VanillaPlus Magazine June-July 2012 Edition

TALKING HEADSNeuralitic COO says big datais in CSPs’ DNA – they canuse it to compete with theinternet giants

TALKING HEADSNeuralitic COO says big datais in CSPs’ DNA – they canuse it to compete with theinternet giants

D R I V I N G P R O F I T S F O R C O M M U N I C A T I O N S E R V I C E P R O V I D E R S

J U N E / J U L Y 2 0 1 2

V O L U M E 1 4 I S S U E 3

10-PAGE

BILLING &

CHARGING

SUPPLEMENT INSIDE

ISSN 1745-1736

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WeDo splurges on Connectiv for US expansion • 4G hubbing hots up • Networks teeming withstreaming • Going Dutch: KPN and Vodafone choose system suppliers • Who’s doing deals in The ContractHot List • What’s on when – Read the latest OSS & BSS news online now at www.vanillaplus.com

Time for

a roaming

radar reset

See p22

�CLOCKING OFF!The perils of me-toodifferentiation

MANAGEDSERVICESHow far is too far?

OPERATORCASE STUDYOrder fulfilment in the cloud at O2 Business

PSYCHOLOGICALSHIFTS Who pays forconsumption?

MANAGEDSERVICESHow far is too far?

OPERATORCASE STUDYOrder fulfilment in the cloud at O2 Business

PSYCHOLOGICALSHIFTS Who pays forconsumption?

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PLUS!

A new name, a new look, a new direction.CSG and Intec are now CSG International.

www.csgi.com© 2011 CSG Interna onal, Inc.

With our recent acquisi on of Intec, CSG Interna onal is now a globally focused leader in helping clients At the core of our union is a transforma onal partnership. As a combined en ty, we now o er

our clients an unprecedented set of business support solu ons and services to help them capitalize on dynamic market changes and opportuni es. With more than 25 years of experience, and serving over 500 customers in 24 countries, CSG is even be er posi oned to help businesses accurately capture, manage, generate and op mize revenue, strengthen customer rela onships, and exploit emerging opportuni es. We are commi ed to long term partnership with our customers and believe collabora on and communica on are an integral part of helping our clients achieve success. We invite you to pro t from our experience. Visit us at: www.csgi.com

IN THIS ISSUE

3VANILLAPLUS JUNE/JULY 2012

TALKING HEADS13

C O N T E N T S

Since 2007, NeuraliticSystems has been aleading provider of

mobile data intelligence solutions, holding as itsmission to help mobile operators unlock the value oftheir data to understand subscriber behaviours thatinfluence data service adoption. SevenFlow, theNeuralitic solution, turns massive amounts ofunstructured data into compact and usable data sets,ready for use by multiple applications. By transparentlyextracting and analysing 100% of data usage from 100%of data subscribers on a wireless network, it provides a360-degree view of subscribers’ and roamers’ mobilejourneys. SevenFlow is specifically designed for mobiledata and does not require lengthy and customintegration work. It has an optimised process forextracting, transforming and storing mobile big data.

The company draws its expertise from employees in avariety of fields related to its core business, including IPinfrastructure, business intelligence, high-throughputdatabases, dimensional data modelling, mathematicsand wireless network engineering.www.neuralitic.com

Louis Brun, chief operatingofficer and founder of Neuralitic

MANAGEDSERVICES

16

EVENTREPORT:MACHINSIGHTS2012

22

EDITOR’S COMMENT 4George Malim asks who should pay for network usage?

COMPANY NEWS 5WeDo Technologies’ acquisition of Connectiv Solutions and Syniverselaunches LTE roaming hub

MARKET NEWS 6Survey finds CSPs expect accelerated bring your own device demand

COMPANY NEWS 7Orga Systems launches end-to-end interconnect billing system

CONTRACT NEWS 9Ontology announces two South African wins; Dutch operatorsmake vendor selections

PEOPLE NEWS 11Etisalat appoints chief procurement officer, Jason Bandy exploreshow you can keep up with technical developments

THE CONTRACT HOT LIST 12VanillaPlus’s round up of the major contracts recently announcedworldwide

TALKING HEADS 13Louis Brun, chief operating officer and founder of Neuralitic saysbig data is in CSPs’ DNA and they should use mobile dataintelligence to enable new revenues

MANAGED SERVICES 16George Malim explores how far is too far when it comes tooutsourcing BSS and OSS

EXPERT OPINION: MANAGED SERVICESFOR CRITICAL PROCESSES 18Robert Machin says that ultimately it all depends on trust

CASE STUDY 20Inside O2 Business’s CloudSense order fulfilment deployment

EXPERT OPINION: CLOUD BROKERAGE 21John Frame explores how brokering SaaS applications allows CSPsto deliver personalised business bundles

EVENT REPORT: MACH INSIGHTS 2012 22Alun Lewis reports from Prague on MACH’s customer event

DIARY 24Where to go and what to see

CLOCKING OFF! 25Nick Booth decries CSPs’ me-too differentiation attempts

Sponsored by:

VANILLAPLUSJUNE/JULY 20124

Throttling bandwidth usage is obstructive to the user experience and detrimental toCSPs' opportunity to generate profits. However, we are now entering a phase of themarket’s development in which that throttling also has the potential to damage theperformance of other businesses.

I have heard examples of organisations such as YouTube being potentially interested insubsidising consumption of its video. It could, for instance, pay for its users to engagea ‘turbo’ button to increase their bandwidth to download a high definition video on themove with guaranteed quality. YouTube, of course, makes the money back – and more– through the advertising revenue it derives.

Another scenario put forward by Ericsson would see companies such as travel servicesprovider Expedia looking to subsidise roaming for its customers. An Expedia customerwould be offered a cheap or free roaming deal and Expedia would offer furtherservices, knowing that the user is in a particular location and receptive to relevantcross-sell and up-sell offers.

“People like Expedia might be willing to pay for consumption,” explained MartinSundblad, director of portfolio management at Ericsson. “They know they lose theopportunity to support [their customers if they switch off roaming].”

That opportunity could involve selling of services such as travel insurance, restaurantbookings, entertainment tickets and a raft of other travel and location-specificpropositions. “We can do it,” said Sunblad’s colleague Peter Briscoe. “It’s nottechnically difficult.”

Critically, both believe there are alarge number of willing partnerskeen to participate in thisrevived type ofcommunications valuechain. It’s a psychologicalleap for CSPs but itcould be just the stepneeded to create thesustainable telecomsbusiness of the future.

Enjoy the magazine

George Malim

A lot of the attention has been around how CSPs canmonetise their networks effectively in order to developsustainably profitable businesses. At Management World2012 in Dublin, that was as much on the agenda as ever butthere are intriguing glimpses of how attitudes are changing toencompass other ways of paying for bandwidth consumptionthan simply making users pay more for their megabits.

C O M M E N T

John Aalbers,chief executive,Volubill

Martin Creaner, president,TM Forum

AndreasFreund, VPMarketing, OrgaSystems GmbH

Louis Hall, chief executive,CerillionTechnologies

Gabriel Matsliach,general manager,BSS Product Line,Comverse

Pat McCarthy, VPof GlobalMarketing, ServiceDelivery Solutions,Telcordia

Simon Muderack,COO, Tribold

John Rainger,vice president,EMEA, CSGInternational

Mac Taylor, CEO,The MorianaGroup

Chris Yeadon,director of ProductMarketing, Ericsson

Dr Reinhard Zuba,CMO, Vipnet(Telekom Austria)

EDITORGeorge MalimTel: +44 (0) 0208 292 [email protected]

DIGITAL EDITORNathalie BisnarTel: +44 (0) 1732 [email protected]

BUSINESSDEVELOPMENTDIRECTORCherisse DraperTel: +44 (0) 1732 [email protected]

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Mark BridgesTel: +44 (0) 1732 [email protected]

OPERATIONS DIRECTORCharlie BisnarTel: +44 (0) 1732 [email protected]

PUBLISHERJeremy CowanTel: +44 (0) 1420 [email protected]

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EDITORIAL ADVISORS

Dan Baker, ResearchDirector, TechnologyResearch Institute

George Malim,Editor:VanillaPlus

Who pays for consumption?Psychological leaps required

Alcatel-Lucent offersmanaged customerexperience serviceAlcatel-Lucent has introduced a newmanaged service for CSPs that it claimswill allow them to assure consistentquality of service for their subscribers.Drawing on Alcatel-Lucent’s MotiveCustomer Experience Solutions portfolio –launched in February – as well as patent-pending methodology developed by BellLabs, the new managed service willmonitor and improve aspects of aconsumer’s experience that have the mostimpact on their satisfaction with theservice provider.

The Bell Labs methodology used by thenew managed services takes a uniqueapproach to determining the most accurateand reliable indicators of customersatisfaction, which can be customised foreach individual service provider.

CSG launches newversion of Singleview CSG International has announced a newversion of CSG Singleview, its real-time,convergent customer management,charging and billing solution forcommunications service providers (CSPs)as well as companies in other industries,such as financial services, who requirehighly flexible and advanced billing andcustomer management capabilities.

Singleview is in use at more than 60wireline, wireless, IP carriers, MobileVirtual Network Operators (MVNOs) andfinancial services providers includingMastercard, XO Communications, SingTelOptus and Hutchison 3G properties acrossthe globe.

“Singleview’s ability to adapt to the needsof market-leading companies is what hasmade it a world-leading charging andbilling solution that helps a variety ofservice providers to adapt quickly andeasily to unpredictable future demands,”said Jennifer Fellows, vice president ofproduct management at CSGInternational. “Unlike competing systems,Singleview can support change withoutcostly customisation, through aninnovative architecture proven inindustries as varied as financial services,transport and logistics, as well as intelecommunications.”

C O M P A N Y N E W S

WeDo Technologies hasannounced theacquisition of ConnectivSolutions, whichprovides management oftelecoms network usageexpenses. The deal willstrengthen WeDoTechnologies’ presencein North America.

Connectiv Solutions,which is based in the US,

assists wireless and wireline carriers tomaximise the efficiency of theirnetworks; enabling them to simplify vastand complex data streams and identifycost saving opportunities. It deliversthese services through four majorbusiness segments; traffic management,interconnect management, revenueassurance and managed services. Thecompanies claim there is no customeroverlap and WeDo Technologies expectsthe deal to deliver strong upsell and

cross-sell opportunities for bothcompanies’ offers. Connectiv Solutionshas more than 10 customers in the USand four of the top 10 wireless operatorsin the country are Connectiv Solutions’customers.

Although financial terms were undisclosed,Connectiv reported revenues of close toUS$8 million and a headcount of 35people for FY2011. will provide a solidfoundation for WeDo Technologies tobuild upon within North America.

Rui Paiva, WeDo Technologies’ CEO,said the acquisition will enable WeDoTechnologies to build its North Americanpresence. “One of our strategicambitions was to become a major playerin the revenue assurance and fraudmanagement space in North Americaboth on SaaS and managed servicesbusiness models,” he said. “This dealwith Connectiv Solutions enables us torealise these ambitions.”

Sponsored by:

VANILLAPLUSJUNE/JULY 2012 5

Rui Paiva:NorthAmericanexpansion

WeDo Technologies acquires ConnectivSolutions to target North America

Syniverse has launchedits LTE Hub, a one-stopexchange that deliversLTE and IMSinteroperability andinterworking, 4G clearingand settlement, next-generation customercare solutions andadvanced messaginggateway capabilities.

“Around the globe,operators are making tremendousprogress rolling out LTE networks,” saidJeff Gordon, president and CEO ofSyniverse. “For end users, the mostimportant factor is that these networksinteroperate with each other andinterwork with supporting Wi-Fi andlegacy cellular networks to offer theubiquitous coverage to which mobileusers have become accustomed. Foroperators, this means they must takesteps to deliver full-service 4G

interoperability and interworking todayto deliver advanced services well intothe future.”

Activity around LTE hubbing and IPexchanges (IPX) is starting to accelerateas LTE comes to market and more andmore traffic is carried over IPtechnology. The industry is goingthrough a landgrab phase as exchangeproviders seek to attract large numbersof CSP customers, thereby making theirexchanges more attractive to CSPs.

In addition to Syniverse, IP Exchangeproviders include BICS, BT GlobalTelecom Markets, Sybase 365 and others,although Syniverse would argue that theestablishment of its LTE Hub goes beyondthe standard IPX concept because itintegrates 4G with customer caresolutions and other functionality such asLTE roaming, video calling and messagingsupport. Syniverse claims its IPX solutionnow connects more than 80 CSPs.

Syniverse establishes LTE hub forfull IMS and LTE interworking

N E W S U P D AT E

Jeff Gordon:Ready for LTEand roaming

N E W S U P D AT E

66% of marketers see aneed for data scientists tomanage big data Aprimo, a Teradata company that providescloud-based integrated marketing software,has found that 66% of attendees at its 2012Marketing Summit feel the need for datascientists to help them manage big data.500 Summit attendees were polled at theevent and, while 38% said they alreadyincorporate data-driven insights into theirmarketing decisions, they find it difficult togather and integrate.

