no 2/2010

[12]

The Magazine of Comarch

Telecommunications
Business Unit

www.comarch.com

In this issue:
Customer Spotlight
Bouygues Telecom Achieves the Right Balance
Thanks to Comarch BSS Suite

OSS/BSS Features
M2M Market Trends: Overview
Of The M2M Value Chain
How Exactly Will You Benefit From Automating
Field Services In Your Company

Technology & Innovation

Comarch Tests at the IBM Innovation
Center
Personalize your customer
experience
Transform seamlessly to new
business models
Ensure the highest quality of
delivered services
Take full control of your network

Meet with Comarch experts face to face at the Mobile World Congress 2011
14 – 17 February at Fira de Barcelona, in Barcelona, Spain – 1F20, Hall 1

What will surprise us
in the near future?
ne of the world’s most renowned inventors,
O Sir Faraday, was asked by the Minister of the
Treasury who was visiting Faraday’s lab „What
benefits would people have from these experiments with
electricity?” „I don’t know,” he said, “but I’m sure your
government will be collecting taxes from these results in
the future”. The same answer can probably be given to us
today by this year’s Nobel Prize laureate in Physics. Many
interesting and revolutionary technologies are waiting for
business opportunity to make them profitable and begin
entirely new revenue streams. Market innovation combines
technology with business modeling and extensive work
from engineers and marketing specialists.
Gartner’s report, Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies
2010, published in October, points out that almost all the
analyzed IT technologies are related to user experience, new
interfaces or user interaction methods.
The Web phenomenon has been moving from PC’s to
other devices such as smart phones, TV’s, flat panels in
automobiles, public transport and retail. New interaction
styles based on accelerometers and location services,
which made no sense for PC’s, are boosting the sales
of intelligent terminals. User experience as well as new
interaction styles, such as gesture recognition and tangible
user interfaces, simplify communication between the
application and the user and make our handsets more
intelligent and more personal.
Comarch Technology Review is a publication created by Comarch experts and specialists. It is created
to assist our customers and partners in obtaining in-depth information about market trends and
developments, and the technological possibilities of addressing the most important issues.
Editor-in-Chief: Katarzyna Gajewska
katarzyna.gajewska@comarch.com
Layout & DTP: Jakub Malicki
Photos: www.fotolia.com
Proofreader: Martin Jones
Publisher: Comarch SA
Al. Jana Pawła II 39a, 31-864 Kraków
Tel. +48 12 64 61 000, Fax: +48 12 64 61 100
www.comarch.com
Print: Skleniarz Printing House
ul. J. Lea 118, 31-033 Kraków
Circulation: 1 500
Preface 3
Location based services, previously forecasted as a trigger
for location based ads, has become very popular because of
applications from iPhone Android using our position to define
a context for smart applications. Users are becoming more
accustomed to positioning information required by applications
and will be more open for mobile ads in the future.
Cloud computing is growing in the context of the expansion
of mobile application shops which has to find storage and
resources to support relatively small and smart applications
on smart phones with which the user is still moving from
place to place with.
Web cloud computing, location services and multi-screen piotr machnik
interfaces in the connected world are good examples of the Comarch SA
adoption of new business and revenue models, rather than Vice President, Product
simply the adoption of the newest technology. Management & Marketing
Telecommunications
From the perspective of communication service providers, one Business Unit
of the most important challenges in the Connected World is
how to ready infrastructure and business processes for new
interaction methods, new business models like revenue and
infrastructure sharing, direct and indirect sales models, quality
driven by customer experience and multi-technology service
fulfillment and assurance. This edition of Technology Review
demonstrates how Comarch analysts, solution managers and
developers approach the Connected World trend.
Enjoy reading.
Comarch’s offices in Poland: Krakow
(HQ), Warsaw, Gdansk, Wroclaw, Poznan,
Katowice, Lodz, Lublin
Worldwide Offices:
Americas
Panama | Panamá
Technology Review is a free publication available United States of America | Chicago
Europe
by subscription. The articles published here can be Austria | Wien
copied and reproduced only with the knowledge and Belgium | Brussels
Finland | Espoo
consent of the editors. The names of products and France | Lille, Grenoble
companies mentioned are trade marks and trade Lithuania | Vilnius
Germany | Dresden, Frankfurt/Main,
names of their producers. Munich, Hamburg, Berlin, Muenster,
Duesseldorf, Bremen
Russia | Moscow
To receive your subscription to the electronic Slovakia | Bratislava
version or see the previous issues, please visit: Ukraine | Kyiv, Lviv
tr.comarch.com Middle East
United Arab Emirates | Dubai
Asia
China | Shanghai
Vietnam | Ho Chi Minh City
 4 table of contents
news
5 What’s New
Customer Spotlight
6 Case Study:
Bouygues Telecom Achieves the
Right Balance between Flexibility and
Maintainability Thanks to Comarch BSS Suite
Bouygues Telecom required a platform to support
the company’s business development strategy of
supplying additional mobile services to end users
