Email a colleague    

November 2012

LTE Analytics:  Learning New Rules in Real-Time Network Intelligence, Roaming and Customer Assurance

LTE Analytics:  Learning New Rules in Real-Time Network Intelligence, Roaming and Customer Assurance

LTE is telecom’s latest technology darling, but unless you’re conversant with network jargon, LTE is a bit of mystery.  Two things we can all say with certainty:

  1. LTE is an all-IP network; and,
  2. LTE lets you stream movies wicked fast.

Fine, but if that’s all you know about LTE you’re in for an embarrassing moment at a dinner party when someone says, “Hey Dan, you work in the telecom industry.  So what’s the basic difference between 3G and LTE?”  Silence. . .  Umm, well you see, it’s like this. . .

And here are more pertinent questions: Is LTE going to make it easier for telecoms to manage the customer experience? and. . .  What are some of the real-time analytics and benefits that LTE networks will deliver?

Well, thankfully Black Swan has brought in an expert, Martin Guilfoyle, VP of Advanced Solutions at Syniverse, who does a great job of filling in our knowledge gaps, and frankly makes LTE downright interesting.  In our interview, Martin explains the momentous changes LTE brings to mobile as he delves into topics like the marriage of IMS and LTE, high QoS service delivery via IPX, real-time intelligence services, and the new customer assurance hooks that LTE enables.

Dan Baker: Martin, we understand that LTE represents a very significant technology shift, but what’s its significance for mobile telecoms?

Martin Guilfoyle: Sure, Dan.  LTE basically brings a whole new architecture to mobile communications.  Strange as it may seem, LTE actually simplifies networks.  It’s like plugging in an RJ45 cable between a base station and a network.  A lot of older technologies go away with LTE.  For instance, new systems like eNode-Bs and Mobile Management Entities eliminate the need for radio access network controllers (RAN), MSCs, SMSCs, GGSNs, and many other systems.

Unfortunately, even though it does away with older technologies, LTE introduces a myriad of other complexities due to its all-IP nature.  Much of the coordination in LTE is done using the DIAMETER and GTP-C V2 protocols.  In fact, Syniverse supplies a DIAMETER signaling service that allows you to route calls to any LTE operator in the world.  That knowledge is also useful in preventing so-called “signaling storms” that can happen on the roaming side.

When you talk about routing mobile calls across an all-IP infrastructure, for me that immediately raises a red flag over Quality of Service (QoS) concerns.  How does LTE handle the quality issue?

Well, that’s where IPX comes in.

IPX’s Delivery of High Quality of Service

IPX is a GSM Association (GSMA) standard that sets up a network to network interface.  There’s an interface for Voice, one of Signaling, and one for Video Conferencing — all in the same pipe.  Another one that’s really important is LTE.

So as long as you can interface to IPX properly, IPX guarantees you end-to-end quality since it runs over a managed MPLS network.  And Syniverse offers our own implementation of IPX through our ASPX service, an entry and exit point to IPX and its guaranteed QoS.

This is very significant.  IPX means that any type of mobile service provider — including alternative mobile players such as applications, enterprises and social networks — could have access to high quality service simply by plugging into our network.  Now services like email don’t require a high QoS.  But with voice you do because if you lose packets or packets arrive in the wrong sequence, the quality of the call degrades.

Another exciting aspect of IPX is that it paves the way for new services such as HD-Voice (High Definition Voice), a very high quality voice service that mobile service providers can charge a premium for.

I’ve been a critic of IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) because it never lived up to its hype, but I hear that the standard is now a critical component of LTE.

Dan, IMS was never really about “multimedia” only.  It’s actually anything you want it to be.  You can have video.  You can have voice.  Today IMS is the key path to interworking with the alternative mobile providers I previously mentioned.

For instance, IMS now underpins a new GSMA standard called RCS — Rich Communications Suite — which is the global operator’s response to alternative players entering the market.  RCS is supported by many of the major Tier 1 operators across the globe.

Just as the alternative players brought in innovative services like video calling, file sharing, HD voice, etc., the RCS standard encourages outside developers to create applications that sit on top of IMS and therefore allow the service provider to add some significant value to the service, such as better quality of service, something that can be sold as at a premium.

