting scenarios – just
like those mentioned in the first part of the article. Partner Settlement Management- gives MSOs ability to share revenue with 3rd party con-tent providers for services and con-tent delivered to subscribers, manage traffic Interconnect settlements both in VoIP and Circuit-Switched networks and of course settle royalties, spon-sorships (advertisement) and com-missions. OSS suite that includes components like Network Inven-tory, Service and Network Provi-sioning, Fault Detection ensures that MSO is able to properly man-age network elements, quickly detect errors and faults, reduce time to mar-ket and deliver services to the end user in a fast and efficient way. Busi-ness Process Management with Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) layer combines all those compo-nents into one well-tuned solution, at the same time providing a tool for the optimization of data and document flow within the company. The core and cream of the BSS/OSS solution which gives MSO real competitive advantage are applications like Work-force Management – that tracks technicians, installation teams, their skills, competences and resources, or Partner Self Management, a sys-tem that business partners can access to configure their services and prices for the content they provide. Sub-scribers using self service functions of Account management and Video on Demand Portal may view and pay their bills online, download content, as well as subscribe to pay per view and VoD events.
Of course installation and integra-tion of all components from this solu-
tion may look really expensive, but the truth is that such investment may return itself in less than one year.
Reaching the GoalTriple-Play changes the way the cus-tomers perceive their communica-tion service providers. Today, MSOs become a major gateway to enter-tainment and communication serv-ices. Creating positive relations with customers is a job for the marketing department, but improving their over-all experience requires collaboration of network, billing, customer service, and even field technicians. Nowadays software vendors reach out to MSO providing a full set of components including business support systems and operation support systems.
Another step in MSO evolution is going into what mobile operators have already been doing for the past few years, and which is becoming even more visible in era of 3G services. Companies that specialize in provid-ing access (network operators), serv-ice (service providers) and content (content providers, WASPs, service and content aggregators) are finding their niches in a service value chain. Because of historical reasons, MSOs will maintain their network opera-tor and service provider status for the next few years but commercial launch of WiMax and 4G services around year 2010, will have a major impact on the current MSO operations, especially in the metropolitan areas.
Written by:Andrzej Przewięźlikowski,
Product Manager, Telecommunication Business Unit, Comarch
I asked a friend of mine once if he knows anyone who had seen or heard about a non-convergent mediation platform. The answer was NO. Although there may be more or less convergent solution in this area, it is extremely unlikely that any single one of them would be advertised as “non-convergent”. Inside telecom networks and mediation the word “convergence” is amongst the most potent ones.
T E L E C O M M U N I C AT I O N S
Convergency – is it a buzz word?It is a strongly desired, eagerly wanted and much treasured characteristics in the context of each mediation ori-ented product or solution. To be honest, in this context the word “con-vergent” is most likely used more fre-quently than the word “network.” It is not a staggering observation. Media-tion solutions should be convergent by definition. After all they do unite or join a variety of systems and that is the very basic function of mediation.
However, with such a broad def-inition how does one know when a mediation platform is truly conver-gent, or in other words what should be the exact definition of mediation convergence when considering the complexity of modern networks and mediation solutions applied to them?
To answer these questions, one ought to have a look at the “world out there”, the world of information processing networks and why they need mediation in the first instance. Or do they? It is easy to notice that modern networks do grow very fast in many orthogonal dimensions. These dimensions span the numerous heterogeneity factors such as:
:: applicable and targeted business models
:: services rendered to customers,
Converge(Merriam Webster Dictionary)
1: to tend or move toward one point or one another : come together: MEET
2: to come together and unite in a common interest or focus
3: to approach a limit as the number of terms increases without limit
:: different customer bases and pro-files
:: varying system and network inte-grators and their solutions
:: multiple management functions, interfaces and standards
:: countless equipment and soft-ware vendors
This heterogeneity and multiplicity means that in spite of initiatives such as NGOSS and heavy standardiza-tion efforts, mediation is still required to lower the accrued cost of network ownership.