through SMS, Voice, MMS, WAP and I-Mode™, in
collaboration with a growing number of content
and service providers. This approach demanded a
sophisticated billing system capable of handling
the complex accounting processes between the
French mobile operator and its partners.
8 Case Study:
How Cablevisión de Saltillo Entered a New
Market while Minimizing Costs
Comarch offered a pre-integrated billing, customer
care and network management solution that
supported all of Cablevisión’s business lines,
including telephony. Additionally, the solution
included a prepaid module that allowed
Cablevisión to offer prepaid services and an
interpartner billing module to efficiently handle the
company’s agreements with other carriers.
OSS/BSS Features
10
How Cablecos Can Get Ahead Of Their
Competition
The Critical Role Of Next Generation BSS/OSS
In Cable Providers’ Business
On today’s cable market, there is an ongoing
race among operators towards the valued goal
of becoming an MSsO (Multi-Sservice Operator).
Although TV services still remain the main and
most stable revenue stream, significant income
growth originates from high-speed Internet and
telephony services, and the importance of these
will continue to increase.
13 How Exactly Will You Benefit From
Automating Field Services In Your Company
Field Service Management tools are solutions that
are primarily deployed by companies in order to
achieve certain business improvement goals. The
most popular and commonly requested client
goals in FSM systems include decreasing costs,
minimizing risks, and maximizing the profitability
of their services.
16 Business Cases For Policy Management
Some years ago, policy management did not
constitute a hot topic. Today, policy management
is becoming an essential tool for operators in
managing network traffic, based on policies
and improving service offerings simultaneously.
Operators can adjust their service offerings using
various parameters, such as service type, time of
day, customer location and data volumes.
19
M2M Market Trends
Overview Of The M2M Value Chain
The Machine-to-Machine (M2M) business,
related to the communication between machines
and other traditionally non-computing remote
devices or sensors, is attaining a global presence.
According to The European Telecommunications
Standards Institute (ETSI), the M2M market has
the potential to connect up to 50 billion machines
today, and even more in the near future.
23 From Circuit To Soft (Packet)-Switching
Not so long ago, as the traditional Public Switched
Telephone Network (PSTN) evolved from analog to
digital (thanks to digital Time-Division Multiplexing
technology), we entered the era of NGN networks,
based on Internet protocols such as IP (Internet
Protocol) and MPLSs (Multi-protocol Label
Switching). Therefore, next generation networks
are often named “all-IP” networks, to emphasize
the transformation towards IP protocol.
26 Knowledge Transfer Or Change
Announcement?
Every company requires an ongoing
communications and training program. They should
be designed to ensure that all employees, full time
and temporary, as well as contractors understand
the enterprise’s policies, processes and software
and know how to follow and use them properly.
28 Boosting Service Innovation
Getting Through The Jungle Of Buzzwords:
SDP, Service Broker, Orchestration, SOA,
Service Composition…
Communication Service Providers (CSP) strive
to boost service innovation to augment basic
connectivity services. They are aware that they
may need new tools to realize this goal, but are
bombarded with buzzwords, by many claiming
they have the right solution. This article suggests
taking the problem-centric approach, to avoid
being drawn into the flood of new buzzwords.
Comarch Technology Review   02/2010
30 Bright Future For IPTV – Are You Ready?
By the end of 2010, Vodafone will present its
proprietary IPTV offer, named Vodafone TV, at IFA.
Based on a hybrid approach, satellite and cable
signals are processed via a platform developed
by Vodafone Germany. Following Telekom and
Alice, Vodafone will now be the third provider of IP
television in Germany.
34 Why Use Plain Old Inventory Management
If You No Longer Sell Plain Old Telephone
Services?
If we look to the future of Communications Service
Providers, we will see LTE technologies emerging
with constantly increasing power. Among others, the
new technologies were designed to make networks
more flexible, adaptable and cheaper to deploy. The
time required for enabling new services shrinks from
weeks to days, and maybe even hours.
Telcosphere blog
38 Unlimited Data Plans – Disappearing Into
Extinction
39 Murphy’s Law In 21st Century
Telecommunications
40Why Doing Your Laundry Can Be A Lot Like
Talking On The Phone
Technology & Innovation
42 Performance In Action
Customers require a better quality of software.
They also need improved performance of
business processes. High availability is a standard
requirement. It calls for more and more testing.
How do you perform increased testing in a more
diversified test environment?
44 Improving The Scalability Of Modern Web-
Based Software System
Nowadays, the scalability of software systems,
considered as their ability to handle growing
amounts of work, is of great importance. Modern,
web-based applications should often handle
thousands of requests per second, and it’s
impossible to achieve this throughput without
rapidly-operating hardware and well-designed
systems with the ability to be enlarged.
Commentary
46Relation after Comarch BSS/CRM/OSS
Workshops in Stockholm

