Transformation of OSS/BSS architecture

Traditional Architecture Of OSS/ BSS

 The term OSS describes "network systems" dealing with the telecom network itself and supporting processes such as maintaining network inventory, provisioning services, configuring network components, and managing faults. The term BSS typically refers to "business systems" dealing with customers and the supporting processes such as taking orders, processing bills, and collecting payments etc. Originally, these were mainframe-based, stand- alone systems designed to support telecom company’s staff members in their daily jobs.These systems used to be very complex and tightly coupled with each other. A small change in one system could affect all the interfacing systems.

In today’s scenario the next - generation service providers are required to manage a much more complex set of products and services in a dynamic and competitive marketplace. These systems ultimately help in enabling next-generation service providers to reduce costs, provide superior customer service and accelerate their time to market for new products and services.

                                        

Limitations of traditional OSS/BSS Architecture

The traditional OSS/BSS architecture includes custom development of integration code which is inadequate in satisfying the requirements of telecom service providers. Integrating systems when multiple TSP’s collaborate is also a challenge.  Common problems in traditional OSS/BSS architecture are:

•         Point to point integration

: OSS/BSS architecture involves integration with multiple external systems. For example, changes made into CRM system by CSR needs to updated into billing system automatically. This requires a number of interfaces between these external systems so that they can talk to each other. Such an approach is time consuming and integration is fragile. Furthermore, the integration does not offer end-to -end process picture that is essential to structure and reduce integration complexity.

•         Tightly Coupled.

Business rules and integration logic is tightly coupled with software components and any change in business environment will require overhauling and rebuilding application. OSS/BSS system is not flexible to handle frequently changing business requirements like introduction to new policies and service offerings..

•         Integration with External Systems

 External systems have their legacy implementation technologies which make the interaction with them difficult and require huge development effort. Also, each external system understands its own set of data types, so a transformation model is also required to convert information from one system to another.

•         Complex Transaction Management

Any operation performed by end user appears to be a single transaction. But the corresponding changes needs to be committed to multiple systems. For example, creating an account involves creating an account in billing system, LDAP, CRM System.

Integration Architecture

Mobile services are becoming more and more diversified. They range from basic circuit switched voice service to packet switched data services with multitudes of applications, both in the network and the handset. The services may have complex pricing rules and they require correct settings in multiple independent network elements. Many services are provided by third parties, which are outside the control of network operators.

The integration enablers consist of the integration technology platform (OSS and IT middleware), with both generic framework and OSS/BSS-specific abstraction services, which are accessed through standard APIs when possible. The solution for the end-to-end automated fulfillment consists of the following components:

BSS layer:  A self service (web) portal, where the subscriber is able to manage his subscription and activate new services and deactivate unwanted ones, customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, order management, subscriber management, pricing and rating information and charging & billing system. All these are included in BSS.

OSS layer: Resource inventory management and service management in OSS would serve as an effective measure.

Shruti Bhardwaj

Class of 2014

Analysis for Telecom Service Industry (FY 2011-2012)

Indian Telecom Industry started in 1851 when the first operational land lines were laid by the government near Calcutta (seat of British power) and now driven by wireless revolution, the Indian telecom industry is one of the fastest growing in the world contributing to nearly 2% of the Indian GDP and it’s bound to increase considering huge potential of Indian Urban market and untapped rural market. Needless to say, it also has one of the lowest tariffs in the world enabled by the hyper-competition in the market.

However, over last few years, telecom sector has witnessed several setbacks in terms of various scams, cancellation of 2G licenses of many operators, unsuccessful launch of 3G (not so great customer database), uncertain policy etc.  Considering all these significant negatives, industry did not seem (and certainly is not!) in its healthy state.  And thus, it came as a big surprise when the Indian Telecom Industry actually grew by 7% in the last fiscal.

If you see an industry getting defeated, then you are certainly not looking at the Telecom!! Yes, the telecom service industry revenue went up from 1,71,347 Cr. to 1,82,459 Cr. in FY 2011-12 according to telecom journal Voice & Data. Various telecom services counted in the survey include cellular, fixed line, National Long Distance (NLD), International Long Distance (ILD), broadband and VSAT services. 

SOURCE: VOICE & DATA

1)    Cellular:  It grew by almost 17 % and contributed 65 % of the entire industry’s revenue. The total cellular subscriber base was increased by 117 million during last fiscal and three major players are Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea according to the market share.