More worryingly, the survey found more thanhalf are not engaging with big data becausethey simply don’t know where to start.

“Driving value from data can betransformational for businesses,” says JeffChamberlain, vice president of marketing atAprimo. “Insight from customer dataallows for better customer engagement andtargeting, which leads to increased salesand ROI. However, with expanding sourcesand usage, the data management model -together with the business functions itserves - is changing fast: marketers needfast and easy access to more, as well asgood quality data. Data is getting biggerdue to multi-channel customer interactions,but by the same token, consent for datausage is getting harder. It can therefore bechallenging for marketers to know how tobest derive optimal business value fromtheir data.”

Eight times more mobilesocial media in 2016 In 2016, mobile phone users will, onaverage, consume 6.5 times as much video,over eight times as much music and socialmedia, and nearly 10 times as much gamesas in 2011 according to the latest forecastsfrom Informa Telecoms & Media. There will be a big upsurge in traffic formost mobile data services over the nextfive years, largely driven by the spread ofsmartphones and a 23% increase in thenumber of mobile users. In 2016, theaverage mobile user will be browsing sixtimes as many web pages anddownloading 14 times as many megabytesof applications on their handset as in 2011.Text (SMS) and picture (MMS) messagingtraffic will continue to grow, but at a muchslower pace than most other mobile dataservices. On average, mobile users sent 118SMS and two MMS a month in 2011,compared to the 146 SMS and four MMSthey will be sending in 2016.

M A R K E T N E W S

Sponsored by:


Amdocs has announced the results of aglobal survey that explores the growingdemand for bring your own device(BYOD) support from businesscustomers and the system implicationsthis has for service providers. Thesurvey, conducted by analyst firm HeavyReading, highlights the need forconverged business and operationalsupport systems (B/OSS) to provide anend-to-end view of the customer, linkingpersonal and business personae for aunified customer experience.

“BYOD has been gaining momentum asconsumers want to bring their favouritesmartphones and tablets to work and,with enterprises anticipating benefitssuch as increased productivity andemployee satisfaction, we surely expectthis trend continue to grow," said AriBanerjee, senior analyst at HeavyReading. “But BYOD creates newcomplexities for both the enterprise andthe service provider who must supportfeatures such as device care, bill split,security, shared loyalty and data plansand differentiated quality of service. Ifservice providers can overcome thetechnological challenges of providingthese features, the enhanced customer

experience will lead to huge gains incustomer satisfaction and loyalty.”

The research found that the majority(73%) of service providers expect to seea 10-25% increase in BYOD devicerequests from business customers in thecoming year due to the recognisedbenefits for businesses. Cost savings,employee satisfaction and increasedproductivity are cited as the primarybenefits of BYOD for service providers’business customers, with almost half ofservice provider respondents believingthat BYOD will decrease costs andincrease productivity by 10-25% forthese customers.

“The business segment represents hugerevenue potential for service providers,and to capitalise on this market they willneed to offer tailored and competitiveofferings, including BYOD,” said RebeccaPrudhomme, vice president of productand solutions marketing for Amdocs.“By converging BSS and OSS, serviceproviders gain a unified customer viewrequired to support BYOD requests, suchas creating hybrid plans and offeringdevice support, ultimately simplifyingthe customer experience.”

Sandvine has releasedits Global InternetPhenomena Report1H2012 report based ondata from a selection ofSandvine’s 200customers in NorthAmerica, Europe, MiddleEast and Africa, Caribbean and LatinAmerica and Asia-Pacific. Key findings

include that YouTube is the largestsource of mobile video traffic in everyregion examined, accounting for asmuch as 25% of network data and noless than 12%, in North America, videoand audio streaming make up morethan half of mobile data traffic, led byYouTube, Pandora and Netflix, andinstant messaging applications likeWhatsApp continue to enjoywidespread adoption while eating into

SMS revenue; for example, on an Asianmobile network serving one millionsubscribers, an average of 7.6 millionWhatsApp messages were sent per day

“Aggregate reports like our GlobalInternet Phenomena shed light on theinternet as a whole and informoperators on trends relevant to theirbusiness,” said Dave Caputo, co-founder, president and CEO ofSandvine. “However, the real value forour customers is to take an internalcensus of data and trends on their ownnetworks. Armed with detailed networkdata we work with our customers todevelop tailored service offerings, trafficpolicies and usage plans.”

“Region by region, network by networkand device by device, the need for videoquality metrics is consistent across theboard,” added Caputo.

Dave Caputo:Video trendsuncovered

Amdocs Survey finds CSPs expectaccelerated BYOD demand

Mobile networks teeming withstreaming, says Sandvine report

Clarity releases BusinessQuality Manager Clarity Business Quality Manager(BQM), which extends the concepts andprocesses used in service qualitymanagement, to the measurement ofkey processes across the entiretelecommunications business, is nowavailable. Clarity BQM providessophisticated data aggregation andpresentation tools to help operatorsmake real-time decisions in order tomeasure and improve key businessperformance KPIs, such as customerexperience, service quality, networkefficiency and operational efficiency.

“Clarity, with its understanding of thenetwork provisioning and assuranceprocesses along with the tools to mapthe network to the customer service,provides the foundation for a broadview of the business” said ChristopherSmith, chief operating officer at Clarity.“The Clarity solution, working inconjunction with key systems such asCRM, probe and mediation solutions,enables operators to monitor thecustomer experience from manyviewpoints including the device, serviceand network, so that it can beproactively managed.”

Sigma Systems unveilsCloud Service Broker Sigma Systems has announced SigmaCloud Service Broker, an integratedSaaS service fulfillment solution for theselection, provisioning andmanagement of SaaS services andapplications.

The Sigma Cloud Service Brokerplatform is designed to reduce costs,remove operational silos and reducesoverall capex and opex by providing asingle-sourced and deployedarchitecture for managing all on-network business services, includingVoIP and high-speed broadband, as wellas cloud-based SaaS services. TheCloud Service Broker enablescommunication service providers toextend value-added SaaS services totheir small and medium business (SMB)customers in a scalable, repeatable andeconomic manner.

C O M P A N Y N E W S

Orga Systems hasreleasedOS.Interconnect, an end-to-end interconnectbilling solutiondeveloped to help CSPsmanage theirinterconnect business.With a fully integratedsuite of interconnectmanagement tools it isdesigned to preventwasted revenues by

ensuring every call is captured, ratedand invoiced correctly. UsingOS.Interconnect, Orga Systemsestimates it can help CSPs maximiseinterconnect margins up to a doubledigit number.

OS.Interconnect responds to the needsof CSPs by providing a way of managinga multitude of trading partners and awide range of network technologies. It

gives CSPs streamlined control and withOrga Systems’ interconnect technology;calls can be tracked from any networkprovider and termination point. WithOS.Interconnect, CSPs get everythingfrom end-to-end efficiencies, consistentdata handling to easy-to-use interfacesand automation of repetitive tasks,reducing the risk of human input errors.

“CSPs need an agile product platformand a responsive vendor partner. End-to-end control helps service providersmaximise their revenue streams, reducecosts and offers a depth of interconnectmanagement other vendors can’tmatch,” says Ramez Younan, CEO ofOrga Systems. “OS.Interconnect givesCSPs full control of their interconnectedbusiness needs. We want to fulfilbusiness demands by preparing ourcustomers for new settlement modelsand partnerships.”

Sponsored by:


Ramez Younan:Prepare fornew models

Orga Systems launches end-to-end interconnect billing

Arieso has launched the latestgeneration of its ariesoGEOperformance engineering solution.ariesoGEO now supports GSM, UMTSand LTE technologies within a singleplatform and automates optimisationbetween these layers.

Designed to help mobile networkoperators solve performance challenges,ariesoGEO provides valuable insightsinto the network as experienced bycustomers. These insights allowoperators to manage network planningand performance more cost effectively,while delivering previously unobtainableinsights into customer experience.

With the roll out of LTE gatheringmomentum, high value customers withthe latest devices are beginning tointeract with a complex multi-layernetwork. How those layers – 2G, 3G and4G/LTE – work together is becomingcritical in defining the customerexperience. To meet this challenge,

ariesoGEO is the first enterprisegeolocation solution that includes theability to automatically optimisebetween technology layers based onmeasured coverage, a capabilitypreviously unavailable.

“There really is no such thing as an LTEsubscriber. LTE devices will use theUMTS and GSM layers of the network aswell, putting operator engineering teamsunder greater strain. Increasingcomplexity demands new thinking andnew approaches to managing andoptimising networks,” said ShirinDehghan, CEO, Arieso.

“By extending our capability to coverLTE networks, we’re able to provideoperators with a comprehensivesolution that starts to automate theoptimisation of existing and futurenetwork evolutions, solving complexintegration challenges. It’s a realindustry first.”

Arieso extends solutions to supportmulti-technology LTE networks

N E W S U P D AT E

N E W S U P D AT E

CSL Hong Kong selects TheNow Factory to optimisecustomer experienceThe Now Factory has announced that itsMobile Moments Vantage system has beenselected by CSL, the Hong Kong mobileCSP, to provide real-time visibility intomobile data usage, helping optimise thecustomer experience and increaseoperational efficiencies.

CSL is the leading mobile operator in HongKong with over three million subscribersand delivers an innovative range of voiceand data services. The company selectedMobile Moments Vantage to gain greatervisibility into how its customers experiencemobile data services, identify the rootcause of performance issues that mayoccur, and provide the necessary answersto optimise the customer journey in realtime across its LTE and UMTS networks.

Christian Daigneault, chief technologyofficer at CSL, said: “The customer is at theheart of everything we do at CSL. The NowFactory will enable us to understand moreclearly how we engage with our customers,and what we can do to deliver anexceptional level of user experience for allour mobile data services.”

M A R K E T N E W S

Sprint is to extend the footprint ofNetCracker's Telecom Operations andManagement Solutions Suite across itsNetwork Vision programme. As acomponent of the programme, NetCrackerwill provide a consolidated, centralisedmeans of managing and provisioningSprint's new mobile infrastructure. Thesystems will enable Sprint to streamlineits provisioning processes, increaseoperational efficiencies, reduce fallout,and retire a number of legacy systems.Once fully deployed, NetCracker willdeliver multiple benefits to Sprint,including reduced opex, enhanced QoSand a streamlined operations supportsystem footprint.

Sprint's Network Vision Programme isan innovative, next-generation networkdesigned to enhance voice quality anddata speeds for Sprint customers acrossthe United States. When fully operational,Network Vision will consolidate multiplenetwork technologies into a unified,seamless, high-performing network.

"We have been working with NetCrackerfor over five years," said John Harrison,vice president of network supplier

performance management at Sprint."We have collaborated on numerous,complex, multi-phase projects andNetCracker continues to provide us withleading-edge solutions that have helpedus improve internal operations andenhance our business."

Andrew Feinberg, president and CEO ofNetCracker, added: "We see participationin Sprint's innovative Network Visionprogramme as a testimonial to ourcommitment and contribution over thelast five years. Sprint's approach tonetwork and business transformationsets a high standard in the industry andwe are proud to be a part of theirongoing mission."

Sprint's Network Vision programme touse NetCracker TOMS suite

KPN chooses Comarchfor outsourced fulfillmentautomation Comarch has supported KPN in themigration of its Fulfillment AutomationSystem to the new version (2010 R2) ofMicrosoft BizTalk server and its transferto the Comarch Data Center in Krakow.In addition, during the migration of theplatform, existing errors were detectedand retrieved. Comarch is alsoresponsible for the maintenance ofKPN’s Fulfillment Automation system.

“We are very happy to have beenchosen by KPN as a reliable businesspartner for outsourcing. We believe thatour hosting services will help KPNoptimise operational costs and supportthem in offering innovative services,”says Joanna Słowińska, businessdevelopment director Benelux and aboard member of Comarch.

Lebanese operator Alfaselects Astellia fornetwork optimisation Alfa, the Lebanese mobile operatormanaged by Orascom Telecom, haschosen Astellia, to deliver a completevendor-independent 3G+ monitoringsolution which will highlight the qualityexperience of Alfa’s subscribers andoffer enhancements to the operator’senhancements on network capabilities.

“This partnership comes in line with thenational quality of service (QoS)network plan for 2012 which has setconcrete targets. Astellia’s 3G+monitoring solution will allow us toproactively address any qualityproblems on our 3G+ network andanalyse hidden network issues,” saidAssaad Abousleiman, Alfa’s chieftechnology officer. “This will enhancethe efficiency and performance of ournetwork and result in offering our entirebase of subscribers of 1.7 million with afirst class quality of experience (QoE).We are confident that Astellia will leadthe project successfully and allow us toaddress all requirements within the settimelines.”

Ontology Systems, aprovider of semanticsearch provider forenterprise dataalignment, hasannounced thatVodacom SA hasselected OntologyIntelligent 360 toenhance its serviceassurance operations.