What’s New
Recent Contracts:
15 | 09 | 10
KPN optimizes multinational corporate
customer management with a Comarch
solution
Comarch delivers a comprehensive set of BSS
modules to help KPN lower operational costs,
improve customer satisfaction and launch
new services faster.
18 | 08 | 10
The E-Plus Group selects Comarch as
a strategic partner for Next Generation
Network Planning
Comarch provides a solution supporting
planning and configuration of Radio Access,
Transport and Core Networks. This innovative
platform, delivered in the Managed Service
model, improves the efficiency of network
planning and, in particular, supports the
accelerated roll-out of the high-speed E-Plus
data network.
14 | 07 | 10
Comarch implements an innovative class
5 service platform at Telefonia DIALOG,
Poland
Comarch has signed a comprehensive
contract with Telefonia DIALOG, one of
the biggest independent telecom service
providers in Poland for the provisioning,
installation and implementation of a service
platform based on class 5 Soft Switches.
Comarch Technology Review   02/2010
NEWS 5
Latest Award:
01 | 07 | 10
Comarch NGNP receives 2010 Next
Generation Network Leadership Award
Comarch Next Generation Network
Planning was awarded by NGN Magazine
in the category of Network Technology, in
recognition of its outstanding innovation.
Recent Product Launches:
05 | 08 | 10
Comarch introduces a new product to its
offer for telecom operators – Comarch Bill
Shock Prevention
The growing usage of data services among
mobile subscribers has led to the surfacing of
a brand new problem that operators worldwide
have to face – the so called ‘bill shock’. Comarch is Building its own
Comarch’s response is an addition to the broad Data Center Abroad:
scope of its offer for telecom operators – the
Comarch Bill Shock Prevention solution. 17 | 05 | 10
29 | 07 | 10 In 2010, Comarch plans to open a Data
Center in Lille, France, with the next one
Comarch launches new end-to-end solution planned for Germany
for Cloud Service Management and Billing
As Cloud Computing and Cloud
Services increase in popularity on the Currently, Comarch has two modern Comarch
telecommunications market, Comarch Data Centers in both Cracow and Warsaw,
responds with a comprehensive solution for with an additional facility in Cracow currently
managing and billing cloud services. under construction.
For more information, go to:
www.press.comarch.com
 6 Customer Spotlight

Bouygues Telecom achieves the right balance

between flexibility and maintainability
thanks to Comarch BSS Suite

he advent of newly developed accounting models Acquiring separate modules from different vendors would
T and the introduction of an extensive number of
novel mobile services prompted Bouygues Telecom,
have been an extremely complicated process, involving
signing and maintaining a number of contracts. Additionally,
“We were looking in 2004, to replace its partner billing tool with a systematic the integration of these modules could have been extremely
for a billing system and rule-based system capable of managing the consequent difficult, adding to ongoing implementation risks.
that was able to growth of increasingly complex revenue-sharing agreements
keep up with the with content providers.
frantic pace at The Approach
which we were
expanding, while The Business Need Comarch offered a pre-integrated billing, customer care
ensuring increased and network management solution that supported all of
revenues for Bouygues Telecom required a platform to support the Bouygues business lines, including telephony.
content providers company’s business development strategy of supplying
and Bouygues additional mobile services to end users through SMS, Voice, Bouygues Telecom, with over 10 million subscribers (March
Telecom” MMS, WAP and I-Mode™, in collaboration with a growing 2010), manages numerous products such as voice, SMS,
stated Emmanuel number of content and service providers. This approach MMS, data, internet, etc. and has to manage content and
Micol, Access demanded a sophisticated billing system capable of service provider billing for various products and services
and Interconnect handling the complex accounting processes between the (premium SMS, WAP, vote+ etc.).The solution is interfaced
Director, Bouygues French mobile operator and its partners. with their own central Partner DB, backup and many other
Telecom. interfaces within their information system.

The Approach
Comarch provided Bouygues Telecom with a convergent and
agnostic billing and rating solution for postpaid and prepaid
services, including discounting and threshold charging.
Why Comarch?
In addition to Gartner assessments of the performance of
Comarch BSS, Bouygues Telecom conducted a detailed

Comarch Technology Review   02/2010

 Customer Spotlight 7

Products & Prices

Management

Partner Revenue
Management Sharing Customer
Revenue Bouygues
Usage Data Sharing Telecom
Adapters
Payment &
Charging
Partner Gateway Industry
Self Care
Invoicing
Communications

Founded in 1994,
Payment & Bouygues Telecom
Service Invoices Charging
Usage has 10,352,000 mobile
Requests
Data subscribers, 311,000
fixed customers
Partner’s
Telco and employs 9000
Partners administrator Content
partners members of staff.
Premium
The company aims to
services, “become the preferred
VAS Content -based brand of mobile and
services
fixed communication
services as well as
  Figure 1.
of TV and Internet
provision”, and looks
study of various solutions on the market supported by The industrialization and integration aspect of to provide users
a POC (Proof of Concept). The billing and partner relationship this project plays a prominent role. As an example, with more freedom
modules stood out due to their ability to elaborate and Bouygues Telecom’s CRM is interfaced with when using their
handle reconciliation and mass processing, as well as their Comarch Partner Care for automatic provisioning mobile phones - with
capability to manage the complex partnership between of subscriptions. In addition, the system has been an emphasis on
Bouygues Telecom and its partners responsible for content adapted to all maintenance and usability constraints hospitality, service
and service provision. imposed on any application in production at Bouygues and support for its
Telecom. In particular, the InterPartner Billing system customers.
“We chose Comarch InterPartner Billing over several other can be monitored using remote central monitoring,
rating engines as it enabled us to achieve the right balance and billing-specific processes can be initiated from
between flexibility and maintainability. This allows Comarch Bouygues Telecom’s central scheduling system. This
to provide superior service and content delivery to mobile enables streamlining operating tasks, optimizing costs
customers, as well as revenue sharing in a highly dynamic and efficiency, as well as increasing the reliability of the
market where innovations arising every few months is solution.
paramount”, explained Emmanuel Micol, Access and
Interconnect Director, Bouygues Telecom. “Our solution for partnership management offers far
more than simply sharing money among companies.
We created a business solution based on a thorough
The Result understanding of the nature of relationship building. We
are confident that our system will enable our client to
Comarch deployed a specially designed IT solution concentrate exclusively on their core business activities
for gathering information related to customer service and strengthen their competitive advantage”, explained Comarch
usage and computing the complicated revenue-sharing Tymoteusz Wrona, Head of BSS Solution Management. product:
rules that arise between Bouygues Telecom and its
partners. The system generates all the necessary “The system has been up and running for several years,   InterPartner Billing
financial documentation and statistical reports, which and it allows us to respond effectively and rapidly to
are then loaded into a dedicated data-mart and emerging market demands”, stated Emmanuel Micol,
transferred to SAP financial applications for further Access and Interconnect Director, Bouygues Telecom.
processing.