A successful convergent mediation platform should be able to address all these network complexity dimensions in a homogeneous manner so that mediation itself does not increase the cost whilst trying to lower it.
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Billing Mediation
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A mediation platform that targets the challenges of modern network own-ership will truly become convergent when it transparently crosses and seamlessly merges the variety of dis-ciplines and the wealth of domains at all levels of the traditional TMN model depicted above.
It needs to be sufficiently versa-tile to target different domains and adequately performant to meet the ends, and not to require abundance of processing power and related excessive equipment costs. Thus, the term “convergent” without the adjective “multi-discipline” and “con-vergent” without “cross-domain” leaves a strong feeling of something missing. But how can one realize “convergent multi-discipline cross-domain mediation”? Or more to the point, can this be achieved at all? What would be the key features that would push a mediation solution towards the actual convergence? Although there are no universal answers to such general questions, there are universal means to address the challenges.
Convergency – making reality out of the mythSince a good convergent mediation solution needs to target cross-domain networks and provide a wide range of applicable functions and services it requires a powerful and configurable “logics processor”. This could be a rea-soning or inference engine that can be set (“soft configured”) to perform pretty much anything the network may require and meet the processing requirements. The existence of such processing module warrants that the solution will not face an impos-sible task when facing mediation of an unusual feature, some “wild-mar-
keting-dream” service or a brand new niche type of network.
In theory it is possible to write hundreds of dedicated engines and extend on the range each time some-thing new appears on in the “medi-ation world”, but in real life such system would most likely be more expensive that the systems it aims to converge.
Furthermore, a successful con-vergent mediation platform needs to cover and be quick to adapt new net-work interfaces whilst supporting “all” the required operating systems. Thus, it must be based on highly productive development technology facilitating the ease of migration between differ-ent systems. In this context the word JAVA springs to mind at once. It does offer much higher productivity rates than traditional languages and plat-forms. But it does provide a very wide range of already available technolo-gies, such as:
:: common messaging systems and application servers that facilitate distributed and remote deploy-ments
:: common open OSS/J standard:: coverage of many network inter-
faces and transfer protocols:: multitude of well tuned process-
ing functions:: out-of-the-box portability
between virtually all popular operating systems.
But can it really do its job? It seems it can be versatile enough without problems, but can it be adequately performant?
How we answered all the issuesComarch InsightNet Mediation Plat-form employing the very power-ful FireFly reasoning engine, based
on J2EE, OSS/J, JMS and similar tech-niques does the job every day for many clients nowadays. It fits well into the direct network management. It is frequently deployed to provision, monitor, maintain and manage serv-ices across the domains of IP, SDH, GSM, GPRS and many others. It was also used to mediate billing and sub-scriber information for the purpose of invoicing, revenue assurance and other business applications. It was and it is seen all the way from the bottom to the top of the TMN pyra-mid. Moreover, it had smashed the myths about the meager JAVA per-formance.
A complex billing mediation solution deployed in a real GSM/GPRS network feeding four business-oriented systems processes easily 185 million records each day using only two of the four available HP 850MHz CPUs.
It is JAVA and FireFly based and it still has plenty of power to spare for some more demanding times (have you ever tried to make a mobile call just after midnight New Year’s Day?). Per-sonally, when I look at this particular solution, the areas it is applied to, the boundaries it crosses and domains it merges, I do see a truly convergent mediation platform.
Written by:Tomasz Omieciński,
Mediation Product ManagerTelecommunications Business Unit,
UMTS – a leading 3G standardUMTS or Universal Mobile Telecommunications System is a leading 3G technology which is now being deployed all over the world. UMTS evolved from GSM - a 2G technology and from GPRS - a 2.5G technology which was developed in order to extend GSM functionalities by adding the possibilities of data transmission in packet mode. Additionally EDGE was developed as a technology enabling higher data rates by usage of new modulation and coding schemes.