Forgive me for throwing a lot of technology terms at your readers, Dan, but another key standard is VoLTE — Voice over LTE — which supports voice roaming across LTE, but also other voice over data services such as voice over HSPA and evDO 3G.

How much of an effect will VoLTE have on roaming?

The roaming implications of VoLTE are huge.  Today, the traditional routing approach for packet is called home-based routing.  When your mobile subscriber, say Jane, visits Paris over the weekend, her IP traffic needs to come back via GRX or IPX to your home network where it gets resolved.

VoLTE, however, uses what’s called a “local breakout”, which means you can assess the IMS core of the visited French network to resolve routing and billing issues.  Now this is for voice service: your IP traffic will very often still come back to the home network for a service like email.

So this access to the IMS core of a visited network is the future of all-IP voice services like LTE.  You no longer have the concept of an MSC or Mobile Switching Center with LTE -- it’s all IMS driven.

So even though Jane’s handset is registered in France on the IMS core there and she’s making calls on the French network, the home IMS will have 100% visibility.  If Jane calls to reserve dinner at a Paris restaurant, the media (the voice call) will actually be resolved in France and the call duration and number Jane called will appear on the home IMS.  This is similar to what CAMEL does today.

Having access to the visited network records will be useful to fraud management and having near real-time access to billing records.  In addition, the PCRF policy controller in the home and visiting network will converse with each other, so even a subscriber’s policies can be transferred to the visiting network.

One caveat, of course, is the visited network has full control over how much of its IMS core is available for view by the home network.  For instance, we know many visited networks will allow partial access, say, to permit pre-paid application service back in the home network.  So there are lots of possibilities here.

How does Syniverse plan to capitalize on these dramatic changes?

One key area in which we see opportunity is the rich real-time intelligence in this new environment.  And that intelligence comes from correlating the many back-and-forth messages between the home and visited operators.  By the way, we don’t need to wait for LTE to be more widely deployed: we are already serving more than 100 3G operators with these intelligence services today.

Troubleshooting

The first real-time use of this new roaming intelligence is to gain greater visibility for testing and troubleshooting.

For instance, a mobile operator was sending packets during our LTE roaming trial that weren’t appearing on the receiving end.  They initially thought that a firewall parsing the traffic was the culprit, but that wasn’t the case.  They couldn’t figure it out — even got the network equipment vendor involved.  But our solution traced the problem to a feature in the latest release of network software.  The feature got dropped in the release, but not in the documentation.

There’s enormous complexity in these LTE networks.  We have what we call a ping pong graph that shows the hundreds of signaling, bearer, and the other messages required to make LTE roaming work.  Correlating and understanding these complex streams of data has become a Syniverse core competency.

Roaming Billing

Aside from enabling the full end-to-end service between operators, we’ve proven in recent trials that we can take CDRs and convert them to the Transfer Account Protocol (TAP) files needed for roaming.

Improving the Customer Experience

Another valuable use of real-time intelligence is in improving the customer experience.

Let’s go back to Jane, who’s traveling to Paris and let’s assume she’s a premium customer who recently bought a high subscription and phone from you.  The only trouble is there’s a provisioning error such that Jane’s device is not set up for international roaming.

So what happens in a situation like that?  Well, when Jane’s phone is turned on in Paris, the home location register gets a message asking to connect to roaming, but it’s disallowed.  Syniverse looks at that error, recognizes Jane’s a premium subscriber, and proactively sends an alert to you, the operator.

To the subscriber, these provisioning glitches can be infuriating, but if you get advance warning you can take action.  And if Jane calls in to complain, you can at least inform her that you are aware of the issue and estimate when you expect her service to be up and running.

We can also proactively inform the operator when Jane is experiencing poor quality of service or her charges are moving into the “bill shock” range.

Here’s another customer service issue: people afraid to turn on data services when they roam.  That’s a tough one because being without web access or email is no longer a viable option.  Yet our records show that of the 75 million mobile subscribers who roam each month, 70% of them don’t use data services when they roam!

Here we have a solution designed to address these “silent roamers” that identifies those users and provides intelligence back to the network operator.  It allows you to send the subscriber an offer for a 125 Mbit data service for $20 so they can send and receive their emails anywhere in France.