Comarch Technology Review   02/2010

 8 Customer Spotlight

How Cablevisión de Saltillo entered

a new market while minimizing costs
ablevisión de Saltillo, a cable TV operator in
C Coahuila, Mexico, had ambitious expansion plans
that included entering the telephony market and
the acquisition of several smaller operators. Changes in
anti-monopoly laws allowed the company to execute its
plans, but heavy investments were necessary to guarantee
proper scalability and support telephony. Comarch helped
Customer Cablevisión de Saltillo make the leap with a cost-effective
Cablevisión de end-to-end integrated BSS solution.
Saltillo
The Business Need
In order to offer voice services, an operator needs to
significantly modify its IT infrastructure to support the new
technology. Cablevisión de Saltillo’s existing IT systems did
not support telephony, and when analyzing BSS vendors,
the company found that very few offered an end-to-end
integrated platform. The target infrastructure is depicted in
the following diagram:

Industry
Communications
Telephony
Cablevisión de Saltillo Television
is the flagship operator Internet
of Grupo RCG. Today,
Controllers
Cablevisión de Saltillo
is the largest Multi-
HFC Network
Service Operator (MSO)
Call Center
in the state of Coahuila,
Mexico’s third-largest.
Service Delivery
The capital of Coahuila is Platform
the city of Saltillo, where
Cablevisión holds an Help Desk
Billing System
overwhelming share of & Customer
Payment Management Management
the triple-play market.

  Figure 1. Target IT infrastructure diagram

Comarch Technology Review   02/2010

 Customer Spotlight 9

In the words of Carlos Casas, IT Director at Cablevisión de Saltillo, “Comarch is a true

partner that helped us modernize our IT infrastructure and continues to support us in
our day-to-day activities. We look forward to continuing our relationship with Comarch
for years to come”.

Acquiring separate modules from different vendors would a new market, while minimizing costs. Key features of the
have been an extremely complicated process, involving pre-integrated solution include: Comarch
signing and maintaining a number of contracts. Additionally, products
the integration of these modules could be very difficult, Comprehensive solution supporting all services in & Services:
adding to ongoing implementation risks. a convergent manner
Comarch
Multi-language system and documentation (Spanish Convergent Billing
The Approach supported)
Comarch
Comarch offered a pre-integrated billing, customer care Pay-as-you-grow model supporting the following out- Customer
and network management solution that supported all of of-the-box: Management
Cablevisión’s business lines, including telephony. Up to 100,000 post-paid subscribers
Up to 20,000 pre-paid subscribers Comarch
Additionally, the solution included a prepaid module Unlimited system users Workforce
that allowed Cablevisión to offer prepaid services and Unlimited telephone traffic Management
an interpartner billing module to efficiently handle the
company’s agreements with other carriers. Figure 2 Highly scalable system able to support many additional Comarch
describes the final IT infrastructure. subscribers by gradually improving hardware capacity, Business Process
as compared to other systems that require exponential Management
investments in hardware
The Result Comarch Self Care
Standards-based solution that facilitates the future
With the help of Comarch, Cablevisión de Saltillo completed implementation and integration of additional modules Comarch Service
a breakthrough project that allowed the operator to enter and 3rd party systems Activation

Comarch Billing
Mediation
Internet
Cable Modem Comarch 3arts
EMTA Set Top Box

Telephony TV Comarch
WI-FI
InterPartner
HFC NETWORK (DOCSIS – PACKET CABLE – SET TOP BOX PROVISIONING) Billing

Comarch Analyzer
Multiplexers
Firewall
ACC Motorola Cedar Point C3 Decoders
TV Content Comarch Fraud
Controller DAC 6000 Safari Softswitch
CMTS Detection
Internal
Network

Comarch Self Intraway Service

Care Delivery Platform

Comarch Comarch Comarch Comarch

Billing System Data Processing 3Arts Mediation Internet and
Data base Server Telephony
Comarch Customer
Management