T E L E C O M M U N I C AT I O N S
UMTS originated from the mentioned technologies but it is still expected to evolve. In this article we will present this possible evolution in terms of standardisation in 3GPP and simulta-neously we will show how Comarch fits into this picture in terms of OSS and BSS systems
UMTS evolutionUMTS is just being deployed in the world so while talking about its evo-lution one should consider its state now and in the future. At Comarch we think that a good view on UMTS future progress is given in the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project). The main reason is that commercially UMTS will be deployed according to the 3GPP releases. That is why the synchronization with such standard makes sense.
3GPP is a standardisation body which works out UMTS standards.
Release 99 (R’99) sometimes called Release 3. It is the release which is now being deployed in the world. It is based on evolved GSM and GPRS architecture. This release was defined in order to extend 2G and 2.5G tech-nologies mentioned above in terms of higher data rates and better user experience by offering new more complicated and enjoyable serv-ices like streaming of video or video telephony. For this release Comarch offers TYTAN Billing Platform ena-bling billing of wide range of circuit switched and packet services includ-ing different cases of roaming. Addi-tionally, TYTAN Mobile Portal enables
offering and charging of different kinds of services based on web proto-cols. For example content based serv-ices, mCommerce, Location Based Services and self provisioning (Mobile Portal acts as a gateway to the built-in self care application).
InsightNet Network Management enables control and management of UMTS network elements both in
the core network (MSC, SGSN, GGSN, HSS) and in the access network (RNC, BSC, nodeB). Additionally, Comarch InsightNet ensures effective manage-ment of complex 3G services, like for instance content delivery or moni-toring and ensuring QoS using SLAs (Service Level Agreement).
From the services point of view Rel’ 99 introduces new standard application interfaces based on Par-lay concept. Parlay interfaces enable applications residing outside the net-work to access and control different resources and devices. The Parlay API specifications are open and technol-ogy independent, so a wider range of independent software companies may develop and offer advanced tel-ecommunication services. An API is simple in order to be applied in all different kinds of networks and can be used from 3rd party appli-
The evolution of UMTS is a gradual process during which, step by step, new features and functionalities are made available to network operators, service providers and first of all to the users
Origin of UMTS
GSM
EDGE
GPRS
UMTS
12 Technology Review
cation developers. Additionally, Par-lay offers better opportunities to test software before it is deployed. Within 3GPP Parlay group work is taken into account by one of the work-ing groups called OSA (Open Service Access). OSA adds some modifica-tions to Parlay work in order to bet-ter satisfy the needs of a 3G network. Parlay interfaces are used by Comarch in the Real-Time Billing solution.
UMTS Release 4 (R4) is the next step in the migration towards full implementation of third-generation UMTS networks. This release provides only enhancements to the transport (replacement of MSCs by Media Gate-ways), radio interface and some of features defined in Release 99. Since there are no revolutionary changes in the types of network equipment and services Comarch’s systems both TYTAN Platform and InsightNet Plat-form will not have to be upgraded as a whole but in some minor areas (e.g. management of Media Gateways).
IMS provides a flexible architecture for the quick deployment of mod-ern innovative features and services. IMS is important for us since it intro-duces both a technical and commer-cial framework for mobile operators and service providers to make avail-able person-to-person services using a wide range of integrated media, voice, text, picture and video services.
Two components of TYTAN plat-form may be helpful for service pro-viders in adapting to Release 5 of UMTS. For non-real time billing we offer two products. TYTAN Billing Sys-tem can be used for end-user bill-ing and TYTAN Inter Partner Billing for inter-partner billing and revenue shar-ing. Both systems are using Insight-Net Mediation device for gathering CDRs from the network and their for-matting.
TYTAN Real-Time billing solu-tion enables billing of real-time serv-ices thanks to its Real-Time Mediation and Session Manager. It is closely inte-grated with TYTAN Billing System. For offering web-based services it is still possible to use an upgraded version of TYTAN Mobile Portal.
The two next releases are now being standardised so we only shortly mention their most important qualities:
:: Release 6 takes a radical approach to the introduction of conversational and real time interactive multimedia services over an end to end IP transport provided by an enhanced gen-eral packet radio service in the packet switched domain. The new capabilities being standard-ized include higher data rates in
the access network, additional IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) capabilities, and new capabilities for MBMS (Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Services) and UMTS-WLAN (Wireless LAN) interwork-ing.