So you see that real-time intelligence is not limited to troubleshooting.  It’s very applicable to marketing and trending.  Engineering also finds many uses for it.

Martin, thanks for educating us on the impact of LTE.  It certainly sounds like LTE Is keeping Syniverse very busy.

Dan, we are augmenting our traditional strength in roaming and data clearing in the 2G and 3G world with the new services needed in the all-IP LTE environment.

With LTE, customers will no longer just buying roaming service from us.  IPX allows us to become a full fledged service delivery partner for them.  We are now completing the end-to-end service for customers.  And our deep knowledge of LTE protocols allows us to do many additional things for them such as converting CDRs to TAP files, detecting fraud, service troubleshooting, verify policy, and correlating real-time intelligence to boost subscriber customer experience.

LTE really is a brave new world.  It’s a very exciting time for us at Syniverse.

Copyright 2012 Black Swan Telecom Journal

 
Martin Guilfoyle

Martin Guilfoyle

Martin Guilfoyle is VP of Advanced Solutions at Syniverse.  He is a 30 year veteran in the telecom industry, having been involved in early days of wireless commmunications launches of GSM and PCN.

He served for 10 years at Wireless Solutions International where he was CTO.  He has also served as a consultant at BellSouth Mobility DCS, T-Mobile UK, and Nortel.   Contact Martin via

Black Swan Solution Guides & Papers

cSwans of a Feather

  • A Big Data Starter Kit in the Cloud: How Smaller Operators Can Get Rolling with Advanced Analytics interview with Ryan Guthrie — Medium to small operators know “big data” is out there alright, but technical staffing and cost issues have held them back from implementing it.  This interview discusses the advantages of moving advanced analytics to the cloud where operators can get up and running faster and at lower cost.
  • Telecoms Failing Badly in CAPEX: The Desperate Need for Asset Management & Financial Visibility interview with Ashwin Chalapathy — A 2012 PwC report put the telecom industry on the operating table, opened the patient up, and discovered a malignant cancer: poor network CAPEX management, a problem that puts telecoms in grave financial risk.  In this interview, a supplier of network analytics solutions provides greater detail on the problem and lays out its prescription for deeper asset management, capacity planning and data integrity checks.
  • History Repeats: The Big Data Revolution in Telecom Service Assurance interview with Olav Tjelflaat — The lessons of telecom software history teach that new networks and unforeseen industry developments have an uncanny knack for disrupting business plans.  A service assurance incumbent reveals its strategy for becoming a leader in the emerging network analytics and assurance market.
  • From Alarms to Analytics: The Paradigm Shift in Service Assurance interview with Kelvin Hall — In a telecom world with millions of smart devices, the service assurance solutions of yesteryear are not getting the job done.  So alarm-heavy assurance is now shifting to big data solutions that deliver visual, multi-layered, and fine-grained views of network issues.  A data architect who works at large carriers provides an inside view of the key service provider problems driving this analytics shift.
  • The Shrink-Wrapped Search Engine: Why It’s Becoming a Vital Tool in Telecom Analytics interview with Tapan Bhatt — Google invented low cost, big data computing with its distributed search engine that lives in mammoth data centers populated with thousands of commodity CPUs and disks.  Now search engine technology is available as “shrink wrapped” enterprise software.  This article explains how this new technology is solving telecom analytics problems large and small.
  • Harvesting Big Data Riches in Retailer Partnering, Actionable CEM & Network Optimization interview with Oded Ringer — In the analytics market there’s plenty of room for small solution firms to add value through a turnkey service or cloud/licensed solution.  But what about large services firms: where do they play?  In this article you’ll learn how a global services giant leverages data of different types to help telcos: monetize retail partnerships, optimize networks, and make CEM actionable.
  • Raising a Telco’s Value in the Digital Ecosystem: One Use Case at a Time interview with Jonathon Gordon — The speed of telecom innovation is forcing software vendors to radically adapt and transform their business models.  This article shows how a deep packet inspection company has  expanded into revenue generation, particularly  for mobile operators.  It offers a broad palette of value-adding use cases from video caching and parental controls to application-charging and DDoS security protection.
  • Radio Access Network Data: Why It’s Become An Immensely Useful Analytics Source interview with Neil Coleman — It’s hard to overstate the importance of Radio Access Network (RAN) analytics to a mobile operator’s business these days.  This article explains why the RAN data, which lives in the air interface between the base station and the handset --  can be used for a business benefit in network optimization and customer experience.
  • Analytics Biology: The Power of Evolving to New Data Sources and Intelligence Gathering Methods interview with Paul Morrissey — Data warehouses create great value, yet it’s now time to let loose non-traditional big data platforms that create value in countless pockets of operational efficiency that have yet to be fully explored.  This article explains why telecoms must expand their analytics horizons and bring on all sorts of new data sources and novel intelligence gathering techniques.
  • Connecting B/OSS Silos and Linking Revenue Analytics with the Customer Experience by Anssi Tauriainen — Customer experience analytics is a complex task that flexes B/OSS data to link the customer’s network experience and actions to improve it and drive greater revenue.  In this article, you’ll gain an understanding of how anayltics data needs to be managed across various customer life cycle stages and why it’s tailored for six specific user groups at the operator.
  • Meeting the OTT Video Challenge: Real-Time, Fine-Grain Bandwidth Monitoring for Cable Operators interview with Mark Trudeau — Cable operators in North America are being overwhelmed by the surge in video and audio traffic.  In this article you’ll learn how Multi Service Operators (MSOs) are now monitoring their traffic to make critical decisions to protect QoS service and monetize bandwidth.  Also featured is expert perspective on trends in: network policy; bandwidth caps; and  customer care issues.
  • LTE Analytics:  Learning New Rules in Real-Time Network Intelligence, Roaming and Customer Assurance interview with Martin Guilfoyle — LTE is telecom’s latest technology darling, and this article goes beyond the network jargon, to explain the momentous changes LTE brings.  The interview delves into the marriage of IMS, high QoS service delivery via IPX, real-time intelligence and roaming services, plus the new customer assurance hooks that LTE enables.