2)    Fixed, NLD & ILD: Fixed and NLD segment did not see any growth. People are going wireless and fixed line industry has seen dip in their revenue by almost 19%. Similarly, NLD segment has seen a dip of 15% perhaps because of the fact that tariff for local calls and long distance calls are almost identical. Amongst three, ILD segment has witnessed minuscule growth of 0.27 %. Amongst top 5 players in ILD segment, Tata Comm. grew by 20 % and Vodafone grew by 40 %.

3)    Broadband: Despite the popularity of the Internet in India, broadband segment has seen dip of 0.46 %. It should be noted that the Internet penetration in India is one of the lowest in the world and only accounts for 8-10% of the population compared to OECD counties, where avg. penetration rate is over 50%.

P.S. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an international economic organisation of 34 countries founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade.

4) VSAT: The term VSAT is an acronym for Very Small Aperture Terminals. Any requirement for connectivity in remote areas where other technologies cannot provide services or where dedicated and uninterrupted data connectivity is required (like core banking facility and the involvement of financial transaction) then the answer lies with VSAT services. VAST industry in India saw the growth of 6 % in FY 11-12 and credit goes to the growing demand from banking industry.

The Indian telecom service industry is likely to sustain growth in next fiscal considering the rollout of 4G service by all major telecom players and shall emerge as one of the key sectors responsible for India’s economic growth. 

Kaushal Joshi

Class of 2014

THE INTERLOCKED TROIKAS

In the last couple of months of 2011, the government seemed to be working like there was no tomorrow. May be this was to compensate the time lost for legislation due to the controversy surrounding the Lokpal Bill and FDI in multi brand retail. As always there was always something to cheer about after a period of prolonged gloom. Well the cheer was in the form of flurry of encouraging government policies for the ICTE (Information & Communication Technology and Electronics) industry. The draft policy on Electronics (NPE) was unveiled on 3^rd October, 2011 and that on IT (NPIT) was unveiled on 7^th October, 2011. To add to that other policies like the draft NTP 2011 was released on October 10 and the National Manufacturing Policy (NMP) and National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) were approved by the Union cabinet on 25^th October 2011.

ICT and Electronics industries have been the beacon on which the Indian economy has scripted marvelous success stories. Now it is time these industries synergize more which has the potential to produce spectacular and unprecedented success.

Now considering these three sectors, the challenges faced by Electronics sector (ESDM industry), lesser known of the trio, are something which needs to be taken up as top priority and hence the widespread interest in these policies from the industry.

NPE 2011

NPE 2011 envisions creating a globally competitive Electronics Systems Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) industry to meet the domestic as well as International demands. To accomplish this vision, many policies have been enlisted. The most important objective is to achieve a turnover of Rs 20 lakh crores by 2020 with an investment of Rs 5 lakh crores and thereby creating employment of around 2.8 crore by 2020. Of the total turnover targeted, Rs 2.75 lakh crores is expected from chip design and Rs 4 lakh crores from exports by 2020, an increase of more than 1000% from the current figure. NPE 2011 also aims to develop high-quality electronic products at affordable prices for inclusive adoption and deployment to improve productivity, efficiency and ease of operations in other sectors and also promote global best practices in use and disposal of electronic products. It also aims to provide incentives for setting up of over 200 Electronic Manufacturing Clusters (EMCs) with world class logistics and infrastructure and easy to do business facilities. The consequence of such a policy would be a boost to other sectors like automotive, industrial, medical, and also communications.

NPE 2011 can be a lifeline for the telecom ecosystem. In early 1990s when the wave of liberalization hit our country, the government wanted to develop the software industry as quickly as possible. The fallout, the idea of indigenous manufacturing of equipments took a backseat. These events started off a self defeating cycle where in dependency on imports increased manifold. Today the same government bemoans the lack of manufacturing capabilities in India. So we can see that poor policies for the sake of immediate returns will cost more in the future. Just consider these facts emanating from the industry circles. The demand for telecom equipment is estimated at around Rs 54,000 Crores in 2011 and is expected to increase to around 2.5 lakh crores in 2020, which is the second highest in the import bill after oil. With India being the fastest growing telecom market, the need for telecommunication networks will also increase. Trying to meet this need through imports puts tremendous strain on the exchequer’s coffers and presents substantial security issues. Hence the guidelines laid down in NPE 2011 gives impetus to manufacturing in telecom sector. Another enabling policy is to declare mobile phones specifically and other electronics products for data communication as goods of special importance under the Central Sales Tax Act. The policy aims to significantly scale up human resource creation to 2500 PhDs annually by 2020 in the sector.

NMP 2011 complements the NPE 2011. NMP 2011 also aims to increase the manufacturing share of GDP by 22% in 2022 and create 10 crore additional jobs by 2022.