Ontology Intelligent 360 provides aunified view of Vodacom's transportnetwork topologies in relation tocustomers' services. This enhancestheir service assurance processes byimproving the speed and consistencyof network management informationabout disparate Operations andBusiness Support Systems.

Ontology Systems' CEO, BenedictEnweani commented: "We aredelighted that Vodacom SA haschosen Ontology Intelligent 360.Ontology has rapidly providedVodacom with a unified model ofphysical and logical network

resources, services and customerswithout the need for a large upfrontdesign effort and hefty on-going costof change."

Ontology has also announced thatNeotel, South Africa's first convergedtelecoms network operator, hasextended its use of Ontology Systemsto deliver Ontology Intelligent 360 foran aligned view of services. Built fromunderlying OSS/BSS data, the solutionwill help improve customerexperience, reduce billing andprovisioning errors and reduce cost byfreeing up stranded assets.

Phinda Ncala, Neotel's CIOcommented: "Ontology has alreadyproved a valuable tool for Neotel andwe are pleased to extend our use ofOntology to help improve our servicemanagement. The SaaS deploymentoption provides Neotel with a lowmonthly cost and we are lookingforward to this solution helping us torecognise even more benefits for ourbusiness and customers."

BenedictEnweani:Vodacom has aunified view

Ontology Intelligent 360 semantic searchdeployed at Vodacom and Neotel in South Africa

Vodafone Netherlands is to deploy anAmdocs Business Support Systemsolution (BSS) based on Amdocs’Customer Experience Systems (CES)portfolio.

The system enables telecomscompanies to interact with customerson sales and services related queries,covering processes such as ordering,provisioning, fulfillment and invoicing.Vodafone Netherlands will it across allcustomer channels in a phasedapproach over the next few years.

“We expect this agreement to enableVodafone Netherlands to enhance ourcustomers’ experience across allchannels,” said Ben Kocken, head ofexperience, transformation and

capability at Vodafone Netherlands.

Brian Shepherd, group president forAmdocs, added: “This agreement istestament to our deepeningrelationship with Vodafone. Amdocs iscommitted to delivering more value toVodafone as it further enhances itsoperational efficiencies.”

This deal builds on the relationshipbetween Amdocs and Vodafone whichhad previously signed a global licenseand maintenance agreement effectivefrom October 2010. This global licenseand maintenance agreement enablesVodafone local markets to buyAmdocs products and services underpre-agreed terms.

Vodafone Netherlands to deployAmdocs Business Support System

N E W S U P D AT E

C O N T R A C T N E W S

Sponsored by:


N E W S U P D AT E

Sunrise deploys OrgaSystems’ real-time chargingand billing platform Sunrise, the largest private telecomsprovider in Switzerland, has started toupgrade to Orga Systems’ OPSC Goldreal-time billing and charging platformto enable full monetisation of prepaidvoice and data services as well assupporting Sunrise’s customer loyaltystrategy in the prepaid sector. Sunrisewill also deploy Orga Systems’ NextGeneration Control Point (NGCP), 3GPPcompliant, real-time data charging tosupport growing demand for dataservices. The new systems will be rolledout in the first quarter of 2013.

Orga Systems has a 13-year relationshipwith Sunrise and has helped it to managecharging for their subscribers. Sunrisehas now upgraded to OPSC Gold toaccess a real-time convergent platformfor voice and data services. The mobileoperator decided to migrate to OPSCGold because Orga Systems fulfilled allits requirements and has proven itself areliable and long-term partner.

Astellia wins H3G Austriaoptimisation dealAustrian mobile operator Hutchison 3G(H3G) has chosen Astellia to be the supplierfor its end-to-end mobile broadbandnetwork monitoring and optimisation.

Over the last ten years Astellia has beenproviding H3G with performanceintelligence to optimize its UTRANnetwork. With this new contract, Astelliawill extend its monitoring to H3G’s corenetwork. This will hereby give H3G aholistic view of its 3G network efficiencyand play a key part in ensuring seamlesspremium service quality delivery.Astellia’s non-intrusive, vendor-independent Core PS monitoringsolution provides H3G advanced end-to-end service analysis and fasttroubleshooting of QoE issues. In caseof a customer complaint related to poorquality of service, the H3G CustomerCare team can, in a matter of seconds,access any subscriber’s activity andprecisely understand the conditionsexperienced by the end-user andidentify the root contributors to theexperience degradation.

C O N T R A C T N E W S

Sponsored by:


Omantel has selectedAito Technologies’customer experienceanalytics solution, AitoCEA, to provide greaterinsight and intelligenceinto its customer usage.

Using Aito CEA, Omantelintends to gain a betterunderstanding of thecustomer lifecycle andultimately deliver a

superior customer experience. Omantelselected Aito CEA for its ability to quicklyand easily unify the business, customerand network traffic data and providecentralised, easy-to-use real-timeanalytics out-of-the-box.

By using Aito CEA, Omantel is expectedto gain a better understanding of thecustomer lifecycle and ultimately delivera superior customer experience. AitoCEA help Omantel obtain insights into:market trends, such as market segments,market share and market growth;customer trends, such as usage patterns,customer segments, profitability and

churn; service usage patterns, offers andcampaign performance; and networkstatistics, utilisation and deviceinformation.

Jalal Hussain Abdullatif, manager ofBusiness Intelligence at Omantel’sCorporate Strategy Unit commented:“Great customer experience is at thevery heart of our business and we striveto provide the best possible service andthe most attractive products to ourcustomers. The choice of Aito CEA willenable us to achieve this throughanalysis of a broad combination of dataand obtain insights into market,customer, service and network trendsresulting in improved customerexperience and reduced churn.”

Anssi Tauriainen, CEO of AitoTechnologies, added: “As Aito continuesto expand rapidly across the globe weare delighted to be selected by Omantel,a leading telecoms operator in theMiddle East, to provide deep and broadunderstanding of their customerlifecycle.”

iPass has launched the dtac wifi roamingsolution from dtac, a mobile networkoperator in Thailand. iPass Open MobileExchange (iPass OMX) and the iPassMobile Network provide the technologyunderpinnings for the new dtac packagefrom Deutsche Telekom's Wi-Fi Mobilizeoffering.

With more than 23 million subscribers,dtac is now enabled to offer itscustomers a seamless global Wi-Fiservice on Android smartphones andtablets along with the iPhone and iPad. "dtac leads the roaming market with apeace-of-mind experience strategy in2012, by launching a data roamingservice for our customers when theytravel," said Petter Pedersen, divisionhead - Corporate & InternationalBusiness, dtac. "Our smartphonetravelers can access internet abroad withno more bill shock from the new data

roaming offers for all roaming networksused in 50 countries, and enjoy fastspeed with unlimited volume from dtacwifi roaming in 120 countries worldwide.”

Holger Magnussen, senior vice presidentof Deutsche Telekom's InternationalCarrier Sales & Solutions, added:"Deutsche Telekom's Wi-Fi Mobilizesolution is enabling frontrunners likedtac to offer a reliable data transmissioncomplement to 2G and 3G mobile datanetworks at a reasonable price. dtac isdelighted about the fast and easyimplementation of Wi-Fi Mobilize andthe solution fits perfectly to their currentinitiative to extend their own nationalwireless network. dtac customers usingthe Deutsche Telekom Wi-Fi roamingservice benefit from the simple accessto a growing footprint of over 780,000hotspots in 120 countries around theworld."

AnssiTauriainen:Understandthe customerlifecycle

Omantel selects Aito forcustomer experience analytics

dtac offers global Wi-Fi dataroaming based on iPass system

Roland Haidner takes overas head of M&A at TelekomAustria Group Roland Haidner has been appointed director ofmergers and acquisitions for the TelekomAustria Group. Haidner who was previouslyCFO of Vip mobile – Telekom Austria’s Serbiansubsidiary – has been overseeing M&A activitiesfor the group since early 2012. His role will cover

all seven Central and Eastern European markets in which theTelekom Austria Group has a presence.

“My objective is to continue to find and pursue initiatives thatwill deliver value for the Telekom Austria Group – be it viaacquisitions, partnerships or through the ongoing assessmentof the group’s existing portfolio,” said Haidner. “My team and Ilook forward to meeting the challenges and seizing theopportunities offered by the telecom industry in the CEE region.”

Before this appointment, Haidner had been a member of themanagement board of both Mobiltel in Bulgaria and Vip mobilein Serbia. While he was CFO at Vip mobile the company wasawarded a third mobile license in Serbia in 2006, which hassince made a positive contribution to Group EBITDA since 2010.Currently, the Serbian mobile operator has a customer base ofover 1.6 million mobile subscribers and a market share of 16.1%.

Etisalat establishes digitalservices unit, appoints KhalifaAl Shamsi leaderEtisalat Group, the CSP with operations in 17markets across the Middle East, Africa and Asia,has appointed Khalifa Al Shamsi as chief digitalservices officer for Etisalat Group and itsnewly established Etisalat Digital Services Unit.

The new division which will focus on various industry verticalssuch as machine-to-machine (M2M), cloud services, commerce,digital advertisement, advanced communications, digitalentertainment, and video services aims to boost the groupposition in the digital eco-system and driving innovation andadvanced services to the group customers across all areas ofoperation.

Al Shamsi joined Etisalat as a graduate trainee 19 years ago,over the course of which he has held various senior managerialpositions within Etisalat UAE demonstrating remarkableperformance as senior vice president of marketing – consumerin 2009.

Etisalat Group has also promoted Obaid Bokishafrom senior vice president – mobile networks,Etisalat Group, to his new position as chiefprocurement officer. The new appointment willsupport Etisalat Group’s strategic business forthe UAE and across its 16 other markets.Bokisha will be in charge of all major contractsand agreements for the Group across all of its’regional and global markets.

Commenting on his appointment, Bokisha said: “I amextremely honoured to be entrusted with such an importantrole at Etisalat Group, one that will establish our futureexpansion across key markets around the world. I look forwardto delivering outstanding results, placing the group’s operationon the world map in a bid to become one of the top tentelecoms companies in the world.”

The speed with which newtechnologies are now evolvingcould impact on your careermore than you think. Just askyourself: Will the technical skillsyou have today be more or lessvaluable in five years time?

We all need to keep ahead of the competition if we wantto earn top rewards. We all need to develop a learningplan and improve our cross-functional skills. It’simportant to recognise that your strength – forexample, your technical specialism – may well becomeyour weakness if you don't evolve. It's vital that we doour homework and identify the technology trends thatare impacting our particular industry and then jumpaboard. Get involved – small steps in the right directionwill eventually get you there. It doesn't matter if yourcurrent employer doesn't have the scope to expose youto tomorrow's hot technology. The smart folks out there– your competitors – aren't waiting around forknowledge to be thrown at them; they are proactive andputting in the man hours to develop their knowledge,regardless of what's on offer at the office.

You too can do the same. There are webinars, onlinetools, training courses, blogs, forums, networkingevents, social media groups, seminars and conferenceswhere you can engage with like-minded people,improve your understanding and build a network withinthese new fields. Proactive, engaging people find itpretty easy to market themselves, so announce toothers what it is you are interested in, demonstrate howproactive you have been, how passionate you are anddoors will open. People don't suddenly get promoted,they just finally get rewarded for doing what they havetypically been doing for a long while. Those with anactive, intellectual curiosity and an enthusiasm for theunknown are more likely to stay at the cutting edge oftechnology and reap the rewards. The message is: withsome forethought and planning we can all stay techsavvy, develop our professional skills, build ournetworks and only then will we truly maximise ourearning potential.

