August 2001

Beyond Service Creation Stalemate

BY EMRE ÖNDER

But the fundamentals remain, and accelerating the creation of new services is now, more than ever, a vital, competitive imperative for both incumbent and emerging service providers. With sagging stock valuations, incumbents are driven to generate new sources of high-margin revenue to improve the growth and profitability of their business from their existing base of customers. In contrast, emerging service providers want to create service differentiation in order to entice customers to switch and stay.

This article will first define the term "service creation," which refers to the actual creation of new applications, and compare and contrast it with "service customization" and "subscriber service provisioning," which often have been confused with service creation. It then will explore the key obstacles to rapid service creation and deployment in service provider networks, and discuss innovative emerging solutions that are removing these hurdles.

WHAT IS SERVICE CREATION?
Service creation is the process of creating entirely new communications services. Starting with concept development/definition, this process includes development of the service logic; development of provisioning, management, and billing software; testing of the new application prior to installation into the live network; integration and deployment of the new service into the existing network and OSS of the service provider; and, finally, commercial rollout (Table 1).

It is important to note that enhanced services can be created and delivered either at the base network layer, such as bandwidth-on-demand and security services, or at the applications layer, such as follow-me and unified messaging applications, or content delivery, such as airline or commuter information updates. Vendors of carrier equipment such as optical switches may be able to create or deliver services at the base network layer. Such capabilities are entirely transparent and complementary to vendors who focus on delivering services at the application layer.

WHAT IS PROVISIONING AND CUSTOMIZATION?
Service creation is distinctly different from service provisioning and customization, which are "downstream" activities performed by the service provider or an end user after a new service has been created and deployed.

From a product perspective, the term Service Creation Environment (SCE) refers to software development tool kits, such as component libraries and GUI-based visual composition environments for application developers. These "middleware" tools allow developers to rapidly code sophisticated applications and software during all phases of the service-creation process.

Subscriber self-provisioning and customization is the ability for end users to provision their own services through a browser interface that presents them with the service provider's logo and look-and-feel. This no-touch provisioning and customization interface can lower the barriers to adoption of existing network services and reduce administrative expenses for the service provider.

A number of next-generation vendors have offered such GUI (graphical user interface) and Web-based subscriber self-provisioning capabilities. In addition, some of these vendors offer software tool kits -- often XML-based -- to help service providers customize the look and feel of such GUIs for branding purposes. Such GUI software and tools have been often labeled "service creation" by vendors to indicate that the end user can turn on ("create") services without the involvement of a service provider's customer representative.

While provisioning and customization software are very useful capabilities, it is important to avoid such semantic confusions. It is also important to recognize that the fundamental challenge of the service providers lies in rapid service creation and rollout into existing networks and operations. Self-provisioning and branding become important only if you can develop new services to sell to your customers in the first place.

FASTER SERVICE CREATION AND ROLLOUT
Existing scenarios thwart rather than facilitate the rapid and cost-effective creation and deployment of new services. But a new breed of service creation environment for converged networks is emerging.

Current Obstacles
To date, accelerated service creation and deployment has proved elusive. Part of the problem has been the lack of flexible, comprehensive service-creation environments and the absence of true programmability via open APIs in existing service switches and the emerging softswitch architectures.

The service-creation process today involves significant code development, and it takes 2-3 years and over $10 million in upfront fixed costs for service providers to bring new services to market. With such daunting hurdles to overcome, service providers typically resort to extensive market studies where the service definition alone can take 6-12 months.

These obstacles exist because available service-creation tools only support highly proprietary SS7/IN infrastructure, such as Service Control Points (SCPs). Within these environments, it is at best cumbersome for service providers to develop converged applications, such as follow-me or unified messaging applications that can engage end devices across packet and PSTN networks, like a black phone, a 3G handset, or a SIP user device.

It also is difficult for service providers to develop applications without critical-path dependencies on their vendor's support. For example, if you use a visual composition environment to speed code development, you often subsequently need some key enhancements to your application program that were not accessible through the visual tools. That creates a dependency on the vendor to provide additional tool libraries or expose the source code behind the visual tools -- often at a cost. In addition, applications are platform-dependent and mostly non-portable.

Emerging Solutions
The new breed of service creation environment enables service providers to accelerate the development, rollout, and integration of new subscriber services, such as follow-me, unified messaging, and enhanced call center applications across the heterogeneous access networks of today's service providers. Emerging SCEs are designed to create applications that can tap services and data from multiple networks, including IP and SS7/IN infrastructures. They include extensive tools for all phases of software development, including application creation, acceptance testing, and the development of components for the provisioning, management, and billing software for rapid integration of newly created services.

Thanks to powerful industry-standard development tools, APIs, and frameworks, most service providers prefer these next-generation SCEs to be based on Java standards such as JAIN/JCC, JMF, and JMX. Java offers a modern, object-oriented, and open environment where highly portable applications can be rapidly created by a large community of in-house or third-party ISV developers. It also integrates well and securely into Web-based environments such as -- not surprisingly -- Web-based subscriber self-provisioning GUIs.

PROGRAMMABLE EQUALS FLEXIBLE
SCEs are helpful, of course, only to the extent that newly created services can be deployed on platforms that execute these services after they have been developed. Without flexible and operationally simple and scalable platforms, service deployment can drag on for a long time. This is most evident as service providers attempt to integrate new applications while trying not to break or degrade any of the existing applications -- also known as regression testing. Existing service switches designed to be extremely reliable are not flexible enough for frequent deployments of new service applications and resources. This inflexibility has not been corrected by softswitch architectures proposed in recent years.

While softswitch architectures offer a viable solution for the Class 4 tandem and Internet offload applications, their exclusive reliance on protocol interfaces limits the range of new subscriber applications that can be rolled out. The interoperability protocols provide open interfaces between devices in the network but not between the network and the applications. Again, a new breed of open, programmable service switches is emerging to deliver rapid service deployment across converged networks.

Beyond industry-standard protocols, such programmable solutions present open APIs at each layer to offer full visibility of all resources to the applications. This breakthrough architecture delivers flexibility for rapid support of a wealth of new services without disrupting existing services. Furthermore, programmable service switches can be integrated with existing Class 5 switches to deliver enhanced services to PSTN-based customers as well as customers on the packet network. As a result, they bring a new level of flexible, rapid service deployment capability not only to the packet broadband networks but also the existing PSTN and cellular networks.

Working in tandem, emerging SCEs and programmable switching solutions deliver the next-generation of converged service creation and carrier-grade enhanced service deployment platforms to service providers. They will act as catalysts in transforming the basis of competition in the service-provider industry from a tired, "me-too" battleground (served by vendors replicating decade-old existing service capabilities) to a dynamic landscape of differentiated enhanced service applications.

Emre Önder is co-founder and vice president of marketing for Pelago Networks, which enables local service providers to simplify and accelerate the delivery of enhanced communications services to business customers over any broadband access network. Beyond breakthrough technology, Pelago's solutions offer compelling economic advantage through capital and operational cost savings, new service revenues, and reduced churn.

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