Related Articles

  • Tokopedia, Indonesia’s E-Commerce King, Partners with 11 Million Merchants; Adopts Multi-Cloud to Drive Innovation interview with Warren Aw & Ryan de Melo — Indonesia’s Tokopedia, founded in 2009, has grown to become one of world’s leading e-commerce players.  Read about its success, technology direction, and multi-cloud connectivity adoption.
  • Bridge Alliance: Knocking Down Regional & Mobile Connectivity Barriers so Connected Car Markets Get Rolling in Asia interview with Kwee Kchwee — The CEO of an Asian consortium of mobile operators explains how they  help simplify and harmonize their members‘ operations in support of multi-national corporations.  This integration is enabling two huge industries to come together in Asia: auto manufacturing and telco.
  • Epsilon’s Infiny NaaS Platform Brings Global Connection, Agility & Fast Provision for IoT, Clouds & Enterprises in Southeast Asia, China & Beyond interview with Warren Aw — Network as a Service, powered by Software Defined Networks, are a faster, more agile, and more partner-friendly way of making data global connections.  A leading NaaS provider explains the benefits for cloud apps, enterprise IT, and IoT.
  • PCCW Global: On Leveraging Global IoT Connectivity to Create Mission Critical Use Cases for Enterprises interview with Craig Price — A leading wholesale executive explains the business challenges of the current global IoT scene as it spans many spheres: technical, political, marketing, and enterprise customer value creation.
  • Senet’s Cloud & Shared Gateways Drive LoRaWAN IoT Adoption for Enterprise Businesses, Smart Cities & Telecoms interview with Bruce Chatterley — An IoT netowork pioneer explains how LoRaWAN tech fits in the larger IoT ecosystem.  He gives use case examples, describes deployment restraints/costs, and shows how partnering, gateway sharing, and flexible deployment options are stimulating growth.
  • ARM Data Center Software’s Cloud-Based Network Inventory Links Network, Operations, Billing, Sales & CRM to One Database interview with Joe McDermott & Frank McDermott — A firm offering a cloud-based network inventory system explains the virtues of: a single underlying database, flexible conversions, task-checking workflow, new software business models, views that identify stranded assets, and connecting to Microsoft’s cloud platform.
  • Pure Play NFV: Lessons Learned from Masergy’s Virtual Deployment for a Global Enterprise interview with Prayson Pate — NFV is just getting off the ground, but one cloud provider to enterprises making a stir in virtual technology waters is Masergy.  Here are lessons learned from Masergy’s recent global deployment using a NFV pure play software approach.
  • The Digital Enabler: A Charging, Self-Care & Marketing Platform at the Core of the Mobile Business interview with Jennifer Kyriakakis — The digital enabler is a central platform that ties together charging, self-care, and marketing.  The article explains why leading operators consider digital enablers pivotal to their digital strategies.
  • Delivering Service Assurance Excellence at a Reduced Operating Cost interview with Gregg Hara — The great diversity and complexity of today’s networks make service assurance a big challenge.  But advances in off-the-shelf software now permit the configuring and visualizing of services across multiple technologies on a modest operating budget.
  • Are Cloud-Based Call Centers the Next Hot Product for the SMB Market? interview with Doron Dovrat — Quality customer service can improve a company’s corporate identity and drive business growth.  But many SMBs are priced out of acquiring modern call center technology.  This article explains the benefits of affordable and flexible cloud-based call centers.
  • Flexing the OSS & Network to Support the Digital Ecosystem interview with Ken Dilbeck — The need for telecoms to support a broader digital ecosystem requires an enormous change to OSS infrastructures and the way networks are being managed.  This interview sheds light on these challenges.
  • Crossing the Rubicon: Is it Time for Tier Ones to Move to a Real-Time Analytics BSS? interview with Andy Tiller — Will tier one operators continue to maintain their quilt works of legacy and adjunct platforms — or will they radically transform their BSS architecture into a new  system designed to address the new telecom era?  An advocate for radical transformation discusses: real-time analytics, billing for enterprises, partnering mashups, and on-going transformation work at Telenor.