NPIT 2011

The software/IT industry has been the darling of our economy. It has been a key factor in India emerging as a knowledge based power house. The Indian IT industry as of 2010 is worth Rs 4.5 lakh crores with nearly 80% of revenue coming from exports. The industry employs around 25 lakh skilled people. The current crisis in the developed countries have brought with it challenges as well as opportunities. This means we should start looking within our economy. There are encouraging sign of increasing IT usage due to gaining popularity of ICT industry.

Some of the major objectives include increasing revenues of IT/ITeS to around Rs. 15 lakh crores and expand exports to Rs. 10 lakh crores. Also more focus is laid on service delivery through e-Governance. NPE and NPIT together enable an ecosystem for mobile internet and mobile value added services.

Summary

The triads – IT, Telecommunications & Electronics have been significantly contributing to the growth of the economy. ICT can in fact help to reach out to the masses in the hinterlands enabling them to be hit the wave of development. ICT industry also gives ESDM sector a much needed push due to well known reasons. But to achieve that the government has to build up the brand image of the ESDM sector as it always taken a back seat to accommodate the more glamorous IT sector.

Aakash, an android tablet, is a product developed by IIT Jodhpur in collaboration with Datawind. It costs as low as Rs.2500 (commercial version costs around Rs 6000). This is an example of how innovation within the country can lead to cost effectiveness. The most interesting part is that the tablet was manufactured in India and not in China which was a cheaper option (import of finished goods attracts lower duty than the raw materials). Datawind CEO once said that since it was an Indian design, he wanted the phone to be manufactured in house. The point I want to drive home is the sense of pride and satisfaction in creating something in our own backyard. This can also be a trigger for breathtaking success in the near the future with appropriate enablers.

IT and Telecom have achieved tremendous growth in the past and now with collaboration with ESDM sector can look forward to exponential growth given the opportunities available in our country. For all this to happen the government should continue to play the role as an “enabler” and drive home the point that the policy statements are not mere statements of virtuous intentions but those which will enable the engine of the economy to chug along merrily.

L.KISHAN CHAND

Class of 2013

COMMON TELECOM TERMINOLOGIES

The mobile world moves at a breakneck pace, and it's difficult to keep up without the technical jargons and abbreviations most industry insiders throw around. And they do love to toss those terms around! One has to understand and be familiar with these jargons and abbreviations to know the industry better.

Following are the few examples. 

ARPU : It stands for Average Revenue per User. The term is mostly used in context to understand how much a person is paying for phone bill. The average revenue per user has different components in it. Generally a mobile phone user spends on voice minutes, text messages and data transfer. Carriers also consider users extra spending such as wallpapers and ringtones in this category.

Average Revenue per User (ARPU) Erosion : ARPU erosion is the business condition where monthly average revenue per user continues to go downward for an extended period of time. The statistics show that the user spending has remained same despite the voice rates going down, also an exception to the Law of Demand! One reason for the average revenue per user remaining same is, customers are heavily spending on text messages and data transfer instead of voice minutes.

ARPPU : An acronym for Average Revenue per Paying User which is calculated by dividing up the revenue amongst the users who paid anything at all. This yields a figure that is significantly larger than ARPU.

AMPU : It stands for Average Margin per User. It is related to one of the criteria for measuring the success of a telecom company but less being used. It focuses on the margin produced per sold unit and not the amount of cash (revenue) earned from each customer. Thus, one can afford low volumes and still have a healthy company.

Churn : Churn is a term used to describe the number of subscribers who leave a supplier during a given time period. The churn is typically measured monthly.

Churn is an important figure in subscription based services like mobile telephony and pay TV because it’s an indicator for customer dissatisfaction.

MOU : It is an acronym for Minutes of Use; often used in the telecom industry. It is the total time which is measured in minutes that a customer uses his or her mobile phone during a day, month, or year.

SAC : It’s an acronym for Subscriber Acquisition Cost. It is an average cost of signing up a new customer. SAC is the amount of money a company spends for each new subscriber they gain. It is also most frequently used by mobile telecoms companies. The customer acquisition cost of mobile companies is complicated by the number of costs involved. Example includes mobile telecoms companies which frequently pay incentives to retailers who bring in customers for their networks.

LTV : It stands for Life Time Value and it’s calculated by multiplying Average Revenue per User (ARPU) by the average length of the company’s relationship with a customer. One can figure out the length by dividing 1 by the churn rate for the period.

For example,

If there are 1000 customers and revenue generated is Rs. 25000.

Then, the ARPU is Rs. 25.

