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Frens Jan Rumph
Profile: I am a researcher, technical consultant and software engineer based in Holland. I have specialized in Charging, Accounting and Billing architectures. From both a technical point of view (IETF, 3GPP, etc) and a business point of view (TM Forum, GBA).
Main interests: Telecom, Charging, Accounting, Billing, Service Orientation, Software Architectures, Software Engineering
Disclaimer: All data and information provided on this site is for informational purposes only.
I do not make any representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis.
Furthermore, this is a personal weblog, the opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer.
Building Marketplaces with Managed Syndicated Services
The TM Forum’s catalyst project ‘Building Marketplaces with Managed Syndicated Services‘ presented its results at Management World 2008 in Nice. The project aims to implement standards-based B/OSS for cross-platform next generation service management’.
The project is sponsored by BT, Microsoft and Telefonica. Further contributions are made by Accenture, CA, Iptivia, Netcracker and Tribold.
The idea of the project is to create a service delivery concept which reassembles SOA service repositories. A service provider exposes a number of services that can be syndicated by a party that combines the services into a new service for the end-user. These syndicated services could be voice or any other multimedia communication services, content services, et cetera.
The project gives the following example, it neatly shows how a service supply chain can be instantiated by syndicating a number of loosely-coupled services:
- A conferencing service is exposed by Service Provider A to be syndicated under three contracts: small, medium and large conference
- A real time video session delivery is exposed by Service Provider B to be syndicated under two contracts: slideware presentation and animated presentation
- A common billing service is exposed by Service Provider C to be syndicated under one contract: detailed charging
- A service aggregator will contract an animated video presentation for a small conference with detailed charging. The service aggregator has the capability to capture events/information related to the health and usage of services provided by SP A and SP B before using SP C for invoicing the end user.”
Phase I of the catalyst project demonstrated the end-to-end product assembly, provisioning and service quality management capabilities ready for service syndication. The next phase, scheduled for the second half of 2008, will include settlements, billing and revenue allocation.
It sounds like a very interesting project; especially the second phase is of particular interest for me personally. I have done some research on similar problems from a charging and billing perspective already in the Ambient Networks project and more recently in an in-house research project within my company. Some of these results have landed in a paper called ‘Accounting, Charging and Billing for Dynamic Service Composition Chains’ which is currently under review for the 17th International Conference on Information Systems Development. This paper gives some views on the changes required on Accounting, Charging and Billing processes and enabling systems in order for them to support service composition similar to the service syndication concept presented in this TM Forum catalyst project.
This project is definitely on my watch list!
Finish 3G bit pipes
Interesting post from the CTO of NMS Communications on a study from the University of Helsinki, Finland on the usage of 3G in Finland, his analysis: ‘3G’s biggest success is as a dumb pipe‘ and we don’t need IMS, GSM over SIGTRAN over IP with an IP/MPLS core network will suffice. Dean Bubley also posted on this on his Disruptive Wireless blog. Dean raises the question: ‘is it really worth bothering about all that complex QoS, prioritisation, differential pricing, IMS etc for the remaining 5%?‘ These discussions are all based on a presentation of Antero Kivi (pdf).
Yes, it might be a bit shocking, perhaps not suprising, it probably was not the vision of 3G initiators years and years ago. But, I disagree that we just need ‘plain old’ IP access for internet with some GSM and SMS stuff on top. Sure, the days of walled gardens and the traditional one-sided telco business models are over. I won’t argue against that, and this is probably a good indication that it is.
But we will need QoS and prioritisation since some services simply have different requirements on the communications network then others and that has a tremendous effect on the QoE (Quality of Experience), which in turn is (IMHO) an important aspect of some of todays and a lot of tomorrows services. We will also need differential pricing. Flat fee will not last for ever, nor will services with a business model purely based on advertising. Perhaps we will see third-party based sponsorships in the near future, which will require differential pricing. And the IMS is an enabler for this. Especially if you combine that with the vision of research projects such as Ambient Networks and the Advanced Multimedia System. The future will tell if telco’s will become/stay bit pipes, I’d say that there are loads of opportunities to being more then that!
Frens Jan Rumph
AMS to the rescue?
I read an article yesterday titled AMS to the rescue, posted on VoiP Survivor. And to be honest, I was a bit shocked and puzzled. It talks about the Advanced Multimedia System which is currently being standardised by the ITU (in study group 16).
I was a bit shocked because the advances made by AMS (as described in the article) sounded like it would have a lot of overlap with the IP Multimedia System, which is being standardised for the last 8 years or so? Continuing to read the article I became a bit puzzled, since the article didn’t even mention the IMS, let alone making a comparision or describing their relationship. Furthermore, do we really need rescuing? Is this a signal from the ITU that we’re heading the wrong way with our current developments (e.g. the IMS)? This called for a little digging 
Some facts on the Advanced Multimedia System:
- It was formerly referred to as H.325.
- The goal of the AMS project is to create a new multimedia terminal and systems architecture that supports distributed and media rich collaboration environments.
- Presently, the project is in the requirements-gathering phase and is starting to look at possible architectures.
- AMS envisions an environment in which a user has many AMS-enabled devices including portable wireless, home entertainment and computer-based devices and is offered many applications and services that are either peer-to-peer or network-provided.
- AMS is viewed as the successor system to the legacy H.323 and SIP systems.