  • Paradigm Shift in OSS Software: Network Topology Views via Enterprise-Search interview with Benedict Enweani — Enterprise-search is a wildly successful technology on the web, yet its influence has not yet rippled to the IT main stream.  But now a large Middle Eastern operator has deployed a major service assurance application using enterprise-search.  The interview discusses this multi-dimensional topology solution and compares it to traditional network inventory.
  • The Multi-Vendor MPLS: Enabling Tier 2 and 3 Telecoms to Offer World-Class Networks to SMBs interview with Prabhu Ramachandran — MPLS is a networking technology that has caught fire in the last decade.  Yet the complexity of MPLS has relegated to being mostly a large carrier solution.  Now a developer of a multi-vendor MPLS solutions explains why the next wave of MPLS adoption will come from tier 2/3 carriers supporting SMB customers.
  • Enabling Telecoms & Utilities to Adapt to the Winds of Business Change interview with Kirill Rechter — Billing is in the midst of momentous change.  Its value is no longer just around delivering multi-play services or sophisticated rating.  In this article you’ll learn how a billing/CRM supplier has adapted to the times by offering deeper value around the larger business issues of its telecom and utility clients.
  • Driving Customer Care Results & Cost Savings from Big Data Facts interview with Brian Jurutka — Mobile broadband and today’s dizzying array of app and network technology present a big challenge to customer care.  In fact, care agents have a hard time staying one step ahead of customers who call to report problems.  But network analytics comes to the rescue with advanced mobile handset troubleshooting and an ability to put greater intelligence at the fingertips of highly trained reps.
  • Hadoop and M2M Meet Device and Network Management Systems interview with Eric Wegner — Telecom big-data in networks is more than customer experience managment: it’s also about M2M plus network and element management systems.  This interview discusses the explosion in machine-to-machine devices, the virtues and drawbacks of Hadoop, and the network impact of shrink-wrapped search.
  • The Data Center & Cloud Infrastructure Boom: Is Your Sales/Engineering Team Equipped to Win? by Dan Baker — The build-out of enterprise clouds and data centers is a golden opportunity for systems integrators, carriers, and cloud providers.  But the firms who win this business will have sales and engineering teams who can drive an effective and streamlined requirements-to-design-to-order process.  This white paper points to a solution — a collaborative solution designs system — and explains 8 key capabilities of an ideal platform.
  • Big Data: Is it Ready for Prime Time in Customer Experience Management? interview with Thomas Sutter — Customer experience management is one of the most challenging of OSS domains and some suppliers are touting “big data” solutions as the silver bullet for CEM upgrades and consolidation.  This interview challenges the readiness of big data soluions to tackle OSS issues and deliver the cost savings.  The article also provides advice on managing technology risks, software vendor partnering, and the strategies of different OSS suppliers.
  • Calculated Risk: The Race to Deliver the Next Generation of LTE Service Management interview with Edoardo Rizzi — LTE and the emerging heterogeneous networks are likely to shake up the service management and customer experience management worlds.  Learn about the many new network management challenges LTE presents, and how a small OSS software firm aims to beat the big established players to market with a bold new technology and strategy.
  • Decom Dilemma: Why Tearing Down Networks is Often Harder than Deploying Them interview with Dan Hays — For every new 4G LTE and IP-based infrastructure deployed, there typically a legacy network that’s been rendered obsolete and needs to be decommissioned.  This article takes you through the many complexities of network decom, such as facilities planning, site lease terminations, green-safe equipment disposal, and tax relief programs.