Jason Bandy, Director, identify Group [email protected]: +44 (0) 750 001 3084 Tel: +44 (0) 845 370 2900www.identifynetworks.com

Jason Bandy

RolandHaidner

Khalifa AlShamsi

ObaidBokisha

Welcome to our regularJobs column, brought toyou by Identify Networks,Sponsors of People News

P E O P L E N E W S

VANILLAPLUS JUNE/JULY 2012 11P E O P L E N E W S

C O N T R A C T H O T L I S T

VanillaPlus Hot List: June/July 2012

Agama Technologies Canal Digital Kabel, Agama digital TV monitoring solutions for end-to-end quality assurance on nationwide cable service 6.12Norway

Alcatel-Lucent Telenor Group Alcatel-Lucent Digital Media Store cloud-based one stop shop to provide customers with access to music,apps, video and ebooks 6.12

Allot Communications 3, UK Deployment of Ortiva wireless internet video optimisation gateway (iVOG) to optimise network cost and quality 6.12

Amdocs Tata Communications, Deployment of Amdocs Resource Manager to consolidate network inventory 5.12India and North America

Amdocs Vodafone, Netherlands Amdocs Business Support System solution based on Amdocs Customer Experience Systems portfoliodeployed across all channels 5.12

Amdocs Sprint, USA Amdocs Smart Agent Desktop to enhance customers' experience while streamlining call centre operations 5.12

Astellia Alfa, Lebanon Extension of existing partnership to deliver complete, vendor independent 3G+ monitoring system 6.12

BICS Espresso Group, Africa Roaming hub services across Africa for sub-Saharan CSP 6.12

Cerillion Truphone, global Five-year contract for convergent CRM and billing system in three countries, expanding to eight 6.12

Cerillion yuMobile, Kenya Contract extension to support growth plans of Essar Telecom unit with Cerillion CRM Plus, Service Managerand Interconnect Manager 5.12

Comarch KPN, Netherlands Migration of fulfilment automation systems to new version and transfer to Comarch data centre in Krakow, Poland 5.12

Comverse M1, Singapore Upgrade from Comverse Kenan to Comverse ONE to support new services with real-time rating and charging 6.12

EBPSource Virgin Media, UK Mobile ebilling system for 1.5 million mobile contract subscribers 5.12

FTS Vodafone, Iceland FTS Leap Billing end-to-end customer care solution to enable flexible charging 5.12

Huawei Telefónica, UK Five-year managed services agreement to plan and manage core transmission, mobile access and core network build 5.12

MACH France Telecom- MACH Subscriber Performance Manager to help grow roaming revenues through granular reportingOrange, global of subscriber behaviour 5.12

Metratech PT Infinys System, Deployment of Metratech Metanga, multi-tenant, cloud-based billing and revenue management application 5.12Indonesia

NetCracker Allstream, Canada Deployment of NetCracker Price Quotation Management and enterprise-wide Product Catalogue as part of BSS transformation programme 5.12

NetCracker Sprint, USA Extending usage of NetCracker's Telecom Operations and Management Solutions suite (TOMS) as part ofSprint's Network Vision programme 5.12

The Now Factory CSL, Hong Kong Deployment of Mobile Moments Vantage system to provide real-time visibility into mobile data usage 5.12

Ontology Neotel, South Africa Deployment of Ontology Intelligent 360 semantic search system for enterprise data alignment 6.12

Ontology Vodacom, South Africa Deployment of Ontology Intelligent 360 semantic search system to enhance service assurance operations 5.12

Sybase365 Globe Telecom, IPX voice service to support trans-operator interconnect services globally for Filipino mobile operator 5.12Philippines

Syniverse BTC, Bahamas Multi-year contract makes Syniverse the preferred roaming, messaging network and real-time intelligenceprovider to Bahamas Telecommunications Corporation 5.12

Tecnotree DNA, Finland Interactive Voice Response system to consolidate all customers care IVR services onto a single platform 6.12

Tecnotree Tango, Luxembourg Voice messaging solution based on Tecnotree Agility call completion product 6.12

VOSS Solutions Inteliquent, global VOSS technology provides Ineliquent and its channel partners with a concise dashboard view of its CiscoHosted Collaboration Solution environment 6.12

The Hot List below shows the companies informing us of recent contract wins or product deployments. If your contract is not listed here email the details to us now marked "Hot List" <[email protected]>

Vendor(s) Client, Country Product / Service (Duration & Value) Awarded

Sponsored by:


Truphone, which provides a global GSM service, has signed afive-year contract with Cerillion Technologies for its convergentCRM and Billing solution. The new system will supportTruphone’s existing presence in three countries and expansioninto a further eight territories over the next year.

Cerillion is implementing the Revenue Manager, CRM Plus,Service Manager, Output Streamer and Information Managermodules from its pre-integrated product suite, and will perform amigration from Truphone’s legacy system. The new multi-countrysolution from Cerillion will enable Truphone to rapidly launchinto new markets using a single centralised system, providingclose integration with Truphone’s unique technical developmentsto enable the simultaneous management of a single GSM serviceacross multiple network operators.

“Truphone has a simple premise for customers, but under the

hood there is enormous complexity - in tariffing, in billing and inoperations. We conducted a detailed competitive RFP andCerillion emerged as the clear winner – it has the scale andstrength to handle the complexity of our offering, and theflexibility to help us enter new markets quickly and efficiently,”says Colin Windsor, Chief Operating Officer, Truphone. “Byworking with Cerillion we will be able to maintain a singleproduct catalogue across multiple markets, and supportcustomers from multiple countries and their associatedcurrencies and local data within one system deployment.”

“Cerillion is proud to be working with such an innovative playerin the mobile market,” commented Louis Hall, CEO, CerillionTechnologies. “Truphone are the pioneers of a truly global mobileworld in which customers can make and receive calls, messagesand data services worldwide within one monthly bundle, and weare delighted to be supporting them in their on-going growth.”

Truphone chooses Cerillion CRM and billing for global service


Managing subscriber data is part of CSPs’ DNA, they just need to apply it to mobile dataso that they can effectively monetise its potential. Here, Louis Brun, chief operating officerand founder of Neuralitic, a provider of big data and mobile data intelligence solutions thatwas established in 2007, explains how mobile data intelligence enables new revenues andimproves marketing and segmentation.

VanillaPlus: Neuralitic is a relatively newcompany; please tell us why youestablished the company and how thecompany has developed?

Louis Brun: I’ve been working in the mobiledata market for 15 years so I can see how dataevolves. In 2006, when the technologies werepreparing for data and 3G, it became clear to methat operators didn’t know what data would beall about. They’re good at bundling minutes andmessages but the complexity of data wasn’tsomething they understood. I then recognised anunmet need for a solution intended forunderstanding what customers could do with themobile data that was available to them.

Previously, solutions for CSPs had always beenbuilt for the network and were technologicallyoriented. Today, however, if CSPs want tocompete and not be pushed into the corner bythe internet giants that have built theirbusinesses around data analytics, they need tostart with mobile data intelligence to understandthe trends and behaviours of their users. That iswhy we built a uniquely engineered solution thatcould understand 100% of what customers aredoing with mobile data, with 100% visibility.

VP: Can you explain more about what youmean by mobile data intelligence?

LB: Mobile data intelligence is basically businessintelligence focused on the mobile data side ofthe CSP business. It allows mobile operators tounderstand how customers use the variousmobile services that are available to them.Browsing, the consumption of applications

(apps) from iPhone, Android and other operatingsystems, in addition to data services such asinstant messaging or peer-to-peercommunications, also need to be taken intoaccount.

The mobile data market is growing very fast andrequires a tight integration between acquiringthe information and understanding it. This isfurther supported by the storage of thisinformation at different granular levels over along period of time.

VP: How would you summarise thechallenges facing CSPs?

LB: Mobile data is quite a challenge for CSPs.We’ve been working with them for more thanfive years and we’ve seen firsthand how itpresents a whole new set of data that they’re notused to dealing with. It’s clearly an unfamiliarenvironment and it’s no help that data traffic isconstantly evolving. Subscribers use apps, whichare launched on a daily basis, and mobileoperators need to be increasingly proactive withregard to this trend. This is an operationalchallenge for CSPs rather than a technical one;they have a lot of experience in managingstructured data but unstructured data is wherethe bigger challenge lies. It’s for this reason thatsolution providers need to stay close to theircustomers to make sure they have the tools andknowledge to make optimal use of the data theygenerate for subsequent enrichment.

VP: There is a lot of talk about big data andhow CSPs can transform themselves bymonetising that information. What is the

CSPs mustextractintelligence frombig data tocompete withinternet giants

T A L K I N G H E A D S

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T A L K I N G H E A D S

VANILLAPLUS JUNE/JULY 201214

impact of big data on you and yourcustomers?

LB: Big data for us is more than simply storingmassive amounts of information. CSPs need totake the example of over-the-top (OTT) playerswhen it comes to making use of analytics andrequire the resources to analyse the massivevolume and variety of data. CSPs that tackle bigdata have the upper hand in being proactive withregard to the trends that they notice, not only fortheir own benefit, but for their customers’. Thishands-on approach is far more valuable intoday’s constantly evolving mobile world, incomparison to storing the data and analysing itat a later point.

Big data in telecoms is really about improvingthe marketing mix, creating efficiencies andsegmentation, but also using it to create newrevenue sources. Ultimately, this is the biggestchallenge, and we are working hard to helpoperators monetise their data. We think they havea very large role to play in mobile advertisingand marketing and, if they want to take fulladvantage of this opportunity, they need to refinetheir handling and management of big data.

VP: What do you think makes a solutionprovider stand out in the big data analyticsdomain?

LB: Firstly, as a solution provider, we have built aproduct around deep mobile expertise so we’renot coming from an IT background. Makingsense of the massive volumes of data that havebeen extracted is the big challenge, and one thatbusiness intelligence solution providersunderestimate in telecoms. The expertise thatNeuralitic brings to its customers is that we haveproductised what is normally a lengthy andcomplex systems integration project. Ease of useis the key consideration for CSPs because mobiledata is about the business side of the CSPorganisation, not the network side and marketingneeds to have access to the right tools tounderstand and present this data. It must be putin usable formats at the centre of the business, inan evolutionary and flexible framework that cancope with the fast-changing environment ofmobile data.

VP: How does your solution help yourcustomers generate ROI?

LB: We help our customers in two areas. First,we help them improve insight into currentrevenue models so that they can identify how toimprove their marketing mix; determining theirproduct, pricing, distribution and promotionalstrategies, which enables them to serve theircustomers more effectively. We also help themimprove the efficiency of their marketingcampaigns using micro-segmentation to bettertarget customers.

Another area in which we help customersgenerate ROI is by creating new sources ofrevenue. In the next 12 to 24 months, the

greatest challenge for CSPs will be in theirwillingness to introduce new businessapproaches that will rival internet players.Monetising the subscriber data they hold issomething they’ll have to do. We believe CSPswill become the first players to make use ofsubscriber information. For example, Neuralitichas developed a solution that enables CSPs tomake use of the intelligence they hold to play akey role in the advertising market and create avery significant source of revenue from that.Ultimately, this will lead to the transformation oftheir revenue model. There is a lot of attentionbeing given to this area, as we have seen at thisyear’s Mobile World Congress and CTIA events.CSPs now see it as a space that they don’t haveto surrender to internet giants.

VP: What trends are you seeing in themarket and are there any regionaldifferences?

LB: From a CSP perspective, we see emergingmarkets as being very open and proactivetowards solutions like ours. One of the bigdifferences between the North American andEuropean markets and emerging markets is thatemerging market users don’t generally haveaccess to the internet from home, so operatorsknow the importance of having the appropriateinfrastructure that enables their users to havemobile data access, regardless of location. It’skey to their growth so there is a lot more interestand opportunity in monetising subscriber data inthose markets especially in the areas of mobileadvertising and mobile commerce.

VP: The market for big data and analytics isserved by a combination of well-established vendors and a series of smaller,niche players. How do you see thissituation evolving over the next few years?

LB: The good news for the smaller players is thatthe large, established vendors are the onesspreading the message about the importance ofbig data and analytics, giving the niche playersthe opportunity to address CSPs’ needs.Neuralitic has a proven solution deployed inNorth America, Asia and Europe and in thecoming years, we predict that there will be greatrelationships and partnerships built between thebigger vendors and specialists like us. The bigplayers will take charge in carrying the messageforward, while the small players will be theultimate solution providers.

The challenge today is that there is a lot of talkabout big data and mobile data intelligence. A lotof businesses are positioning themselves togather and store big data and generate reports,but having a system to achieve that and supportit for tens of millions of subscribers is verycomplex. We have achieved that at Neuralitic, butit took us five years to get here. Managingsubscriber data is part of CSPs’ DNA, they justneed to apply it to mobile data so that they caneffectively monetise its potential. Proven solutionproviders like Neuralitic will enable them to do that.

Big data in

telecoms is really

about improving the

marketing mix,

creating efficiencies

and segmentation,

but also using it to

create new revenue

sources


The good news for the smaller players is thatthe large, established vendors are the onesspreading the message about the importanceof big data and analytics, giving the nicheplayers the opportunity to address CSPs’ needs

Akil Chomoko:CSPs willing torelinquishperceivedcontrol

Ben Bannister:Feasible torun with noin-sourced BPM


MANAGED SERVICES

CSPs of all types are turning to managed services in their OSS/BSS. Vendors would arguemanaged services are suitable for all functions and the opex reduction and time to marketacceleration are attractive to CSPs. Here, George Malim assesses attitudes to managedservices and explores just how far managed services should go within a CSP’s operations.

Trust used to be the key word associated withmanaged services and CSPs frankly didn’t havemuch of it. While they’d allow networkequipment vendors to manage a bit of radioaccess for them, OSS/BSS was sacrosanct andcentral to the core of their being, an untouchablefrom a managed services perspective. Now,though, as the market has changed, so have CSPattitudes. Managed services providers haveraised their game, CSPs have tried managedservices, most notably in BSS in the US, and thebusiness case makes outsourcing OSS attractive.