:: Release 7 will further enhance the new capabilities that have been introduced in the previ-ous two releases. From our per-spective the most important will be explicit support for wire-line access allowing fixed-mobile convergence. At the moment we extensively investigate possibili-ties to cover relevant areas like real-time billing, real-time service provisioning.
UMTS’ impact on service providersThe evolution of UMTS is a gradual process during which, step by step, new features and functionalities are made available to network operators, service providers and first of all to the users. Increasing complexity of net-work and services impacts the speed of UMTS’ deployment and forces serv-ices providers to carefully choose software vendors. Comarch with its TYTAN and InsightNet platforms can make the process of UMTS introduc-tion easier, faster and less expensive.
Release 5 (Rel’5) introduces much more enhancements and changes to UMTS specification than previous release. First of all there are two groups of new features which may influence vendors of BSS and OSS systems.
Features concerning access net-work only indirectly touch Comarch products by enabling new kinds of services or enhancing the existing ones. For us the most important is the advent of HSPDA (High Speed Down-link Packet Access) a service which makes possible to achieve data rates reaching up to about 14Mbits/s on the downlink that is from the UMTS network to the terminal. This serv-ice will be an enabler of new mod-ern bandwidth hungry services like TV streaming, movie streaming and many others.
In the core network domain an important enhancement of enor-mous importance for service provid-ers is IMS – IP Multimedia Subsystem.
Comarch with its TYTAN and InsightNet platforms can make the process of UMTS introduction easier, faster and less expensive.
TYTAN RTB TYTAN BS TYTAN IPB
TYTAN Mobile Portal
InsightNet Mediation
UMTS PS Domain
IMS Domain
UMTS CS Domain
UMTS/GSM access
network
PSTN
Internet
13Comarch Telecommunications Business Unit
Enabling Mobile Virtual Network Operators
Wireless world is overloaded with acronyms. IMVNO, Mobile Virtual Network Operator is another one. An MVNO is an entity that provides retail mobile voice and data services, including enhanced services to consumers, while utilizing the physical facilities of another operator’s network. MVNO therefore pays Mobile Network Operators for the usage of their networks.
T E L E C O M M U N I C AT I O N S
Is it worth to be MVNO?The above question is crucial for a company intending to enter the highly competitive MVNO market especially when it is a non-telecomm business. While taking the decision to start an MVNO enterprise two impor-tant aspects must be considered.
First of all the business should be attractive to potential custom-ers. In order to achieve this, an MVNO should offer a wide range of inter-esting services. Such services can be proposed if software and services are carefully chosen.
For modern and success oriented MVNO the key point in the choice of software platform will be ability to adapt in a fast way to new services and products.
Secondly, the business should encourage classical network oper-ators to cooperate with MVNOs. Successful MVNO will convince clas-sical MNO to cooperate by offering new distribution channels, new serv-ices, and the possibility of increasing customer retention.
Comarch views on MVNOsAt Comarch we divide MVNOs into three general groups. From the most technical to the most business oriented. Equipment based MVNOs - it is the most technical division based on the equipment used. We divide such MVNOs into three groups:
:: Pure MVNOs - no network, no SIM:: SIM based MVNOs - owns SIM:: Network based MVNOs - owns
some network elements.Service based MVNOs are divided according to their place in the chain describing a mobile business company evolution. Evolution of such a com-pany goes through four stages from the most simple - a service provider to the most advanced - an MVNE.
:: Service Provider - offers mobile subscriptions and owns a cus-tomer care and billing system. It does not offer new services. This kind of MVNO is a fast star-tup company. For such players Comarch offers TYTAN Billing Sys-tem and Customer Care.
:: Enhanced Service Provider - this kind of player additionally owns a
portal through which it is able to offer advanced services for users. For such players Comarch, addi-tionally to TYTAN Billing System and Customer Care, may offer TYTAN Mobile Portal and TYTAN Partner Care.