  • Migration Success or Migraine Headache: Why Upfront Planning is Key to Network Decom interview with Ron Angner — Shutting down old networks and migrating customers to new ones is among the most challenging activities a network operators does today.  This article provides advice on the many network issues surrounding migration and decommissioning.  Topics discussed include inventory reconciliation, LEC/CLEC coordination, and protection of customers in the midst of projects that require great program management skills.
  • Navigating the Telecom Solutions Wilderness: Advice from Some Veteran Mountaineers interview with Al Brisard — Telecom solutions vendors struggle mightily to position their solutions and figure out what to offer next in a market where there’s considerable product and service crossover.  In this article, a veteran order management specialist firm lays out its strategy for mixing deep-bench functional expertise with process consulting, analytics, and custom API development.
  • Will Telecoms Sink Under the Weight of their Bloated and Out-of-Control Product Stacks? interview with Simon Muderack — Telecoms pay daily for their lack of product integration as they constantly reinvent product wheels, lose customer intelligence, and waste time/money.  This article makes the case of an enterprise product catalog.  Drawing on central catalog cases at a few Tier 1 operators, the article explains the benefits: reducing billing and provisioning costs, promoting product reuse, and smoothing operations.
  • Virtual Operator Life: Enabling Multi-Level Resellers Through an Active Product Catalog interview with Rob Hill — The value of product distribution via virtual operators is immense.  They enable a carrier to sell to markets it cannot profitably serve directly.  Yet the need for greater reseller flexibility in the bundling and pricing of increasingly complex IP and cloud services is now a major channel barrier.  This article explains what’s behind an innovative product catalog solution that doubles as a service creation environment for resellers in multiple tiers.
  • Telecom Blocking & Tackling: Executing the Fundamentals of the Order-to-Bill Process interview with Ron Angner — Just as football teams need to be good at the basics of blocking and tackling, telecoms need to excel at their own fundamental skillset: the order-to-cash process.  In this article, a leading consulting firm explains its methodology for taking operators on the path towards order-to-cash excellence.  Issues discussed include: provisioning intervals; standardization and simplicity; the transition from legacy to improved process; and the major role that industry metrics play.
  • Wireline Act IV, Scene II: Packaging Network & SaaS Services Together to Serve SMBs by John Frame — As revenue from telephony services has steadily declined, fixed network operators have scrambled to support VoIP, enhanced IP services, and now cloud applications.  This shift has also brought challenges to the provisioning software vendors who support the operators.  In this interview, a leading supplier explains how it’s transforming from plain ol‘ OSS software provider to packager of on-net and SaaS solutions from an array of third party cloud providers.
  • Telecom Merger Juggling Act: How to Convert the Back Office and Keep Customers and Investors Happy at the Same Time interview with Curtis Mills — Billing and OSS conversions as the result of a merger are a risky activity as evidenced by famous cases at Fairpoint and Hawaiian Telcom.  This article offers advice on how to head off problems by monitoring key operations checkpoints, asking the right questions, and leading with a proven conversion methodology.
  • Is Order Management a Provisioning System or Your Best Salesperson? by John Konczal — Order management as a differentiator is a very new concept to many CSP people, but it’s become a very real sales booster in many industries.  Using electronics retailer BestBuy as an example, the article points to several innovations that can — and are — being applied by CSPs today.  The article concludes with 8 key questions an operator should ask to measure advanced order management progress.