“There are three central concerns most oftenraised by CSPs when determining whether toinvest in managed services,” says Akil Chomoko,head of product marketing at Volubill. “The firstis supposed latency or performance problemsthat may be caused by remotely hosted systems.The second is the fear of improper managementof business requirements; that by relinquishingcontrol of their platform CSPs also relinquish theability to quickly make changes necessary tokeep customers happy. Finally, there is the never-ending and ever-valid concern over security. Dataseparation, translation technologies and securitysystem play a huge role. They need to be anembedded part of the fabric of a managed – andhosted solution for success.”

CSPs have been adopting managed services formany years, though. Alam Gill, senior vicepresident international of managed services atCSG International, points out that outsourcingBSS functions has become routine. “A lot ofNorth American CSPs moved to that operatingmodel including Sprint, Nextel, AT&T and Bell

Canada,” he says. “Those are major brands thatfor a long time have bought services on anoutsourced basis. European CSPs in particularcome from a background of self-sufficiency andbrought in systems integrators to complimentthat but they are coming round to this.”

OSS, however, has lagged, says Gill, partlybecause the OSS arena itself tends to followbehind billing in terms of the pace of itstransformation. “OSS is less clear,” he pointsout. “In most cases it’s pretty messy and thereare a lot of homegrown applications so in itselfthe landscape is complex.”

Rob Smith, director of market development atMDS, also sees managed services uptakeaccelerating and doesn’t see the need for anupper limit, provided control is preserved. “Idon’t believe there are boundaries whereoutsourcing is concerned,” he says. “The key isthat CSPs must retain control of the customerexperience.”

Ultimately it’s a case of horses for courses. Someoperators may be able to maintain control andmanage their businesses with nothing in-sourced, while others may find it culturally orstructurally impossible, perhaps because theyhave large contracted workforces, to adoptmanaged services even for small projects.

“It comes down to what level of interest a CSPhas in the way that they run a particular part oftheir business,” says Ben Bannister, productmarketing director at MACH. “It might be quitefeasible to run a CSP business with little or no

How far is too farwhen it comes tooutsourcing OSS/BSS?

�


in-sourced business process management at all.”

Smith thinks managed services providers’propositions have matured to the extent thatCSPs can adopt such services wherever they likein their business, regardless of the nature of theiroperation. “Managed services are incrediblyflexible and scalable, and thus are suitable for all,from MVNOs and cloud players to tier oneslooking to regain agility and cost-efficiency in adynamic and competitive market,” he adds.

Chomoko is more cautious: “Managed servicesare suitable for all tiers; however different tiersrequire different needs,” he says. “We have seenrequirements for managed services for tier oneplayers like Bharti and MTN – both currently useIBM – who need to manage complexity, to tiertwo, three and four players that want low cost,speed to market and reduced risk. Again, theflavour of the managed service matters.”

Gill also points out that tier one CSPs are notnecessarily tier one operators in all of theirmarkets and units so there is plenty of scope fortier ones to trial managed services at theirsmaller properties and get comfortable with theconcept before, perhaps, extending it throughouttheir business.

Tier ones, though, would have greater difficultyin writing off years of sustained investment inbespoke, in-house developed systems to adopt afully managed services approach to theiroperations. “With huge investment in verycomplex OSS/BSS infrastructure, the largerestablished telecoms companies would probablyhave considerably more difficulty migrating all ofthis across to a managed service environment,although some of the large managed servicecontracts in the industry can encompass just thissort of activity,” says Bannister. “The ability to

isolate and focus on particular business processareas is the critical requirement.”

Gill agrees: “I think two things will evolve,” hesays. “The first is that in a typical existing estatethe ability to move towards business outcomesrather than traditional buying of IT servicedelivery is a critical distinction. The second thingis that we’ll see a desire, particularly amongCSPs with more than one asset, to consolidate[systems and suppliers]. A large group mighthave 25 or 30 different operating companies sothe ability to do things quickly and consistentlyacross multiple geographies can be delivered bymoving to cloud-based platforms. That’ll bemuch better than trying to go through a cycle of25 different developments.”

That will see attitudes continue to change asCSPs recognise the changed market dynamicsand prepare to relinquish their grip on the backoffice to managed services providers.“CSPs arebeginning to seriously consider the outsourcingoption as a means to improve agility and cost-efficiency,” says Smith. “That said, it is not aboutrelinquishing control; a credible managed serviceprovider will remove complexity and cost andprovide the CSP with greater control andflexibility.”

That willingness to oursource is partly becauseOSS/BSS is now seen as a less effective meansof differentiation by CSPs. “They don’t see themas quite the differentiator that they used to,” saysChomoko. “They are therefore willing torelinquish some modicum of perceived controlover them to increase their focus on serviceinnovation. For the next five years there will beless of a focus on how OSS/BSS can be tweakedand optimised to save money and much more ofa focus on how to use systems to create newsources of cash flow.”

Smith thinksmanaged servicesproviders’propositions havematured to theextent that CSPscan adopt suchservices whereverthey like in theirbusiness,regardless of thenature of theiroperation

Robert Machinis productmarketingdirector, EMEA,at CSGInternational

E X P E R T O P I N I O N :

M A N A G E D S E R V I C E S

As the industry steers an uncertain course through the turbulent waters of fast-evolvingtechnology and insurgent competition, many carriers are considering strategies which willnot only protect their margins but also mitigate the risk inherent in new initiatives. Here,Robert Machin says that while managed services may look like part of the answer, does itreally make sense in the long term to hand business-critical processing over to a third party?

Businesses typically get interested inmanaged services and outsourcing for anumber of reasons. Mature companies may beinterested in outsourcing well-established,well-understood processes that provide littlecompetitive differentiation. Startups are morelikely to be interested in managed services –not only because they have little or nothing tooutsource, but because their focus is muchmore on business functions and quickbusiness success. By definition, they’re at arisky point in their development, budgets aretight and operational skills are likely to bestretched. Sinking investment into OSS andBSS can seem less attractive than payinganother organisation to carry out key businessfunctions as the company grows. Operationalcosts (opex) might be higher, but importantly,the capital expenditure – and the time –needed to get off the ground could be close tozero.

In fact, for both mature businesses andstartups, whether we are talking aboutoutsourcing or managed services, manybenefits are similar, and can seem particularlyattractive in uncertain economic conditions.They include: predictable costs, access toadvanced solutions that can scale up anddown as required, and the ability to applymore effort to running the business than torunning IT.

Changing perspectivesThat change of focus – from IT processes tobusiness outcomes – typically comes into playvery quickly when an organisation considers

outsourcing – the customer will be lessinterested in the software products that areunderpinning the service than in theprocesses that will be supported, performancecriteria, outputs, quality metrics and so on.

When we look at managed services, we seedifferent trends emerging. On a large andcomplex managed service engagement, thecustomer will want to be confident that thesoftware is sufficiently resilient to meet futuredemands. They will also be much moreinterested in working with the provider toexploit the potential that the software offers totheir business.

This attitude is mirrored by a clear drift awayfrom traditional SLAs (service levelagreements) in managed services and towardsbusiness-oriented metrics - ‘BLAs’, or businesslevel agreements. Properly defined, theseencourage a partnership approach, whereboth supplier and customer benefit from realimprovements in business outcomes – inincreased leads, for example, fewer faults,shorter resolution times and so on – a realsharing of benefits, but also a way for thecustomer to mitigate the risks inherent in newventures and initiatives.

Managed services and CSPsManaged services are already proving to be ofgreat interest to the telecoms industry. Manymature service providers are facing revenuechallenges; managed services offer a way notonly to save cost, but also to free up some oftheir bright minds to think about new

Taking care of business- what’s drivingmanaged services inthe telecoms sector?

Managed services

are already

proving to be of

great interest to

the telecoms

industry

�


business initiatives. Many are already allowingnetwork equipment vendors to deploy and runtheir equipment and don’t find it a greatstretch to apply the same philosophy tobusiness operations.

Telecoms also continues to see new entrants,including some very different kinds of playersin mature markets, interested in theopportunities rising around, for example,embedded communications and M2Mapplications, but less interested in the costand effort of setting up IT to run non-coresupporting systems. Businesses like these areattracted by the idea of a partner that will takecare of the grunt work, not least because ifthings don’t work out as planned – for good orill – they can either ramp up quickly or get outeasily.

Pick and mix – what really lendsitself to managed services?With the exception of business strategy – thesource of the company’s identity anddifferentiation – virtually anything else can bemanaged by a competent partner.

Historically, there has been a tendency to thinkthat many OSS and BSS processes couldn’t beoutsourced or externally managed, becausethey were low-latency, or too tightly integratedwith the network. They weren’t like, say,invoicing runs, where you could ship the dataout and have someone else print and mail thebills. But that’s changed. Managed servicesdon’t always need to involve the use of remotedata centres – if proximity is a concern,managed services can be provided fromwithin a customer’s premises with both dataand applications hosted locally. Alternatively,services can be run from remote data centres,saving the customer costs on platform andother infrastructure elements, but stillallowing them as much access as they need totheir own operations.

Overcome barriers to entryNaturally, customers worry about loss ofcontrol over business-critical businesssystems that have a significant impact onrevenue and the customer experience.Depending on the model, however, there’s noneed for the customer to lose control at all.They can have as much interaction with the

applications as they feel they need,supplemented by the protection of contractedservice level agreements and regular audits,tied into penalties if things should go wrong.This can give a greater sense of control thanan in-house operation where service levelsaren’t often so clearly or explicitly stated andbusiness continuity may depend on best effort.

Customers can also assure themselves thatthe facilities which will handle their data andprocesses are at least as secure as they woulddemand of their own in-house processing – ifnot more so. In fact, given the lengths towhich managed service providers will go toassuage customer doubts, this can be a highlycost-effective way of increasing security ofbusiness critical data and the generalprofessionalism of the IT functions supportingtheir key business processes. Managed serviceproviders depend for their survival ondemonstrating highly robust, secureenvironments – many will offer on- and off-site data storage, biometric access control,guaranteed power backup, high levels ofredundancy and availability and more.

Security is also closely related to regular andeasy communications with a managedservices provider. Any professionalorganisation will have a methodology thatassigns clear roles and responsibilities,defines KPIs and escalation protocols andprovides many other safeguards. Sounds veryformal – and it is – but that’s what creates trustin the customer’s mind and leads to an easierrelationship.

It’s all about trustIn the end, managed services depend on trust– “Can I trust you to run significant parts ofmy business, on which my success depends,as well as I could run them myself? Will youtake as much care of my customer’s data as Iwould?” Valid questions, but if therelationship is tightly defined through rigorousframeworks, if BLAs are agreed which aretightly integrated with business metrics, thenthese commercial and technical safeguardsengender lasting trust between the client andthe managed service provider, clearing theway not only for real saving and efficiencies,but for partnerships which can make a lastingdifference to business success.

Customers canalso assurethemselves thatthe facilities whichwill handle theirdata andprocesses are atleast as secure asthey woulddemand of theirown in-houseprocessing – if notmore so



When UK mobileoperator O2 Business decided to roll-out

a new strategy to serve the ICT needs of businesscustomers it needed to upgrade it systems and processes.Here, the company’s Ricky Mortimer, explains why it chose cloud-based systems from CloudSense

With 22 million customers, O2 UK providesservices to consumers, small and mediumbusinesses, public sector organisations andenterprise customers. O2 is proud of its mobileheritage, but now provides an extensive range offixed and mobile, voice and datacommunications services and it has entered anumber of new markets including ehealth,mobile wallet, IT services and media.

O2 Business is evolving and transforming andthe CSP is rolling out it’s Joined up Business(JUB) strategy which is centred on helpingBritish businesses get the most out of their ICT.Joined up Business is about joining upcustomers’ communications, their IT, people andcompanies to customers.

The company decided to develop a multi-channel, multi-product sales and service platformto underpin its vision and plans. O2 Businesschose CloudSense to help build a new sales andservice platform that will enable it to join up withits customers, channels, employees and partners.

Ricky Mortimer, E-Enablement programmemanager at O2 Business, explains; “We want toencourage fresh thinking and new possibilitiesfor our company and were therefore looking for atechnology solution that would support us onthat journey. Fast-changing technology presentsnew opportunities but it also means freshbusiness challenges, such as streamlining andspeeding up our processes, making the most ofour IT infrastructure and handling ever-growingamounts of data while controlling costs andmaintaining service levels.”

“Rising to these challenges means that weneeded to eliminate manual processes toimprove efficiency and better connect customerswith staff to create a joined-up social enterprise,”adds Mortimer. “We knew that, if we couldachieve these objectives, we could significantlyspeed up our time-to-market for new productsand services while also enhancing ourresponsiveness to customers and the market. Wealso believe as a company that if we canimplement these kinds of changes in ourbusiness, we can learn and pass on thisexperience and expertise to our customers.”

O2 Business selected CloudSenserunning on Salesforce for three keyreasons. First, the companydemonstrated innovation both in itsengagement model and the solutions itoffered, showing that it could support O2’sbusiness goals. Second, a cloud computing-based model best reflected the company’s Joinedup Business strategy while reducingdevelopment costs and accelerating time-to-market. Finally, CloudSense demonstrated that itcould open up new opportunities to accelerateinnovation and unique go-to-market propositionsfor O2 UK.