Let’s take churn rate 20 % which means the average length of the relationship is 5 months. (5 * 20% is 100% turnover)

Thus, LTV = Rs. 25 * (1 / 0.2)

                 = Rs. 125

CPM : It’s Cost per Mile (CPM), also called Cost per thousand (CPT) (in Latin mile means thousand) and is a commonly used measurement in advertising. CPM as a metric is used in advertising across a number of mediums (TV, Online, Radio, etc). And as advertising moved online it continued the tradition and stuck us with this somewhat cryptic metric.

CPM is commonly used by Internet marketers to price advertisement banners. For example, a Web site that has a CPM rate of Rs. 25 and guarantees advertisers 600,000 impressions will charge Rs. 15,000 (Rs. 25 x 600) for those advertisers' ad banner.

Kaushal Joshi

Class of 2014

BUSINESS DISRUPTION - CONSUMERIZATION OF TECHNOLOGY

Today everything is becoming consumer centric, be it a common FMCG product or the latest technology, it is the consumer who is driving the business of any organization by forcing them to think and innovate. This was not the case till early 1990’s when all the technology and product innovations were driven by business or enterprise since the technology at that stage was not matured. The trend started changing with the emergence of World Wide Web in mid 1990’s when companies like Yahoo and Google developed personalized services of emails and since then most of the innovative technologies are emerging from consumer side only. For example popularity of social networking among consumers made business firms like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin such a big success. Unlike earlier days the new age consumers are demanding, eager and tech savvy and it is becoming a challenge for many firms to satisfy their needs. These days, new technologies that come-in are adopted, used and even dumped by the consumers even before they can gain acceptance by the business firms.

With this changing trend, enterprises are now increasingly looking at consumerization of technology within their own organization. One of the latest example is of Bring your own device (BYOD) concept which describes the recent trend of employees bringing their personally owned mobile devices to their work place and using those devices to access privileged company resources such as emails, fileservers and databases. As technology continues to advances, these mobile devices like smart-phones, iPhones and tablets with the richest collection of latest apps are becoming everyday commodity for most of the IT professionals and with such practices like BYOD they are able to converge their personal technology with the enterprise IT, what is commonly known as CoIT – Converged IT. It gives the employee an alternative to be self sufficient in meeting their IT needs using their personalized technology and devices. It can also bring the dispersed mobile employees together to build more than just a business; they can help build relationships that can make business a successful one.

This trend towards the adoption of not just personal devices but also personalized technology like cloud at work seems to be inexorable. In fact many firms have realized the power of social media and are providing consumerized services like Google, Facebook and Twitter as the essential components of their market strategies. As per Gartner, “Consumerization of IT” will be the most significant trend affecting IT for the next decade.

Although this consumerization of technology in enterprise or in other words the movement of consumer technology into enterprise brings a lots of scope of bringing more value to the business by revolutionizing the way it is currently done, enterprises are still reluctant to adopt it seeing it as a Business Disruptor and encroachment of consumerization on IT as its adoption will have to be backed by a lot many significant changes and reshaping of the IT as well as business model. One of the primary concerns is the loss of control of IT over the technology being used which leads to security concerns. Few of the major concerns are listed below.

• Loss of Control and track over the way operations will be carried out in an enterprise.
• Ambiguity in the compliance and ownership for data security.
• Data and access retrieval once the employee leave the organization.
• Careful planning and appropriate policies need to be defined ensuring there are no loopholes in the security.
• It will require more efficient and scalable database operations.
• New IT support system needs to be developed for converging the personal devices with non-standard operating system with the enterprise network and database.
• The dynamism in the field of technology. The speed with which the new technology comes in and become obsolete. It can lead to management Chaos.
• The volume of options available in terms of technologies to the consumers.
• It can lead to business risks.

In view of the above concerns regarding consumerization of technology at work place, enterprises feel that it will disrupt their normal business. But these concerns can be allayed if the IT team starts to learn to manage and govern the ever changing technology as today the market is dynamically evolving and the company needs to adapt to such innovative ideas if they want to be successful in such kind of environment.

The security and controlling concern can be remedied by using technologies like Intel’s “Trusted Execution Technology”, Data encryption with easy-to-use key management for virtual and cloud environments, unified security management solutions and other mobile security solutions like Mobile Data Protection (MDP) and Mobile Device Management (MDM). Careful and proper descriptive planning and policy definition outlining the rules of technology engagement is also a must for implementing such kind of change. With these capabilities in place the corporate data can be securely accessed and shared across physical, virtual and cloud environments and embrace consumerization.