  • NEC Takes the Telecom Cloud from PowerPoint to Live Customers interview with Shinya Kukita — In the cloud computing world, it’s a long road from technology success to telecom busness opportunity.  But this story about how NEC and Telefonica are partnering to offer cloud services to small and medium enterprises shows the experience of early cloud adoption.  Issues discussed in the article include: customer types, cloud application varieties, geographic region acceptance, and selling challenges.
  • Billing As Enabler for the Next Killer Business Model interview with Scott Swartz — Facebook, cloud services, and Google Ads are examples of innovative business models that demand unique or non-standard billing techniques.  The article shows how flexible, change-on-the-fly, and metadata-driven billing architectures are enabling CSPs to offer truly ground breaking services.
  • Real-Time Provisioning of SIM Cards: A Boon to GSM Operators interview with Simo Isomaki — Software-controlled SIM card configuration is revolutionizing the activation of GSM phones.  The article explains how dynamic SIM management decouples the selection of numbers/services and delivers new opportunities to market during the customer acquisition and intial provisoining phase.
  • A Cynic Converted: IN/Prepaid Platforms Are Now Pretty Cool interview with Grant Lenahan — Service delivery platforms born in the IN era are often painted as inflexible and expensive to maintain.  Learn how modern SDPs with protocol mediation, high availability, and flexible Service Creation Environments are delivering value for operators such as Brazil’s Oi.
  • Achieving Revenue Maximization in the Telecom Contact Center interview with Robert Lamb — Optimizing the contact center offers one of the greatest returns on investment for a CSP.  The director of AT&T’s contact center services business explains how telecoms can strike an “artful balance” between contact center investment and cost savings.  The discussion draws from AT&T’s consulting with world class customers like Ford, Dell, Discover Financial, DISH Network, and General Motors.
  • Mobile Broadband: The Customer Service Assurance Challenge interview with Michele Campriani — iPhone and Android traffic is surging but operators struggle with network congestion and dropping ARPUs.  The answer?  Direct  resources and service quality measures to ensure VIPs are indeed getting the quality they expect.  Using real-life examples that cut to the chase of technical complexities, this article explains the chief causes of service quality degradation and describes efficient ways to deal with the problem.
  • Telco-in-a-Box: Are Telecoms Back in the B/OSS Business? interview with Jim Dunlap — Most telecoms have long since folded their merchant B/OSS software/services businesses.  But now Cycle30, a subsidiary of Alaskan operator GCI, is offering a order-to-cash managed service for other operators and utilities.  The article discusses the company’s unique business model and contrasts it with billing service bureau and licensed software approaches.
  • Bricks, Mortar & Well-Trained Reps Make a Comeback in Customer Management interview with Scott Kohlman — Greater industry competition, service complexity, and employee turnover have raised the bar in the customer support.  Indeed, complex services are putting an emphasis on quality care interactions in the store, on the web, and through the call center.  In this article you’ll learn about innovations in CRM, multi-tabbed agent portals,  call center agent training, customer treatment philosophies, and the impact of  self-service.
  • 21st Century Order Management: The Cross-Channel Sales Conversation by John Konczal — Selling a mobile service is generally not a one-and-done transaction.  It often involves several interactions — across the web, call center, store, and even kiosks.  This article explains the power of a “cross-channel hub” which sits above all sales channels, interacts with them all, and allows a CSP to keep the sales conversation moving forward seamlessly.
  • Building a B/OSS Business Through Common Sense Customer Service by David West — Delivering customer service excellence doesn‘t require mastering some secret technique.  The premise of this article is that plain dealing with customers and employees is all that’s needed for a winning formula.  The argument is spelling out in a simple 4 step methodology along with some practical examples.