  Figure 2. Detailed infrastructure diagram after Comarch implementation

Comarch Technology Review   02/2010

 10 OSS/BSS Features
How cablecos can get ahead of their competition:
The critical role of next generation BSS/OSS in
Cable Providers’ business
Why do Cablecos and Telcos Compete?
On today’s cable market, there is an ongoing race among
operators towards the valued goal of becoming an MSO
(Multi-Service Operator). Although TV services still remain the
main and most stable revenue stream, significant income
growth originates from high-speed Internet and telephony
services, and the importance of these will continue to
increase.
In fact, the strongest competition cable operators’ face
derives from telecommunication service providers, rather
Krzysztof than from other cable operators. Customers can turn to a
Kwiatkowski telecommunication service provider to provide a similar
Comarch SA service, and without difficulty. This results in operators
BSS Product Manager, seeking to improve their offers, and it is this type of
Telecommunications competition which can be highly beneficial for customers.
Business Unit
Both cablecos and telcos offer multi-play services which
consist of video, high-speed Internet, voice and wireless
services. There are numerous differences in technologies
and quality of services offered, yet telcos and cablecos are
heading in a similar direction with their offers to such an
Comarch Technology Review   02/2010
extent that the customer may not even notice the difference
between them.
However, differences in service delivery technologies
provide tools for differentiation. Many telcos and cablecos
are still transforming their networks to allow for appropriate
business model transformation. Networks are transformed,
business models are adjusted. Both types of providers
strive to offer faster Internet, voice and wireless services.
Cablecos have been upgrading their networks to DOCSIS
3.0 to make this possible. Telcos are now using fiber-optic
networks to compete with cable companies through delivery
of TV services. Such technologies are powerful arms on the
battlefield, but what about long-range weapons?
Leading the Way to Multi-Service
Transformation
In order to benefit from the transformation momentum,
cable operators require robust support from systems that
understand the specifics of the market and which enable an
increase in competitiveness, delivery of high quality services
 OSS/BSS Features 11

and rises in revenue per subscriber. Furthermore, there must be fully managed by BSS, with an integrated sub-ledger
also be a continuous focus on the customer. interfacing with G/L, comprehensive payment collection with Ideas in brief:
support for numerous payment methods, managing and
BSS and OSS systems can be the key factors in an operator’s clearing financial documents, and bad debt collection and Why cablecos
successful business model transformation or lack thereof, configurable dunning scenarios. Furthermore, this should all and telcos have
and constitute the long-range weapon in the battle between be carried out whilst supporting Sarbanes-Oxley, SAS-70 and to compete
cablecos and telcos. These systems must be focused on PCI compliance.
increasing competitiveness, raising revenue per subscriber Why do
and should be prepared for the future expansion of the Successful business model transformation operators need
operator. To facilitate excelling at customer orientation BSS and OSS solutions must also provide flexibility and to transform
strategy, it must allow for creating personalized offers stability for IT departments. These departments implement all their business
according to the individual preferences of customers, and ideas and business requirements as ready-to-sell products, towards multi-
ensure the high quality of delivered services. To shorten the integrate and manage networks and provide efficient service
time-to-market and increase profitability, the solution should maintenance processes. Multi-Service Operators require
provide multi-level convergence through the entire BSS and robust support for the creation and maintenance of a vast What to
OSS, as well as automation of field forces. number of individual price plans and discounts. consider when
looking for a
Network integration and management perfect solution
What to Look for in a Solution for Cable The network integration challenge of Multi-Service Operators to support your
TV Operators is connected to simultaneous multi-network integration with cable business
cross-network mediation and provisioning. It also touches
Unlimited marketing creativity and customer on service-agnostic billing and active mediation capabilities How does
orientation with data format independence, high configurability and Comarch
A product catalog with flexible definition of novel products, support for industry standard interfaces and file formats. respond to the
services and bundles creation, personalized price plans and needs of Cable
discounts is the key factor for providing the differentiation There is a requirement for cable-TV-specific inventory with providers
tool for marketing departments. the usage of HFC Network Hierarchy data models and
mechanisms of serviceability checking, with the possibility to
The usage of best-practices and pre-configured processes maintain precise information related to equipment at remote
dedicated to multi-service and traditional cable TV operators, sites and cable layouts needed to support technicians Cable TV operators
enables achieving this goal. working in the field. often comprise
of various
Market transformation Fault management capabilities should allow planned acquisitions and
Readiness for the transformation means being well-prepared outages and detect service interruptions. The new element mergers, and some
for such mergers and acquisitions, as well as adapting to the for cable TV operators can be connected with service quality carry such an
different characteristics of operations in various regions. management which, together with managing congestion approach forward
issues via early detection of network problems and in combination
Transformation creates a set of requirements for BSS identification of the impact on services, must be handled in with the multi-
such as multi-tenancy with support for multiple billing, order to acquire heightened customer experience. service strategy.
product, network and payment providers, and also sales Readiness for the
partners. In the BSS sphere, it requires the consolidation of Convergence requires real-time processing of network transformation
customer information resulting from multiple billing and CRM events via mediation and a billing system. This is why all means being
systems. Additionally, a modern multi-service operator has modules used in the real-time processing chain must have well-prepared for
to cooperate with various partners and content providers, the capabilities for upgrade without impacting service such mergers and
and this must be supported by the BSS platform with, at a continuity. acquisitions, as
minimum, B2B connectivity, multi-party billing and revenue well as adapting
sharing. Process management to the different
MSO complexity requires efficient business process characteristics
Complete control and security of financial management, integrated with the entire multi-domain IT of operations in
operations ecosystem. Such integration and process management various regions.
Bundles, personalized offers and discounts require the has to be handled by BSS and OSS domains with built-in,
complete control and security of financial operations. This is configurable order management, business process
even more pertinent in the case of Multi-Service Operators execution monitoring and advanced task scheduling that are
in comparison to traditional operators. This area should open for integration.