For the business risks that consumerized technology might expose an enterprise to, it should be noted and thought upon that the business risks will only become bigger if companies do not capitalize on capable and skilful value creating employees which is developed and enhanced using consumerized technology. It brings and enhances the agility and productivity level of employees. So, there is actually a tradeoff between the two types of business risks and many other implications of using and not using the consumerized technology as well which a company must consider before making a final call regarding implementation of consumerized services like Bring your own device.

Finally it can be concluded that a win-win situation can be achieved for all the stakeholders of a company – the consumers, the technology vendors and the organization itself if it realizes the immense innovation opportunities by integrating popular tech-solutions in their enterprise system and instead of being considered as a business disruptor it can rather be a primary enabler for business growth. 

Ankita Singh

Class of 2014

Indian telecom sector and Energy Struggle

Diesel: Is the savior justified?

The power failure which occurred in North India due to the collapse of the interconnected northern, north eastern and eastern electric grid was one of the biggest blackouts in the Indian history.  The telecom operators like Bharti Airtel however managed to provide the services, thanks to the voluminous diesel consumption.

Due to the unreliable electrical grid supply the service providers currently use diesel generators, batteries, and a variety of power management equipment to cover the demand-supply gap. Today more than 60% of the towers in India depend solely on diesel for power generation .The telecom sector consumes high quantities of diesel to keep its towers working. The disadvantages of using diesel generators would include:

1. They require sophisticated maintenance which can be costly and less than timely;
2. Produces 5.2 million tonnes of CO2 emissions (out of 13 million tonnes overall) annually which is over 2% of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions.

Considering this many tower companies currently use renewable energy sources such as solar, biogas and wind besides hydroelectric power, for their respective towers. There are off grid telecom model proposed by Renewable Energy Services Company (RESCO) which promise

• Dead simple installation 
• A business model that scales
• Low cost
• Low power usage

Interestingly the tower companies can earn credits (similar to carbon credits) that can be sold at a later time. However there are issues such as having to keep the solar panels clean for efficient usage and the unreliable weather conditions.

Another alternate would be Fuel cells: electrochemical devices that generate direct current and can be connected in parallel as a generator replacement. They can also be hybridized with solar, mains, batteries, and other power supplies. Their promised prospects include:

1. Greater reliability
2. Reduced CAPEX and OPEX
3. Energy conservation and eco-friendliness

I feel that fuel cell-solar hybrid solution may prove ideal for eco-friendly base station operation; the solar energy electrolyzes water to produce hydrogen, which is used by the fuel cells to generate power when the solar cells are down. This would not only reduce the risk faced by the telecom sector from electricity grid but also reduce the diesel consumption, thereby proving to be a beneficial backup.

SHRUTI

CLASS OF 2014

Emerging Technologies in TELECOM

Growth encourages more growth. This has been the typical phenomenon for telecom industry. Recently I came across few of the emerging technologies which I thought to share with all.

Wireless charging is one such technology. It is being said that companies like Samsung and HTC have already started using this feature in their handsets. This wireless charging includes two charging units-the transfer unit and the receiving unit. The transferring unit uses non-radiative magnetic field to get charged and charge the transfer to the receiving unit. However the distance of this kind of power transmission is limited and some amount of energy is even lost during transmission.

Augmented Reality is to enhance the computer generated sensory inputs by sound and graphics. It can add value to the reality by adding details and presenting those details to the end customer. It had a market size of 2 million dollars in 2010 and is expected to reach 2 billion dollars by 2015.It can be particularly very helpful for the medical field and space field.

Dash 7 is an emerging Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) designed for security and asset monitoring applications. DASH7 is an open source wireless sensor networking standard for wireless sensor networking which operates in the 433 MHz unlicensed ISM band. DASH7 provides multi-year battery life, range of up to 2 Km, indoor location with 1 meter accuracy, low latency for connecting with moving things, a very small open source protocol stack, AES 128-bit public key encryption support and data transfer of up to 200 Kbit/second. It can penetrate deep into water and concrete. It is a complement to Near field Communication (NFC) technology.

Location Based Services is another emerging field and is one of the largest enterprise revenue generating applications along with AR and Games. It involves finding the location of the mobile device .The various technologies used for LBS are Cell ID, Enhanced Cell ID, GPS etc. LBS could be used in:

·         Maps and Navigation like maps, routing etc

·         Tracking Services like Vehicle Tracking, Friends and family finder etc

·         Information Services like yellow pages, city guides etc

·         Application like social networking, context advertising etc

Neelima Agrawal

SITM (Class of 2013)