Mortimer explains the selection process;“CloudSense was the only vendor which wouldallow us to run a 100% native Salesforceenvironment and had a compatible businessculture,” he says. “CloudSense proved early onthat it is the sort of company that would fit wellwith our business, not least because the teamwas immediately willing to co-locate resources.CloudSense demonstrated the agility and businessfocus we required so it was an easy decision.”

The deployment has seen CloudSense integrateits order management stack into the Salesforceplatform. Including applications such as CSClickApprove, CS Configurator and CSOrchestrator, the solution was designed to helpO2 Business extend its lead prospect capabilitiesto include its product catalogue, ordermanagement and its price and quoting engine.With the CloudSense stack, O2 Business can nowcarry out electronic approval for contracts andenable end-to-end fulfilment through the cloud.

“As our customers evolve and change theirbuying and service expectations, we have beenable to increase our responsiveness and providea better online experience as a result of theimplementation,” says Mortimer. “CloudSensehas enabled us to manage additional complexityeffectively and get more out of infrastructure,enhancing the customer experience in a way thatmeans that the organisation is able to growprofitably. At the same time the solution hasenabled O2 Business to drive out cost from itscore business processes.”

We needed toeliminate manual

processes toimprove

efficiency andbetter connectcustomers with

staff to create ajoined-up social

enterprise

CASE STUDY

E X P E R T O P I N I O N :

CLOUD BROKERAGE

Communication Service Providers (CSPs) are constantly looking to bring new offerings tomarket that drive strong ARPU, reduce customer churn and have rapid time to market.Brokering SaaS applications in combination with existing on-network services allows CSPsto deliver personalised business bundles – combining both on- and off-network services –it’s the programme to watch in 2012, says John Frame

CSPs today are placing strong emphasis oncloud service brokerage offerings and for goodreason. Cloud brokerage increases businesscustomer ARPU and reduces churn by being thesource for existing on-network services incombination with the multitude of software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions available to businessestoday – all with a unified administration, single-sign-on (SSO), in one bill and one place to directquestions, issues and needs.

While including email, conferencing or securityservices alongside on-network services has beendone for years, the idea of cloud brokerage tobusinesses as a specific programme, where theprovider owns the user experience and providesa selection of self-administered solutions to thebusiness is newly emerging. Cloud efforts areunderway at a number of providers so 2012 looksto be the year for cloud brokerage to take hold.

The SMB opportunitySmall and medium businesses, especially in the20 to 50 employee range, are looking for atrusted advisor when it comes to IT. They arelooking for someone who they will answer thephone when they call, someone they know willprovide accurate, one-source billing andsomeone who can recommend the best solutionsfor their business based on the experience ofother companies similar to theirs.

CSPs are quickly becoming an important channelfor the delivery of services to this market. Theycan deliver both on-network services along withhigh-value, off-network, SaaS applications toSMBs, becoming the trusted advisor the SMBneeds.

Unified back office solutionsSigma Systems has solved CSPs’ provisioningand order management challenges for more thana decade. Throughout this time, the businessand operational models for CSPs have changeddrastically, as these organisations strive toreduce capex and opex, while seeking to offer

new services that will differentiate them fromtheir competition and ensure customer retention.Brokering cloud services shifts the business andoperational models for CSPs yet again.

As great as the cloud brokerage opportunity is,CSPs must ensure their back office is equipped tomanage the complexities of off-network andhybrid solutions. While siloed approaches toprovisioning on-network services may have beengood enough in the past, the emergence ofbrokered SaaS solutions, unified into packagesthat combine on-network services with SaaSservices along with demand for otherpersonalised services, are forcing CSPs to seekOSS that can be easily integrated with existingbusiness and operational support systems(B/OSS) and core network services. In so doing,service providers will have the opportunity tomake use of their intimate knowledge of theircustomers across all services to provide anunprecedented, unified experience that createsvaluable packages that are unique in the market.

Selecting the best cloud vendorsEach SaaS vendor that you put in front of yourcustomer reflects on your brand; by selectingeach of these vendors well, your brand isenhanced as they are rolled out. So withthousands of SaaS vendors on the market of allshapes and sizes, each vying for the attention ofyour SMB customers, selecting the right SaaSvendors to partner with is the last key ingredient toa successful cloud service brokerage programme.

The fastest way to market with the least risk is byworking with a cloud brokerage vendor who hasselected SaaS vendors that understand the needsof CSPs, with systems that easily integrate intoB/OSS and whose services differentiate andcompliment your on-network services to SMBs.

CSPs see bright resultsfrom cloud efforts

John Frame is director of productmanagement at Sigma Systems, in charge ofits Cloud ServiceBroker™ OSS offering that isbeing explored by service providers worldwide.


As great as thecloud brokerageopportunity is,CSPs must ensuretheir back office isequipped tomanage thecomplexities of off-network andhybrid solutions

MACH INS IGHTS USER GROUP REPORT

Well over a hundred roaming, fraud and interconnect executives from mobile serviceproviders around the globe recently met in Prague at MACH’s annual Insights user groupconference. Spread over two and a half days, the event brought together industry experts,independent consultants, MACH specialists and attendees from some of the company’s650 operator customers to share experiences from their different perspectives. Here,Alun Lewis reports from the event.

For MACH’s CEO, Morten Brøgger, hispassionate message behind the wholeconference was: “Ultimately, it’s all aboutenlightenment – getting our communities

together so that different voices can beheard and share in what is an increasingly

complex and interconnected technical andbusiness environment. When we plan theseevents, we hope that all those that attend willbe able to go back to their companies withtheir existing expertise enhanced andbroadened.”

The structure of the different sessions acrossthe days reflected the very deep concerns

within the wider industry on a numberof issues – both tactical and strategic –

with solutions being proposed bothby service provider presenters

and MACH experts themselves.

The event began withdebate around the political

forces currently at workin the European

Community to drivedown charges forinternational dataroaming toeliminate bill shockand the possibleknock-on effectthis might have

on tariffs in other

Roamers converge onPrague for a radar check


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regions – or the threats and opportunities posedby direct WiFi-enabled international internetaccess to traditional mobile business models.

Data roaming charges a taxContinuing this theme of the impact thatgrowing volumes of data traffic were going tohave on so many aspects of the industry, oneof the recurring issues of focus for both MACHand attendees was around how best tomonetise this trend for all concerned. MACH’sBrøgger said: “Regulation is only one aspectof this issue, though it will also inevitably actas a major catalyst in driving changes topricing across different markets. We also haveto understand the dynamics at work amongstour customers and come up with models thatare appropriate to their needs as well as oursas an industry. For a younger generation,having become so used to so much of theinternet as effectively free, they will simply seehigh data roaming charges as a tax on whatthey want to achieve.”

One of the key enablers of this move inMACH’s view is to exploit the potential ofcloud-based environment – as exemplified byits Embrace offering as explained by thecompany’s CTO, Lokdeep Singh, in hispresentation. Under the Embrace banner,MACH is consolidating into a cloud-basedenvironment a whole portfolio of functions andservices including service delivery with real-timecharging, bill-shock protection and data offloadsupport; roaming, interconnect billing, contentpartner management and financial settlement;fraud detection, revenue assurance and legaldata retention; mobile messaging for P2P andA2P services and brokerage; plus anintegrated business intelligence, operationalreporting, predictive analysis and portal-basedself-management solution.

“The systems and processes that have built upover the last few decades to handleinterconnect and roaming are no longersufficient to face either the challenges oftomorrow – or even, really, today,”emphasised Brøgger. “Many service providersare realising that meeting these challenges intraditional ways would soak up the whole oftheir IT budgets for the next two years or evenmore. If, however, they take advantage of thekinds of economies of scale and breadth of

service support that a cloud and managedservices solution can bring, especially in theone-to-many model that we implicitly support,then they’ll be able to deal with the near-exponential growth of data services that we face.”

In terms of the specific – and imminent –future challenges, two main ones werehighlighted by both external speakers and inmany side discussions between attendees.The first concerns the impact that M2Mcommunications is going to have on the backoffice functions of service providers, with onespeaker focusing on the need to recognise thedifference between high-value fleet type M2Mservices where connectivity is part of a widerproduct offering, and high-volume, non-critical, telemetry type services – and eitherachieve a sensible balance between the two orchoose to specialise in only one.

Roaming andinterconnect for LTEThe second, this time in a presentation fromMotorola, focused not just on the impact ofLTE on roaming and interconnect issues –another common theme throughout the event– but specifically on how the recentinternational standardisation decision to useLTE to deliver broadband services such asvideo to emergency services will affect boththe network and the back office. With publicauthorities in most parts of the world beingshort of cash, it’s not feasible for theemergency services to build their own widearea LTE networks specifically for their ownuse. The result will therefore be that publicand emergency services will have to sharenetworks and that secure and high-reliabilityroaming will have to take place betweencurrent TETRA/TEDS networks and the newpublic/private LTE systems.

Read most industry headlines, and issues likethese seem incredibly arcane and esoteric. Forcompanies like MACH – and the serviceproviders and billing, roaming andinterconnect executives who rely upon a deepunderstanding of the wider implications ofnew legislation or incremental technologyshifts to do their jobs effectively – events likeInsights provide an invaluable platform toanticipate that one inevitable of our industry –constant change.

MortenBrøgger:Regulation isonly one aspectof the roamingissue

The systems andprocesses thathave built up overthe last fewdecades to handleinterconnect androaming are nolonger sufficient toface either thechallenges oftomorrow – oreven, really, today


D I A R Y

Upcoming Events

Customer Experience Managementin Telecoms: UK Summit16-19 July, 2012London, UKOrganiser: iqpcwww.cemintelecomsuk.com/Event.aspx?id=712762

IBC 20126-11 September,2012Amsterdam, NetherlandsOrganiser: IBCwww.ibc.org

SDP Global Summit 201212-13 September, 2012Rome, ItalyOrganiser: Informawww.sdpsummit.com

LTE Asia 201218-19 September, 2012SingaporeOrganiser: Informaasia.lteconference.com

TM Forum Africa Summit 201218-19 September, 2012Johannesburg, South AfricaOrganiser: TM Forumwww.tmforum.org

Carriers World 201224-26 September, 2012London, UKOrganiser: Terrapinwww.terrapinn.com/2012/carriers-world

Customer ExperienceManagement in Telecoms24-27 September, 2012Prague, Czech RepublicOrganiser: iqpcwww.cemintelecomseurope.com/Event.aspx?id=751564

Mobile Broadband World 201224-26 September, 2012London, UKOrganiser: IIRmobilebroadbandworld.com/

Telecom World Congress 201224-26 September, 2012London, UKOrganiser: Terrapinnwww.terrapinn.com/2012/telecom-world-congress

OSS BSS World Summit 201225-26 September, 2012London, UKOrganiser: World Media Onlinewww.ossbssworld.com

IBC is the leading forum for the electronic media andentertainment industry attracting over 50,000professionals from more than 160 countries and combinesan internationally renowned conference with a first classexhibition featuring the latest media technologyinnovation.

The IBC Conference attracts the highest calibre ofspeakers from across the globe: influential professionalsin their field who deliver thought provoking insightthrough a series of conference sessions, master classesand panel discussions. With over 300 inspiring speakersand more than 60 sessions, the IBC2012 Conference isleading the media and broadcast industry throughinnovation and debate.

This year promises another world class line up of keynotespeakers including: Mike Darcey, COO, BSkyB; MarkHollinger, CEO & president, Discovery Networks; KevinMayer, executive vice president, Corporate Strategy andBusiness Development, The Walt Disney Company; RogerMosey, director of London 2012, BBC; Brian Sullivan, CEO,Sky Deutschland and Miles Young, CEO, Ogilvy & MatherWorldwide. Together they will lead discussion on the hottesttopics affecting the industry now, including connected TV;the cloud; social media; sport; transmedia, broadcastdelivery and workflow, enabling delegates to evaluate thechallenges and formulate a roadmap for the future.

The conference programme is structured around threedistinct pillars; the business of broadcasting and media,content creation and innovation and advances intechnology. Delegates can target specific areas of interestvia these carefully constructed streams alongside the freeIndustry Insight sessions. They will learn how businessmodels will change as the result of new innovation intechnology and extend their knowledge through attendingIBC’s highly respected Technical Papers and Posters. Theconference is designed to allow delegates to build theirown programme by selecting the sessions most relevantto them, ensuring they benefit from the content tailored totheir requirements. Participants will come away from theIBC Conference inspired to lead their business to success,better informed on the current state of the industry andwith a deeper understanding of its future developments.

CLOCK ING OFF!

One of the oldest rules of business technology isthat a bad process only gets worse if youautomate it. Telecoms has been pretty exemptfrom this, as it’s always been a no nonsenseindustry. Anyone who has reported on both thetelecoms and computer industries could tell youthat they were always worlds apart.