Comarch Technology Review   02/2010

 12 OSS/BSS Features

Local resellers CSR End users

The characteristics Point of Sale CRM Self Service

of Multi-Service
Operators mean

SOA Integration

DATA Integration
they require external
systems
robust support Marketing and Billing
Sales Managers Managers
for the creation
and maintenance
DMS/Archive
of a vast number Product Catalog Convergent Billing Interconnect Billing

of individual MNP

Interfaces
price plans and Field Service
Business Payments
Process Revenue Sharing
discounts. Technicians
Management
Management GL

DWH
Network & Service Service Quality Fault Management
Inventory Management Management Printhouse
Operation
Managers

Billing Active Service Connectivity

Mediation Mediation Activation

HFC

Content

TV / IPTV DOCSIS Fixed & Mobile

Telephony
Multi-play

TV, high-speed Internet, voice, content

End users

  Figure 1. Comarch’s comprehensive solution for Multi-Service Operators

The Comarch
Solution for Multi-
Service Operators Comprehensive customer service Today, Multi-Service Operators represent a major gateway
provides: unlimited Minimizing costs and maintaining comprehensive customer to entertainment and communication services. Creating
marketing service, requires the automation of field forces. Intelligent positive relations with customers is the task of the marketing
creativity, customer scheduling and dispatching of technicians, automated task- department, but improving their overall experience requires
orientation, resource matching based on technician availability, skills and the collaboration of other departments, such as network,
openness to location, and leveraging data stored in the network inventory billing, customer service, and even field technicians.
cable TV market in order to support technicians working in the field, may
transformation, provide significant cost savings and increased customer The advantage of the Comarch solution for cable TV
field force satisfaction. The latter is especially important during operators is that it transforms the broad communication
automation and primary contact with the operator, occurring when the first experience into a multi-service business and provides next
more… technicians visit the customer’s home. generation BSS and OSS tools to enable maximum efficiency
of operations and business model transformation.

Summary The full article can be found at:

http://cable.comarch.com
The multi-service approach changes the way in which
customers perceive their communication service providers.

Comarch Technology Review   02/2010


How exactly will you benefit from automating
field services in your company
ield Service Management tools are solutions that
F are primarily deployed by companies in order to
achieve certain business improvement goals. The
most popular and commonly requested client goals in FSM
systems include decreasing costs, minimizing risks, and
maximizing the profitability of their services.
In most cases the main goal of the project is achieved
(FSM projects are less risky in comparison with other
telecommunication projects) and the influence of these
improvements in the organization of technicians’ work is
visible throughout the entire company.
In this article I will discuss several job functions in
a telecommunications company and will demonstrate that
each and every employee benefits from an investment such
as the Field Service Management system.
Comarch Technology Review   02/2010
OSS/BSS Features 13
Customer Technical Support and
Network Maintenance
If you are a FS Dispatcher/Scheduler
As a dispatcher/scheduler in the Customer Technical Support
or Network Maintenance department, your scope of duties
involves numerous important activities within the order
fulfillment process.
If your company does not deploy any tool for improving
your job, you are probably the busiest person and at Szymon Uczciwek
the end of the day you are being blamed for all the Comarch SA
organizational problems in your department. This is BSS/OSS Solutions
not a normal situation. Field Service Management may Consultant
make your job easier and will certainly increase your and Product Manager,
effectiveness. Why? A number of FSM modules align to Telecommunications
help you carry out your responsibilities, they include: Business Unit
 14 OSS/BSS Features

Ideas in brief:

What are
the newest
solutions in the Network Inventory CRM Network monitoring
Field Service
Management
domains Network
objects Orders Appointments Orders

What are
the benefits
of using Field Work Orders
FSM system
Field Service
Management
tools
Orders and Time Automatic
Resources Maps FSM Mobile Reporting
Tasks Management Dispatcher
How can FSM
tools have
a direct impact
on you and
your position in Dispatchers Field Technicians Management
a telecommuni-
cation company
What are the
actual cases of
applying FSM
tools in your
daily activities
  Figure. Different users of field service management tools

How can FSM

tools improve Scheduling tools technicians have mobile handsets with GPS or vehicle
communication This FSM module gives you a 360º view of your team’s tracking equipment, any time you are faced with a critical
between situation. If you have a new work order to fulfill, a graphical situation you are able to locate resources in the nearest
departments timeline tool helps you schedule it for the proper technician location and assign them to resolving the problem.
and allocate the required technical equipment. You will have
the following information: If you are a Technician
In the end, all the work falls on your shoulders. The strategy
the SLA connected with the order of the company always requires you to be more productive –
to do more and spend less time doing it. But it’s impossible to
No matter a sequence of tasks required to complete the order divide yourself in two. Field Service Management tools allow
where you are you to follow the company’s strategy while at the same time,
in the company, available resources (human and technical) with skills making your job better and more interesting. How?
Field Service suitable for completing the order
Management Mobile Access
solutions can a list of tasks currently being completed by technicians Imagine that whenever you need to, you are able to check
positively impact what work you have to do. Mobile Field Service Management
on your work resources in the nearest location for completing the tools allow you to do almost everything on site. A mobile
order handset will be the most important piece of equipment you
have with you in the field. Let’s go through your usual work
Location-Based Services day. You start by picking up your list of tasks. No need to do
If you are responsible for dispatching 20 technicians, do this – it’s already on your mobile. Next you plan your route
you know exactly where they are at all times? If you have from task to task – no, no! Just use your mobile application
a GIS-based FSM tool you are able to check every location to navigate you to the customer. Once on site you have to
on a digital map, find any technician, order or vehicle. If verify through documentation or by telephone what work