The objectives of the AMS project are:
- Improve the end user experience
- Enable innovative applications
- Enable mobility
- Enable multimedia
- Make it easy to use
- Improve productivity
- Ease application and service development
Some example applications of the AMS:
- Traditional voice and video
- Whiteboard
- File transfer
- Application sharing
- Text messaging
- Video streaming (e.g., IPTV)
- Gaming
- Multi-user data conferencing
- Streaming audio (e.g., “IP radio”)
The AMS project envisions the following components:
- “container” - This is the device that represents the user to the network (e.g., a desk phone, mobile phone, or softphone application)
- Application Protocol Entities (APEs) - These are the applications that register with the container to provide the user with voice, video, and data collaboration capabilities
- Service Nodes (SNs) - These are the network entities that enable the container to establish communication with a remote entity, facilitate NAT/FW traversal, and provide other network-based services
- Application Servers (AS) - These are elements in the network that provide various services, which might include IPTV,
My n cents on AMS:
- The focus of the AMS is more at the edge of the network then one would suspect when reading things such as ’AMS is viewed as the successor system to legacy H.323 and SIP systems.
- A lot of goals of the AMS project are in line with the goals of the IMS, and IMHO seek to build on the efforts put in the standardisation of the IMS by 3GPP. The project description describes that liasons should be made with IETF, ETSI (TISPAN), 3GPP, 3GPP2 and the IMTC, and that it should draw on the work of OASIS, MPEG, IETF, ISO and IEEE. Lets just hope they do! There’s no point in starting all over again!
- A lot of goals and the vision of the AMS project are in line with the Ambient Networks project, an EU FP6 research program, perhaps the ITU can learn from that research.
- The project specifies a lot of Work Items, but NONE on accounting, charging or billing! This would IMHO mean a big gap in the research performed! Unless of course the ITU envisions a world without money or is getting communistic on us
- I wonder how this relates to DLNA? I’m not an expert on that technology, but I have a hunch that there is a relationship here as well!
For further information ake look at this project overview presentation (pdf) from Packetizer, it provides a nice overview of the project. Or check out the AMS project description (pdf).
Frens Jan Rumph
Customer Billing Satisfaction Linked to Churn
An article on billingworld.com was published yesterday, by Khali Henderson:
As always: Customer is King! These results are again an indication that Charging and Billing present opportunities for improvement.
Customer Billing Satisfaction Linked to Churn, TM Forum Study Shows
Customer satisfaction with telecom billing systems, especially for mobile services, is a key to customer loss rates, according to the results of the latest TM Forum Business Benchmarking study, released this week at Management World 2008 World in Nice, France.
The telco benchmarking data show a large gap between the top and average billing inquiry rates among service providers. Average performers logged 16.21 percent of inquiries as billing-related while leading companies reported billing inquiries at 1 percent of all inquiries. Significantly, good performers in this area show lower customer loss rates with less effective performers showing high loss rates.
“Since the largest cause of customer services calls for mobile subscribers is for billing- related issues, investments in streamlined billing plans and multiple-play plans can generate a good rate of return,” the report noted.
The study, “Building on Success: Investment Opportunities in Changing Times,” was produced for TM Forum by OSS Observer and included input from more than 40 communications service providers from Central and Western Europe, Asia-Pacific, North and Latin America. The poll has been conducted each spring and fall over the past three years.
The TM Forum Business Benchmarking results show a widening gap between communications service providers with the best and the worst churn rates. In fourth quarter 2005, the providers with the worst churn rates (2.81 percent) had nearly three times the churn as providers with the best churn rates (.94 percent). In second quarter 2007, providers with the worst rates (3.7 percent) had 5.5 times the churn as those with the best rates (.67 percent).
“To retain and acquire customers [communications service providers] must continue to pursue improvements in operations: service delivery and customer management,” the report added.
Benchmarking data show leading service providers deliver orders in seven days or less 99 percent of the time and need to rework those orders less than 10 percent of the time. Further, the investment in processes leads to an average resolution by leaders in less than one hour.
“Clearly customer satisfaction, and therefore the revenue opportunities for additional services, is related to this high level of performance at service delivery. Investment in mature process development at the onset of service offerings is much less expensive than fixing a process once fielded,” the report stated.
Lifetree Convergence missing the point
I just read an article on billingworld.com about how Lifetree Convergence uses McObject’s eXtremeDB for real-time rating and credit control. On one hand interesting, for me as an engineer at least, on the other hand completely missing the point!
My two cents…
Cent 1: Added value
While speed is ofcourse a (not unimportant) requirement for a real-time rating and credit control application, it’s not going to win you the war. Adding customer value just might, and a credit control request rated within 2 milliseconds or within 20 milliseconds just might not be perceived as value by the customer.
Cent 2: Service Orientation
When checking out their website I noticed the following remark: ‘@Billity’s powerful functionality comes in a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). This provides you a framework to integrate existing, legacy applications on to a single platform.’ This sounds good of course, SOA is a great buzz word (yes, it still is). However I’ve not seen ANYthing that leads me to thing that it has any caracteristics of being service oriented. Just to be complete, the service oriented design principles as described by Erl:
- Service Loose Coupling
- Service Abstraction
- Service Reusability
- Service Autonomy
- Service Statelessness
- Service Discoverability
- Service Composability
- Standardized Service Contract
I think that the combination of SOA and charging/billing presents some great opportunities, in terms of business agility, time-to-market and total cost of ownership. But there are also some hurdles to be taken. One of those is performance. Some billing implementations have to process millions of CDR’s per hour, but the most commonly used SOA enabling techologies (SOAP/XML webservices) are probably not going to ‘cut it’. Especially if you consider that some charging/billing processes would involve a lot of service invocations.
I wonder if any vender will ever pick up on this by itself, the benifit for them might just not be big enough…
Frens Jan Rumph