The New Face of Fulfillment

Francis Haysom, Executive Director, Strategy Office, Telcordia

We’ve all seen that look before.  The blank stare.  That colleague who is so engrossed in thought that you have to wonder what could be so troubling as to distract them from the joys of their IP-core migration.  I expect to see that face more and more as communications service providers struggle with the transition from fulfillment of their diminishing TDM (Time Division Multiplexing) networks, while at the same trying to get the most benefit from their investments in IP.  It’s time for a “new face” in network fulfillment.  One characterized by the vast adoption of service/parameter based provisioning, based on a “whole network” approach that fully leverages the potential of IP. 

We find ourselves at an interesting juncture in the evolution of fulfillment.  Wireless has already seen consumer fulfillment move to a service/parameter based style of provisioning, completely separated from the underlying technology and physicality of the supporting network.  Fulfillment in wireline is still characterized by circuit facility-based ordering--a necessity for the many networks reliant on TDM and point-to-point connectivity.  With the evolution of fixed networks to an all IP core and with semi-ubiquitous high speed access, the industry is poised for a fundamental change in the nature of wireline fulfillment.  Continuing on our present method of operation is untenable.

Hitching a Ferarri to a Horse

The most interesting aspect of this juncture is the way IP is being handled today by many wireline service providers.  While the technology allows for the near elimination of the old point-to-point physical approach, operators are continuing to use it even in their IP networks. They try to make IP look as much like TDM as possible by emulating circuit-based approaches, proscribing network routing for individual services to address IP’s perceived Quality of Service issues.

To use a simple analogy, it’s a bit like buying a Ferrari and then hitching it up to a horse for locomotion.  Holding onto the circuit-based construct negates one of the greatest strengths of IP:  its ability to get the message through in the most efficient manner possible via a nearly infinite flexibility in routing.  It also ties the new network to complex TDM/IP hybrid operational processes.

We are already seeing examples of networks taking full advantage of IP’s potential and removing traffic engineering from their networks.  These networks are choosing to size and optimize their networks as a whole for QoS.  We now see network operators across regions employing this approach and reaping substantial operational savings.

A Service Optimized Network

With IP, the complexity of the network is simplified by not having failure points, created through forcing a single proscribed route.  With ubiquitous access, the complexity of connecting a customer beyond the first connection is removed.  This suggests that the traditional network fulfillment activities are increasingly becoming part of the planning and network assurance process.  The network will still need to be optimized and routes within it proactively planned and optimized.  But planning and optimization will be based on the overall performance of services on the network.  Operators will need the ability to dynamically manage the network and tune it according to SLAs and traffic.  With services no longer directly related to the underlying network, network optimization will require monitoring of each service against service model, driving manual or potentially automatic tuning of the underlying network.  The nature of networks itself will change to one of interconnectivity, with multiple IP networks able to act as a single virtual network in which definitive routing may well disappear.

Ever-Increasing Service Complexity

With the plateau in profits and saturation of the user base, the only way to increase profitability is to satisfy individual customer demands for ever more complex services and bundles.  More complex services demand exponentially more and more complex service provisioning.  Service provisioning is no longer the simple turning up of a register. Increasingly the fulfillment of service is becoming as complex and interdependent as wireline network provisioning was in the past.

Fulfillment becomes about assembling service configurations and managing disparate services that affect one another. This will bring us into the era of the service factory (see “Applying Lessons Learned from Rapid Product Innovation,” The Works Sep 2010 issue), which will leverage automation and componentization to allow mass customization of low volume, long tail services.

The New Face of Fulfillment

In our scenario, network fulfillment will change in several key areas:

[Editor’s Note:  TIRKS and Telcordia^® Granite Inventory will continue to form the foundation for supporting the new planning and assurance based network processes, supported by new functions aligned with the new operational framework, including:  Integrated Inventory (for physical planning); Total Perspective Planning (integration with customer demographics); Dynamic Pricing (service assurance integration); and Telcordia^® Dynamic Service Catalog (for order management).]

Ready for a Look in the Mirror?

There’s an old gambler’s saying that if you sit down at a poker table and you can’t spot the sucker at the table in the first five minutes, well, the sucker is probably you.  If your company is force-fitting IP network management into a TDM box, then you are probably making fulfillment problems more complex, not less.  Some tell tale signs?

• Services are becoming increasingly complex and interdependent even though you thought you had a service ready network
• TDM network management become the default when IP QoS doesn’t work
• Complex manual provisioning increasingly does not scale
• IP service assurance continues to be manned by a historical number of SME resources

With services becoming increasingly separated from the underlying network, it may be time for fulfillment to become separated from traditional approaches that will stand in the way from realizing the full potential of new assets and services.

We recognize that there are key transformational challenges in moving to this new network service model. Particularly whether telcos will actually rely on automatic systems operationally for network optimization based on service performance It’s still too early to give a definitive answer, but we believe that market circumstances greatly increase the chances. Telcordia is actively contributing to research on self-managing networks through the ETSI EFIPSANS initiative in our Automatic Route Selection (ARS) group. This type of collaboration between pure research and fulfillment units is necessary if the industry is to realize the full potential of IP.

For more information, please contact Francis Haysom, Executive Director, Strategy Office, Telcordia, at fhaysom@telcordia.com or visit our website.