Telecoms for example, never needed to keep re-inventing itself but computing, sorry dataprocessing, sorry information technology, isconstantly giving itself an image make-over.Why? I couldn’t possibly say, without upsettingsomeone. But put it this way. The telecomsindustry has no equivalent of the old IT industrymaxim: Garbage in equals garbage out. Whenchoosing a telecoms system, people didn’tconstantly have to be warned that “a chaoticorganisation, plus a computer, equalscomputerised chaos.”

Telecoms specialists were always a credit to theirvocation, because they achieved what all greatengineers must do: they hid the complexity fromthe end user and gave them a system that was soeasy to use, and yet so powerful, that the usersfelt like geniuses.

IT, on the other hand, has a long history of doingexactly the opposite of what it is supposed toachieve. Take customer relationshipmanagement systems. I’ve never liked the soundof them. They emerged just as the incidence ofautomated, tea-time interrupting, unsolicitedphone calls began to breach the defences of mytelephone preference service.

It turned out that CRM and these awful phonepests were related. The marketing managers Ispoke to by day described CRM as “holistic,light-touch opt-in systems that improve servicesto customers.” Victims of these calls used muchcruder terms to describe the experience. Theonly printable description is ‘customer stalkingsystems’, which is appropriate, because if anybank thinks it has ‘a relationship’ with itscustomers, then it’s the type of relationship thatusually ends in a restraining order.

The telecoms industry has managed to avoid

most of its IT counterpart’s delusions ofgrandeur. Now, sadly, some of the influence of theIT industry is rubbing off. I blame convergence.

One of the consequences is that new systems arebecoming a double-edged sword. If you are notcareful, or if certain systems fall into the wrong handsthey’re as likely to hurt you as they are to help you.

Take conferencing. The marketing ofconferencing systems has always been acontradiction. For decades video conferencingcompanies tried to convince the press that theycould save people from having to travel tomeetings – by inviting them to commute intotheir offices for a demo. This usually turned outto be a demonstration that they don’t work.

Collaboration systems are anothercommunications tool that can achieve theopposite of their promise. In theory, they allowpeople to work together on a project online. Therange of options they offer helps people to makemore flexible use of their time and the quality ofinput increases. That’s the general idea. Inpractice, the heady cocktail of options can soonintoxicate even the most sober executive.

Few can resist the temptation to interfere withtheir colleagues’ efforts. When the pressure is offthem, everyone becomes an expert on how theirteam mates are going wrong. On the other hand,it’s not unknown for a project to be put on holdfor days while the person who’d been delegatedto insert a missing full stop to the documentcomes back from leave. The buck started movingwhen Microsoft introduced Track Changes andnew communications tools have made buckpassing a global phenomenon.

Users are faced with too many bewildering optionsnow. We’re often spoilt for choice. We must allattend to so many channels of communicationthere’s never any time for a decent conversation.We need some telecoms engineers to come andconfigure the systems for us, and give ussomething simple to work with again.

To much attention to me-too differentiationmakes everybody the same, after all.

Telecoms may be converging with IT, but please, CSPs, don’t sacrifice yourbig advantage – your no nonsense engineering genius – in a quest to be asdifferentiated as your competitors, says Nick Booth.


The author,Nick Booth, is acontributor toVanillaPlus anda technology journalist.

CSPs’ and the me-toodifferentiation conundrum

The telecoms

industry has

managed to

avoid most of its

IT counterpart’s

delusions of

grandeur

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BILLINGSUPPLEMENT

JUNE / JULY 2012

CHARGING Are billing skills CSPs’means to demonstratetheir digital value?

CHARGING Are billing skills CSPs’means to demonstratetheir digital value?

COMMENT Look in every directionfor new opportunities

COMMENT Look in every directionfor new opportunities

TALKINGHEADSAmdocs’ Guy Hiltonexplores whatomniconvergencemeans for CSPs’billing and charging

TALKINGHEADSAmdocs’ Guy Hiltonexplores whatomniconvergencemeans for CSPs’billing and charging

�

OPERATORCASE STUDYBilling for IaaS atTata Communications

blog-led website and quarterly magazine for machine to machine communications

the latest news, reviews and insights in the world of M2M

M2Mnow.bizProfit from a world of connected devices

CONTENTSLook in every direction toenable new opportunities

As Guy Hilton explains on pS5, we’re well past simple metering or CSPs purelylooking to bill for their own services. They’ll be bringing a series of complex,sometimes interlinked, service propositions that use their own and otherinfrastructure, along with the intellectual property and services of others. They’re inpole position to be the enabler of monetisation for all in the value chain and it couldbe the critical value add, in addition to providing the delivery mechanism in the formof the network, that the CSP industry has been seeking.

To do, that CSPs’ billing and charging will have to rise to a new level ofmulti-directional, multi-party functionality all the while maintaining theaccuracy at great scale that telecoms billing has historically beengood at. The situation becomes even more complex when youturn your attention to the enterprise market. Bringing large-scalebusiness software to small and medium enterprises is one newservice element and markets like machine-to-machinecommunications are another. All will need to be charged for and thesystems to enable that will have to work in all directions, atminimised cost and huge throughput.

No one said this would be easy, but it is billing and charging thatwill be the critical enabler for CSPs to move their businessesforward from being simply the distribution network provider tobeing the business enabler of the digital value chain.

Enjoy the supplement

George Malim, Editor, VanillaPlus

It’s a brave new world, this era of omniconvergence in which all thetraditional activities of the CSP market – voice, data, fixed and wireless –collide with the new digital economy of over-the-top (OTT) services, non-linear video consumption, app downloads, ebooks, mobile payments,money transfer and many others. CSPs have to move way beyondsubscription-based charging and look at one time payments, how theyinterface with third parties and how they manage and assure therevenue streams that accrue.

Amdocs is the market leader incustomer experience systemsinnovation. The company combinesbusiness and operational supportsystems, service delivery platforms,proven services, and deep industryexpertise to enable service providersand their customers to do more in theconnected world. Amdocs' offeringshelp service providers explore newbusiness models, differentiatethrough personalised customerexperiences, and streamlineoperations. Amdocs has over19,000 employees and servescustomers in more than 60countries worldwide. For moreinformation, visit Amdocs atwww.amdocs.com.

Supplement Cover:

C O M M E N T

S3VANILLAPLUS BILLING SUPPLEMENT JUNE/JULY 2012

S3 Introduction and contents

S5 Talking HeadsGuy Hilton, director of productmarketing in Revenue ManagementDivision of Amdocs, explains how theera of omniconvergence is impactingon CSPs approaches to billing andcharging

S8 Billing across the digitalvalue chain

BSS enables CSPs to prove theirvalue, says Nick Booth

S10 Operatorcase study

Inside Tata Communications’ billingfor IaaS deployment

VanillaPlus Video Talking HeadsReach a global audience withyour interview streamed from

www.vanillaplus.com

For more information contact: [email protected]: +44 (0) 1732 897646


VanillaPlus: We heard Amdocs discuss the era ofOmniconvergence, could you please explainwhat is entails?

Guy Hilton: Convergence is certainly not a newtopic in the world of BSS. What has changed,however, are the new dimensions ofconvergence that service providers have tocontend with. Convergent experiences today arenot just about bundling wireless and wirelineservices together in a single offer or the ability todeliver communication services across pre-paidand post-paid customers.

Service providers are dealing with newdimensions of convergence that are changingconsumption, pricing and business models at apace that no-one could have predicted.Omniconvergence represents the multipledimensions of convergence that are drivingconsumer experiences today such as over-the-top (OTT) players, smart devices, rich servicesand super-fast access technologies. Consumersexpect a seamless, immediate and personalisedexperience across any device, network orpayment method and service providers need tosolve the challenges of Omniconvergence todeliver such an experience.

In the era of Omniconvergence, new experienceproviders, devices, access technologiesand services are creating a more dynamiccustomer experience than ever before andservice providers must keep up with growingcustomer expectations; the expectation of a real-time, intuitive consumption experienceregardless of device, access technology orservice being consumed. Furthermore, the

expectation that services are priced, bundled,and charged for simply and intuitively so thatunderstanding what you are paying for is just aseasy as using the service.

VP: Can you provide some examples of Omniexperiences in action?

GH: The examples below highlight the changingnature of the communication market with theintroduction of new experience providers andbusiness models:

Let’s start with Starbucks. Starbucks mobile paywas released in the US market back in January2011 and within a year Starbucks was processingover 26 million mobile payments. 15 monthsafter launch that figure has doubled to 42 millionmobile payments and in early 2012 Starbucksrolled the service out in the UK and Ireland.Starbucks clearly understands the power of themobile consumer experience and how connectedsmartphones can drive a personalised,contextual experience.

Consumers can use the mobile app to loadmoney on to a digital Starbucks Card and presenta 2D barcode to pay-by-scan at the register. Theapp allows users to reload their mobile card,track loyalty stars earned in the My StarbucksRewards program and share their location andfavourite drinks via Facebook and Twitter.Utilising the phone’s location capabilities, theeasy-to-navigate store locator points you to theclosest store and lets you search by amenities.

The question for service providers is where theyfit into this value chain. Are they able to enhance

Guy Hilton is director of product marketing in the RevenueManagement Division at Amdocs. Here, he explains what‘Omniconvergence’ means for CSPs as they get to gripswith their revised role in the widely distributed digital valuechain. Convergence has so many dimensions to take intoaccount and so many impacts on CSP systems that theera of omniconvergence is one of great challenges butalso enormous opportunities.

Welcome to the eraof Omniconvergence

TALKING HEADS

Users can interact

with friends and

family regardless

of whether the

device they're

using is a

smartphone,

feature phone,

tablet or notebook

computer.

Guy Hilton,

Amdocs

�

VANILLAPLUS BILLING SUPPLEMENT JUNE/JULY 2012S6

Service providers

realise that there

is an urgent need

to differentiate

specifically around

data services

offerings and

provide a more

intuitive experience

to customers

the Starbucks experience further? Can they allowStarbucks customers to charge up theirStarbucks Mobile Pay via their pre-paid balance?Could they enable premium Starbucks contentsuch as video clips that are sponsored byStarbucks?

Another interesting example is Samsung.Samsung has progressed from a devicemanufacturer to a full platform provider. Theyproduce a range of connected smart devicesfrom smartphones to tablets to smart televisionsets. Samsung clearly understands the power ofa cross-device experience and recentlyintroduced their own ChatOn application whichallows users to communicate with friends andfamily on an unrestricted platform. They cansend text messages, chat in groups, broadcastmessages, as well as share pictures, videos andother multimedia content with friends and family.

The key takeaways for service providers are thatcross-device experiences are an integral part ofthe world of Omni Convergence. Smartphones aswe know them today only hit the market fiveyears ago, while tablets in their current formatwere launched barely two years ago. This newdimension of cross device consumption is animmediate challenge for service providers asthey look to launch shared data plans acrossdevices as well as intelligent network andbusiness policies across devices.

VP: Omniconvergence is no longer just aboutconverging pre-paid and post-paid, business andconsumer or fixed and mobile users, it's aboutmany other forms of convergence, some ofwhich are not traditional telecoms topics. Whatchallenges does the convergence of 'everything'present to CSPs billing and charging systems?

GH: One of the first challenges thatOmniconvergence introduces is business agility.

The pace with which new services, applicationsand experiences are becoming available toconsumers is only going to get quicker andservice providers will need to focus on speedinginnovation and get new products, pricing modelsor partnerships into the market as quickly aspossible.

In order to deliver the kind of flexibility acrossnext generation services, devices and businessmodels, service providers need to move awayfrom the traditional siloed view of IN and ITsolutions. Things are no longer only a ‘networkissue’ or a ‘business issue’. They are part of thesame experience that needs to be delivered tocustomers.

What is needed is a more holistic, integratedapproach from network to revenue, bringingtogether core network, service delivery, chargingand business layers. This integration across thevarious business and network components willbe a key success factor for companies that wantto compete successfully in the era ofOmniconvergence.

Service providers also need to decide how toapproach data services in order to offer adifferentiated experience to both consumers andpartners. If there is a realization that consumersare driven by new devices and services, thenservice providers must think how they candeliver the most value to experiences acrosssuch devices and applications. This meanslaunching differentiated data services that focusmore on the value of the data experience ratherthan the volume of data on offer. This shift fromaccess to experience requires far greaterintegration of network information and businessinsight. Network policy, for example, has toevolve from purely restricting or controlling dataflow to enabling new data experiences such asdynamic data passes, shared wallets, real-timediscounting, and others.

Charging for services (voice, text messaging anddata) in real-time is already a de facto standard inthe industry as is policy control. The challengestill lies in defining how policy and chargingshould integrate in real-time since this hastraditionally been handled in an offline fashionimpacting service provider agility to respond tonetwork or user initiated scenarios. Anotherchallenge is how to enable real-time subscriptionmanagement that allows users to change orupdate offers on the fly while distributing therelevant information across customer datastores, charging and policy engines in real time.