:: Full MVNO - it has its own net-work identity and is perceived by other operators as an independ-ent player on the market. It owns SIM cards and roaming agree-ments. For this kind of opera-tors Comarch additionally can offer TYTAN InterPartner Billing for handling revenue sharing and interconnect agreements with partners.
:: Mobile Virtual Network Enabler - it is the most advanced type of MVNO. It is not only a mobile operator but also a mediator between network providers and less advanced MVNOs. It accom-plishes a few important functions: :: mediation between the MNO
and MVNOs :: reselling network capacity:: caring for all Telecom and Inter-
net services for non-telecom based MVNOs
Mobile business company evolution
MVNEFull MVNOEnhanced Service Provider
Service Provider
14
The third group, and the most gen-eral, distinguishes MVNOs basing on the origin of the business founder.
:: Telecom founded MVNOs - these MVNOs are set up by telecommu-nications companies. They have enough of engineering knowl-edge for running them in an effi-cient and profitable way. For these businesses, Comarch offers a versatile choice of products for service and network provisioning based on two platforms Insight-Net and TYTAN.
:: Non-telecom founded MVNOs - for this kind of businesses Comarch may offer well posi-tioned product base as well as hosting services, billing services, customer and partner care and service creations offerings.
How we can help to be branded MVNEMobile Virtual Network Enabler (MVNE) is a mature MVNO, hav-ing telecom and mobile experience,
network infrastructure and agree-ments with a number of MNOs, will-ing to start selling its capacity to new MVNOs. The mobile technology busi-ness model can be viewed as a stack of layers realizing two main functions:
:: Mobile Network Provisioning at the lower part of the stack - these functions are usually provided by MNO since it is the entity which owns the mobile network ele-ments and manages them. Of course more developed types of MVNOs may be present here as well when they own the mobile network switches or service nodes.
:: Service Provisioning at the upper part of the stack. -these functions may be provided by MNO, MVNO and MVNE.
Comarch as a software manufac-turer and systems’ integrator is able to offer high quality components to start-up and run an MVNO busi-ness. Above all, Comarch products cover most of the functions which are needed by a branded MVNE. The table below briefly presents our prod-ucts in relation to MVNE functions.
TYTAN Mobile Portal enables MVNOs and MNOs to offer
modern and up-to-date services. It reduces substantially
their time to market.
Billing TYTAN Billing System enables billing of retail subscribers
using different rules.
TYTAN InterPartner Billing helps in managing inter-
connect agreement including roaming (TAP3) and ena-
bles distribution of revenue among parties participating in
service delivery Tytan Real Time Billing Solution helps to
deal with a wide range of services managed in real time.
Customer Care TYTAN Customer Care the system allows operators to
provide customers with information and collect feedback
information from the market.
TYTAN Partner Care the system allows operators to inte-
ract with partners and to supervise ongoing deals.
Technology Review
Comarch for MVNO
Sales
Marketing
Customer Care
Billing
Access Network
Core Network
Radio Access
Application & Services
Serv
ice
Prov
isio
ning
Com
arch
MV
NE
Net
wor
k Pr
ovis
ioni
ng
MNE
15Comarch Telecommunications Business Unit
Fraud Management and Revenue Assurance
in Complex and Challenging Networks
There are two major statements relating to modern telecommunication operators. The first is that Fraud Management and Revenue Assurance are becoming the essential areas to be covered by their OSS/BSS solutions. The other is that telecommunications networks are getting more complex and heterogeneous every day together with the introduction of new technologies and services.
T E L E C O M M U N I C AT I O N S
Nevertheless, the consequences of conjunction of these two state-
ments are not that evident when it comes to the implementation of Fraud Management and Revenue Assurance systems. The complexity of issues of fraud and revenue leakage cases is confronted with the growing complexity of the network and serv-ices. That is why the efficient man-agement of revenue assurance area is a double challenge for the opera-tors, which must be treated with spe-cial attention.