Comarch Technology Review   02/2010

 OSS/BSS Features 15

you have to carry out – but with your mobile you already customer after some discussions with the field service team When you are
have all this information on the screen, along with the or maybe even worse, leave it to them to call the customer a new employee
procedure of how to accomplish it and with remote network to make an appointment? Such a situation is confusing not at a company.
measurement tools. What’s next? Usually you have to fill out only for you, but probably even more so for your customer. Usually, at the
some paperwork with the customer, but now you enter all Field Service Management tools are able to provide you with beginning, it takes
this data into the mobile handset and capture the customer’s instant information about free resources and about available a significant
signature. time slots for technical service on a customer’s site. amount of
your time to
Optimization tools understand all
“Optimization” sounds like a nice, but very often it means that Sales the procedures
your limits of petrol per mile are cut again and again. But this and tools used by
is not the kind of optimization that Field Service Management According to Gartner research in the area of Field Service your department.
tools carry out. FSM optimization tools try to find the most Management (e.g. Magic Quadrant for Field Service The Mobile FSM
optimal organization of your work, minimizing route distances Management from 17th July 2010) one of the critical elements application with
between task sites. This is possible thanks to information from of the Field Service Management Life Cycle that has to all its details
GIS systems like Google Maps. be supported by FSM tools is customer management about orders,
capabilities including accountancy and sales. order sites, routes
Spare Parts Management and additional
There are cables, modems, set top boxes and many other tools If you are a salesperson descriptions from
you have to carry in your vehicle. And even if you have tons of Typically the worst part of a sales specialist’s work is the knowledge
stuff in the truck, there always seems to be a problem with a unsuccessful interaction with customers, as well as base allows you to
certain piece of equipment that wasn’t taken. What do you do gathering all the required sales process documents. It is start your normal
in such a situation? One solution is to go to the warehouse and problematic to hold a customer’s attention while going job right from the
come back with the spare part for the customer. However this through all the procedures with him needed for completing very first day.
is not only problematic for you, but also creates measurable a sale. The second thing is collecting all the required
additional costs for the company, not to mention the effect it documents from the customer, such as signed contracts,
has on the KPIs in your department. But even this problematic updates etc. FSM functionalities allow transferring certain
situation can be resolved thanks to Field Service Optimization sales activities to technicians. They can play a significant role
tools. With information about your daily tasks you have precise in customer contact by delivering documents and collecting
data about what you need to take with you in order to complete required signatures. This may even include preparing
all your daily tasks. invoices for the customer, and executing sales, thanks to the
cross- and up-selling functions of the mobile application. The
Knowledge Base sales process will be fully aligned with market expectations.
When a network element or customer is not in a standard Now, your sales team will be supported by valuable
location (multi-story buildings, mountains or underground representatives, and no opportunity will be wasted.
locations) having every available piece of additional
information shown in the order context is particularly useful.
The Knowledge Base in FSM tools will add a description and Summary
pictures to your order’s details and thus shorten your time Glossary:
spent on that difficult order. Synergy is still one of the leading optimization strategies.
Improvements are made by unifying and synchronizing FSM – Field
the entire company to achieve the same business goals. Service
Customer Service Consider Field Service Management systems as the next Management
element of a department’s synergy and communication
The impact of deploying Field Service Management tools improvement. It is an element which leaves behind the KPI – Key
is not only limited to the main beneficiaries such as field traditional method of managing technical resources and Performance
service departments. It has a much broader influence on the puts into practice a customer-centric strategy, using Indicator
entire telecommunication department environment. improvements in customer service processes, service
convergence (the system allows managing all field service GIS - Geographic
If you are a CSR activities not limited to special domains and services) Information
You are responsible for resolving customer problems as and cost savings by optimization as well as benefits from System
quickly as possible and the optimal situation is when outsourcing field services.
the problem can be resolved from the first attempt. But what SLA – Service
if it is not possible to give the customer actual information The full article can be found at: Level Agreement
about a technician’s visit? What if you have to call the http://field-service.comarch.com

