Introduction

Operation Support Systems (OSS) and Business Support Systems (BSS) are used to describe the group of functions carried out during the design, roll-out, maintenance and upgrade of telecommunications networks. Functions carried out by the traditional OSS include Network Planning and Engineering (NPE), Fault Management (FM), Performance Management (PM), Provisioning and Service Activation (PSA) and Inventory Management (IM). Functions carried out by the traditional BSS include Billing and Customer Care (B&CC), Mediation (MD) and Revenue Assurance (RA). The NGN initiative promises convergence of diverse connecting protocols and applications to provide ubiquitous voice, data and video services.

NGN has the following salient features: Packet based switching and networking; Separation of transport layer from the services and application layer. NGN will offer the following services: Person-to-person communication services; " Person-to-person messaging services; Content on demand services. The broad primary drivers for NGN are: Telecom Operator and Vendor Interests: Improvement in Access Technologies and Reduced Vendor Dependency: Opening of Global Financial Markets

For sample/excerpts of Next Generation Network OSS/BSS Market and Forecast (CLICK HERE)

However, NGN implementation faces numerous challenges. The most important challenge for telcos is that NGNs entail interaction and interface with multiple stakeholders such as operators, content owners and ASPs. The scale of this interaction mandates that the OSSes and BSSes shed their rigidity in terms of proprietary designs and embrace more open and adaptable designs.
Other significant challenges are: Large Scale Capital Expenditure; Operational Challenges: Integration of Multiple Private Networks and Application into the Larger Public Networks: Quality of Service (QoS); National Security and Competitive Policies

Functions carried out by the OSS include:

Network Planning and Engineering (NPE): NPE functions deal with dimensioning the network based on projected market forecasts. It involves selection of best access technology taking into account geographical and economic factors. The inputs required for this exercise include geographical maps, demographic analysis, customer locations and others. The output of NPE is a network map that contains service types supported, maximum traffic volume supported, customer classes, network infrastructure costs and operating expenses.

Fault Management (FM): Also known as s Service Assurance, FM functions detect, isolate, debug and troubleshoot network errors and malfunctions. Network alarm monitoring and handling is the most commonly employed FM approach. Tools that are used for error troubleshooting are root cause analysis, event traces and event log analysis.

Performance Management (PM): PM, as the name suggests, is related to the handling of network operations. Specific functions that fall in the purview of PM are Network Element (NE) discovery, event reporting, resource availability monitoring, Service Level Agreement (SLA) management, QoS monitoring, identifying performance bottlenecks and similar others. Most telecom operators have an integrated Network Operations Center (NOC) to manage these functions.

Provisioning and Service Activation (PSA): Provisioning process begins with order intake and ends with service activation. Service requests are commonly delivered in the form of Work Order, which is a series of actions that need to be performed to complete the provisioning process. Order templates are created by the telecom operators and activities are assigned to individuals and groups. After the order intake, the order is validated, followed by planning the service implementation. After this the concerned NE is configured appropriately to activate the service.

Inventory Management (IM): Inventory management tracks and manages telecom assets such as equipment, services, financial records, contracts, locations and other data. A database of these assets is maintained, reported and analyzed periodically to ensure optimal allocation of resources.

BSS functions include the following:
" Billing and Customer Care (B&CC): Telecom retail or subscriber billing functions include generation of call records, processing the call records in a real-time or batch mode based on pre-defined rules (rating), rendering the rated record into the bill and presenting the rendered bill in the prescribed format. Billing processes vary based on type of data recorded, type of access network, whether the subscriber is pre-paid or post paid and the rules of rating the record. Interconnect or wholesale billing deals with the revenue reconciliation among interconnected telecom operators. The processes for wholesale billing remain similar to that of retail apart from the differences in the volume and rating rules. Customer care involves resolution of customer queries and requests, generally through a contact center. Many telecom operators also provide for a web-based customer self-care application wherein the customer where bill presentation, payment and limited service activation can be carried out. Settlement functions reconcile accounts between the telecom operators and the content provider partners. The settlement process is driven by revenue sharing agreements and the computation is based on transaction value, relationship value, volume, service, region, delivery mode and regulatory standards.

" Mediation (MD): Mediation deals with conversion of raw call data to a format understandable by the billing and accounting systems. Steps involved in mediation are data collection, archiving, normalization, filtering, enrichment, aggregation, correlation, buffering, format mapping and reconciliation.

" Revenue Assurance (RA): Revenue assurance functions enable the telecom operator to address the issue of revenue leakage. This achieved by advanced analytical processes that start with customer verification, credit balance checks, usage monitoring through appropriate control points and interfaces for data extraction, dashboards to present results and workflow based processes to take appropriate corrective actions.

On a broader level, the demands posed by NGN over OSS and BSS are: Ability to support wide array of rich end-user applications and services: Quicker roll-out of the above services and applications; Flexible provisioning of services in order to support variations as required by the market; Increased efficiency and effectiveness of existing OSS and BSS processes; Closer working with multiple business partners; Consistent revenue assurance achieved by lower cost of ownership and investment protection; Matching the challenging QoS requirements of end-customers; Transparent and seamless inter-process handshake; Greater visibility into customer usage patterns and data; Ability to support diverse charging and reconciliation mechanisms.