SetupImplementation of Revenue Assur-ance system is usually perceived as a project as many others. The respon-sibility is set within a specific depart-ment, often created and dedicated purely for the purpose of man-agement of this specific area. Here comes the first challenge. It is abso-lutely important to properly define the processes and flow of informa-tion between that department and the rest of the organisation. It is not sufficient when Revenue Assurance Department (or whatever other unit that is dealing with the issues) only receives the streams of data and presents results.
In today constantly changing networks where new services are introduced everyday, the Revenue Assurance Department must react proactively to every change in the network.
Each new service, being a potential source of new profits for the operator becomes at the same time a poten-tial risk of fraud and revenue leak-age. That is why Revenue Assurance Department should be involved in the processes of planning, design-ing and introduction of new services and new elements of the network. On the other hand, the results presented by the Revenue Assurance Depart-ment are not only reports showing the gains and losses. They must have measures to influence other depart-ments to introduce preventive and repairing actions in order to diminish revenue leakage and number fraudu-lent events.
Audit and analysisThe major responsibility of the new Revenue Assurance unit would be to
conduct the analysis of all the proc-esses in the organisation in the con-text of potential fraud and revenue leakage cases. Many sources of reve-nue leakage can be detected in this early stage of the audit process. This step can be approached by the Reve-nue Assurance Department itself but usually some help from external pro-fessional company is useful. This audit process can be performed together with the analysis in the context of automated systems implementation that is described in more details in the next paragraph. The results of this phase are improvements in internal processes that have to be introduced in order to proceed to further steps. It is essential to understand that omit-ting this phase usually produces an effect of overflow of problems when it comes to the automated system implementation.
Systems implementationWhen all possible ways of “manual” detection of problems have been used, the time for automation comes. The area of Fraud Management and Revenue Assurance is too complex to be covered by only one automated system. Usually vendors propose dif-ferent systems that are responsible for the areas of completeness-check and rate-check of the records, fraud management, test call generators, SS7 probes, voice quality and many oth-ers. Here different approaches can be introduced by the operator. One case is to implement all those systems within one project. In this case usu-ally different stages are necessary, for example to introduce all the systems but a in smaller part of the network in the beginning or only for a sam-ple of subscribers. This is the so called horizontal approach to the Revenue Assurance. The opposite is vertical approach which means covering only one specific area in the beginning
but for the whole network. Here an example is implementation of Fraud Management system only as the first stage. Of course, hybrid approaches are also possible.
The challenge for the operator is not only to choose an approach that will be most appropriate for their needs but also to coordinate thoughtfully the whole process in order to provide as a result the full coverage of Revenue Assurance area.
Go-liveWhen systems are already in place and running, the real challenge begins for the Revenue Assurance Department. The first results pro-duced by those systems are becom-ing visible. There are usually many issues appearing at this stage. The potential sources of revenue leak-
age must be identified properly, for example, whether this could be the lack of synchronisation in the network or wrong configuration of services. On the other hand, some problems alarmed by the systems would not be really the source of potential rev-enue leakage but only lack of knowl-edge about all configuration details concerning the network. Sometimes these problems result from lack of detailed specification of processes or service definitions. The engines of the systems have to be adjusted accord-ing to the result analysis. This process is called the tuning of the system. The important statement to understand is that the activity of tuning takes place as long as the systems are running. It is not a phase of the project that has its time limitations. The new fraud scenarios appearing constantly and new ways to detect them are intro-duced; the libraries of fraudulent and honest behaviours are populated with new patterns and neural net-works are re-trained to detect them; new services and technologies are introduced and comparison engines have to be adjusted in order to sup-port them. In this stage, the most
important is the tight cooperation between the vendors of the systems and the operators. The operators must be able to feel supported by the vendors in this constant process of improving and adjusting the systems to their constantly changing needs.
Sensitivity of the area Last but not least issue concerning Fraud Management and Revenue Assurance systems is a very delicate issue connected with problems like internal fraud and human errors. This area must be treated with extreme attention and essential thing is to implement special policies and pro-cedures for confidentiality of informa-tion and security. The management of the organisation should provide strong support in the implementa-tion of such procedures and in con-ducting proper research within the company.
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