Finally, service providers need to extend theirtraditional capabilities beyond traditional lines ofbusiness and partners and into the realm of OTTplayers, where new relationships and valuepropositions can be monetized. As OTT playerscontinue to gain momentum in the market,service providers will need to offer the same real-

TALKING HEADS�


time experience to external systems and theInternet web domain where a multitude of otherservice and content players are available. Theywill need to support industry initiatives in thisarea and support real-time interfaces to coreassets via APIs & web services.

VP: Omniconvergence accelerates the erosion oftraditional linear billing models in which the CSPprovided metered capacity on its networkinfrastructure to its end users. Now, billing andcharging needs to support the convoluted valuechain in which services are provided to thecustomers of CSPs' customers and third parties areentitled to revenue share. Are CSPs ready for this?

GH: Though in the short term, the value chainmight seem convoluted, service providers havecore assets that can be leveraged to createsignificant value in the forming value chain thatnow encompasses OTT players as well. I agreewith your assumption that traditional linearcharging and billing models need to evolve toinclude more than just the end user, but I thinkthat service providers have the ability and assetsto do so. Let me give you a couple of examples,bearing in mind that not all OTT players wereborn equal and there are plenty of OTT playerswho are looking to gain more visibility andtraction with consumers:

Rich mix of business models Service providers can offer a rich mix of businessmodels and develop different working modelswith different OTT players based on context.They can Bundle OTT services into their offersand packages and offer in conjunction with OTTPlayers Zero charge services where can end userdoes not pay for the data to use the service butrather the OTT player, thus increasing the reachof OTT players.

Strong customer relationship They can leverage on their strong customerrelationship and their in depth knowledge ofsubscribers Billing, payments and collectionhistory. They can offer OTT providers capabilitiessuch as mobile payments or carrier billing tosimplify the experience of the end user.Furthermore, they can assist OTT players inoffering a more personalized experience whichincreases consumption and in turn increasesrevenues.

Network resources & insightOnce of the most common examples we hear alot these days is harnessing the NetworkResources & Insight and offering those to OTTproviders. The classic most discussed example isHD video on demand as an upsell opportunitywhich in turn enables revenue share betweenparticipating parties.

Performance analytics And last but definitely not least is performanceanalytics. The ability to externalise insights and

information to OTT partners so they enjoy betterbusiness insight and can optimise their offersand business models to maximise investment.

So, all in all, I think that service providers havemany core assets that can ensure they play asignificant role in the newly-formed value chain.

VP: How critical do you see CSPs'omniconvergent billing and charging capabilitybeing to achieving their goal of becoming anintegral part of the digital value chain? Are CSPsthe best placed organisations to provide thebilling and charging capabilities theomniconvergent era requires and if so, why?

GH: I think that making all the above take placeand doing so in a cost-efficient manner requiresa holistic approach from network to revenue.From a revenue management perspective youwould need a charging and billing system thatremoves cost and time barriers to your businessthrough integration of core real-time products ina single solution, not only charging and billingbut also Policy Controller and a Service Platform.

It has to simplify and accelerate the creation andmonetization of new services via a single servicedefinition framework and enhance the customerexperience with real-time insight and control ofservice consumption across any device andaccess technology.

Such a system would by default be required toreduces the potential complexity with a holisticview of customer, product, business and networkpolicy parameters and enable the business agilityto react quickly to new ideas, trends, businessmodels and the like.

This is what we offer in Amdocs and we haveseen the impact such an approach has on serviceproviders’ business agility and innovationcapabilities. It’s a new world out there and we areworking to enable service providers to continueand offer the best customer experience anddifferentiate through innovative offers thataddress the Omniconvergence era.

Service providers

can offer a rich

mix of business

models and

develop different

working models

with different OTT

players based on

context

BILLING ACROSS THE DIGITAL VALUE CHAIN


With call revenue shrinking and OTT players eating their lunch, CSPs needto prove their relevance. Billing systems offer the key to proving theirworth because they enable services to be charged for. Unbillable servicesare just hobbies, finds Nick Booth

In the not too distant future, you will be able towalk into a phone shop and demand a refund ona purchase that didn’t quite go through on yourmobile phone. Once you’ve explained that thepayment system slowed everything down, andthat the reasons for the delay aren’t your concernand that you’re legally entitled to a refund –under legislation covering credit cardtransactions – you enter a new world of pain:Finding out who owns the credit card. Will it bethe vendor? Or the mobile operator? Or a thirdparty?

Caroline Bloomer, OSS/BSS and billingconsultant at Laurinus uses this nightmarescenario, to illustrate how complex the billingchallenges are about to become for CSPs in thevery near future. They have to get there quicklyas others are moving in, but haste could bringdisaster too. The attempt to make a quantumleap of sophistication could plunge CSPs overthe edge, she says. “The billing systems of manyCSPs are already falling over themselves, as aresult of the complexity,” warns Bloomer.

The CSPs must continue to evolve, however,because new competitors are using billing totake their revenue. “When Starbucks launched itspre-paid card and then migrated it to amessaging app, it cut out the service providersand revenues went directly to credit cardproviders instead,” says Guy Hilton, productmarketing director at Amdocs. For CSPs tocompete they must create one method of billing,from one central engine, that covers the wholegamut of technologies and devices.

The questions arising from contactlesspayments, hosting of the software andownership of these financial services productscan be considered later. But first there is anotherimportant step to be made in the evolution of

billing and charging.

The distinction between pre- and postpaidcustomers needs to be done away with if CSPsare to achieve some sort of cohesion. “In CSPspostpay and prepay were always handled bydifferent departments, which meant they haddifferent disciplines,” says Gordon Rawling,director of marketing at OracleCommunications, “they need to be broughttogether.”

A unity of purpose should infuse these jointdepartments, whereby they judge any form ofcontent over whether it is billable or not. “Manyservice providers are launching services becausethey feel obliged to by fashion, even though theyare unable to monetise them. If you can’t chargefor them, they are effectively hobbies,” saysRawling.

The value of all services should be defined bywhether they are chargeable, he argues. In turn,that chargeability is defined by whether theservice can be analysed by the billing system, asthe service is being used by consumers, andoptions given to the consumer in real time. If, inthe space of milliseconds, an upsell or a crosssell can be inserted, than you can make all thedifference between having a flexible chargeableservice and a loss leader. If a customer iswatching video and nearing their limit, forexample, a billing intervention might be able tooffer them a compromise that will keep themhappy – such as pause and play later at no extraexpense – and satisfied – such as pay now to seethe end of the video. Today’s option is to cutthem off when their money runs out.

“A good billing system will be able to offeroptions that keep their level of service up andkeep the costs of operation down,” says Rawling.

Billing capability letsCSPs demonstratethird party value

A unity ofpurpose should

infuse thesejoint

departments,whereby they

judge any formof content over

whether it isbillable or not �


This capacity for real-time actions is the holygrail for billing service providers. Gartner Groupresearch recognises three companies in its MagicQuadrant of billing and charging providers:Amdocs, CSG International and Tecnotree.

CSG International allows traffic and events to berated and processed immediately for allcustomers, allowing balances, credit statusesand other financial indicators to be monitored inreal-time for all customers.

“A billing system needs to deal with pretty muchanything that’s thrown at it and to use a widevariety of data as criteria for charging,” saysRobert Machin, director of product marketing inEMEA for CSG International. That means creatinga convergent, flexible collection and processingmachine that isn’t hardcoded to assume aparticular kind of event record, but which can beconfigured to adapt.

There is only one way to achieve trueconvergence, argues Marcos Malzone,Redknee’s director of business linemanagement, and that is to deploy a purposebuilt convergent billing platform. Not apatchwork of result of acquisitions, as is the casewith many BSS players.

“That doesn’t mean CSPs need to go for a big-bang approach and replace all legacy systems,”Malzone concedes. A step-wise approach, thatuses a versatile billing platform on top of amodular architecture and open interfaces, canhelp CSPs to replace the legacy by phases. “Startwith those areas that can yield the results first,such as new revenues or cost reductions,” hesays. “Then move to others areas which are lessimpactful.”

That’s not to say legacy systems are totally

useless. They still have a part to play, even innew services such as machine-to-machinecommunications for use in cars.

Operators can still deliver, and charge for,different levels of network experience, and canprovide the technological smarts needed to buildthat network technology into new kinds ofpropositions for different kinds of customers. Sowhile a retail customer, for example, may notvalue call minutes so much these days, theymight be interested in having something in theircar that will anticipate a breakdown, or monitortheir driving to give a discount on their insurancefor good driving behaviours.

“If I’m BMW, or Aviva Insurance, I may want tooffer such a service to my customers and I knowthat the CSPs is probably the best partner for thejob, as it can provide the network connections,collect the transactions and notify me in real timeof customer issues. That leaves room for both ofus to make money,” says Machin.

There’s an almost infinite opportunity for CSPs,systems integrators, device manufacturers,enterprises and other entities to work togetherand create valuable propositions, he says.

As the likes of Apple and Google eat into theCSPs’ revenue, their challenge is to becomemore relevant to consumers and get a highershare of their spend. Which means access tomore and new types of transactions, such asM2M traffic, mobile heath and mobile payments.CSPs need to add value to these transactions sothey can claim a fair share of revenue. Thismeans they need a convergent billing solutionthat allows them to take these transactions andprocess more attributes - such as location, devicetype and QoS. But, as Bloomer points out, thesenew systems bring new challenges.

A billing systemneeds to dealwith prettymuch anythingthat’s thrown atit and to use awide variety ofdata as criteriafor charging


CASE STUDY

Tien Tzuo:Carriers need toadapt to thechanging world ofsmart devices

Inside Tata Communications’billing for IaaS deploymentTata Communications’ global network provides connectivity to over 200 countries andcomprises nearly one million square feet of data centre and collocation space world-wide. Here, VanillaPlus explores its deployment of a new billing platform to support itsinfrastructure as a service (IaaS) propositions

Tata Communications recently set out todifferentiate itself from its competitors byoffering a fully automated, self-provisioned pay-per-use computing and storage solution,providing enterprise-scale cloud computing tobusinesses worldwide. This service, calledInstaCompute, required a billing partner that wasquick to market, flexible and scalable. TataCommunciations chose Zuora, the provider ofsubscription billing, commerce and finance inthe cloud.

“When Tata Communications decided to get intothe Infrastructure as a Service space, it was ourstrategy to combine our traditional hostingservices with our networking services whichencapsulate IP transit services, MPLS servicesand combine with compute [capability],”explains Matt Leonard, cloud computing productmanager at Tata Communications. “These threethings together provide a differentiator for us incomparison to other businesses.”

Tata Communications was keen to push itsInstaCompute offering to market quickly in orderto be ahead of the game in capturing theattention of the enterprise market. But Tata’steam realised that its existing paymentinfrastructure was not adequate enough toaccommodate this new service line. This createdthe potential inconvenience associated with alengthy system overhaul, which threatened to betime consuming, particularly in a period when allCSPs are looking to move swiftly into potentialnew revenue-streams.

To avoid this overhaul and the deceleration intime to market, Tata engaged Zuora to enable itto deploy its new cloud services. Today,subscription billing is a universal requirement.Cloud, social and mobile technologies arecreating entirely new ways for businesses toconnect and serve their customers where theysubscribe to recurring services rather than buyproducts. In line with this new approach tobusiness, Zuora was able to offer a metered,cloud-based payment system as part of itssubscriptions platform offering.

Some of the features of Zuora’s platform includethe ability to sign-up online, daily usage rating,calculations to process over 70, 000 transactions eachday and a pay-per-use charging model to supportbilling in multiple currencies. These were all featurespreviously unavailable to Tata Communicationsand offer ease of use to a customer base which isboth global and increasingly mobile.

Zuora CEO Tien Tzuo believes that for CSPs, thisadaption to meet the changing environments anddemands they face is crucial to defining theirfutures: “Carriers need to adapt to the changingworld of smart devices,” he says. “They needsolutions that bring the power of the cloud tocommunications. This will enable service providersto price and package any communications service,manage customer interactions everywhere, billand invoice customers in real time and makedecisions based on subscriber analytics.”

With the deployment of Zuora’s bespokemetering and billing engine, TataCommunications can now offer any cloudproposition it decides to. Beyond that, it can nowautomatically generate region-specific invoices inmultiple currencies and offer customerscomplete self-service with the ability to viewstorage usage 24/7 online in real-time.

Another key factor in the success of thedeployment was the speed with which it wasdelivered. Tata Communications was able todeploy Zuora’s enterprise subscription billingplatform in just 60 days, enabling it to cut its timeto market in half.

Leonard adds: “We basically got Zuora up andrunning in two months, which was extremely fastfor us. Especially compared to what it would takefor us to modify our internal billing systems.”

The solution offered by Zuora enabled TataCommunications to deliver a flexible, cloud-based payments system, crucial to the success ofInstaCompute. This was also delivered in atimeframe that allowed Tata Communications tobe ahead of the game in offering its customersthe multi-play packages crucial to the future oftelecoms companies.

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