Comarch Technology Review   02/2010

 16 OSS/BSS Features

Business cases
for policy management

ome years ago, policy management did Evolution of Policy Management

S not constitute a hot topic. One of the first
cases in which the issue received extensive
publicity, was in accordance with when P2P file sharing
Ideas in brief: applications were considered problematic – not only from
the legal perspective (copyright issues), but also because
How and why of network congestion. Today, policy management is
did policy becoming an essential tool for operators in managing
management network traffic, based on policies and improving service
issues emerge? offerings simultaneously. Operators can adjust their
service offerings using various parameters, such as
What does the service type, time of day, customer location and data
customer expect? volumes. Policy management combines a mixture of
underlying network, subscriber data and service delivery
How does policy into a single entity.
management
affect customer
experience?
Following the operator’s struggle with P2P file sharing,
video streaming from services such as YouTube became
the next bandwidth-hungry service. Here, the role of third
parties (outside of the operator-customer relationship)
has increased – content providers and other 3rd parties
can provide data-hungry services to end customers, and
operators may not attain additional revenues from this
business.
The popularity of mobile data services has made the “bit
pipe” problem for operators even more challenging. One
contributor towards this issue has been the reducing prices
of smartphones and mobile data offerings. Subscribers have
Network cost
(existing network)

Traffic volume

Policy management Loss

entails various
benefits for the Revenue
operator: increased Profit
customer Cost of new network
satisfaction, higher (e.g. shared network)
ARPU and reduced
costs.

Time

Dominated by voice Dominated by data

  Figure 1. Comparison of network economics in existing and LTE networks

Comarch Technology Review   02/2010

 OSS/BSS Features 17

been able to purchase unlimited data plans for a fixed fee
per month. However, the problem is that the revenues from
mobile data services do not cover the costs of network
investments. Many operators have already announced that
they will stop offering unlimited data plans for mobile users,
and will instead provide various tariff plans with different
monthly data quotas.
The introduction of LTE improves mobile network efficiency,
and data traffic growth does not increase CAPEX to the
same level as it does in 3G networks. Thus, operators
are more able to increase their revenues without the
continuous need to upgrade network capacity. Figure 1
[source: Analysys Mason, 2010] presents the effect of
network maintenance costs on the operator’s bottom-line
results, between legacy and LTE networks. Notice how traffic
volume growth in existing networks correlates with network
costs. After LTE, operators still require tools for managing
the policies, in order to take full advantage of the revenue
opportunities.
Policy Management from the Customer
Perspective
A typical customer wants to pay as little as possible for the
services he is using. Similarly, he also wants to receive as
much value as possible for his money – this means that
he wants to attain the maximum amount of minutes and
megabytes. From the operator’s perspective, this becomes a
dilemma – the operator wants to acquire as much money from
the customer as possible, and simultaneously, the customer
should consume as few network resources as possible.
The customer can reap the benefits of the personalized
services offered by the operator. Fundamentally, each
customer has their own service usage habits, such as
web browsing, viewing video (e.g. YouTube) and gaming.
For each type of end customer, the operator can tailor
individual pricing plans and customize the service level. For
example, a customer who likes to play multiplayer games
on the Internet would appreciate higher service levels for
this particular type of service, in this case meaning lower
latencies for the game data traffic.
Customers may be interested in purchasing value-added Pekka Valitalo
services (such as better QoS levels) for an additional fee. Comarch SA
An example case can be a business customer who needs BSS Market Analyst,
high bandwidth for the corporate VPN services he is using. Telecommunications
Another example can be a private customer who would like Business Unit
to watch a football match with guaranteed bandwidth and
reduced latency. This type of user can buy e.g. a temporary
4-hour “bandwidth boost” from the operator for an additional The typical
fee, using the self service portal for the subscription. customer wants
to attain the
It can be summarized that customer experience is maximum amount
heightened with policy management – network congestion of minutes and
is reduced, customers receive more individualized tariff megabytes for
plans and customers feel that they are getting more value as little money
for their money. Thus, moving from the flat rate, unlimited as possible. The
tariff plans to more individual types, can actually become an operator, on the
advantage for the customer. other hand, would
like to acquire
as much money
Why operators should invest in Policy from the customer
Management as he can, and
simultaneously
From the operator’s perspective, policy management is not have the customer
only about throttling the bandwidth from high bandwidth consume as few
consumers. Policy management entails various benefits for network resources
the operator: increased customer satisfaction, higher ARPU as possible.
and reduced costs.

Comarch Technology Review   02/2010

 18 OSS/BSS Features

The policy With more individual tariff plans, the operator can up-sell
management and cross-sell more for existing customers, and increase
engine can make ARPU in this way. An additional advantage is, of course,
dynamic decisions the lower costs for network investments and maintenance
basing on the – due to restricting heavy bandwidth consumers. Network
parameters, and congestion can be controlled, for example, by dynamically
this extends the allowing only specific types of services on the network
operator’s role from (e.g. web surfing is allowed, but video streaming or P2P
a mere bit pipe, file sharing is not), in temporary situations where network
towards a more bandwidth is reducing.
customer-focused
service provider. The operator is able to increase the segmentation of
customers, basing on their individual habits. Various
parameters can be used for this segmentation, such as
service type, location, subscriber status (e.g. basing on
ARPU), device type and age. The policy management engine
can make dynamic decisions basing on the parameters, and
this extends the operator’s role from a mere bit pipe, towards
a more customer-focused service provider.
The policies can be applied dynamically and without
individual configuration for each customer, by the policy
management engine. The information about individual
subscribers can be used for allocating customers between
various tiers. For example, customers with high ARPU from
the previous two months may be automatically allocated to
a higher tier for the ensuing month. Individual tiers can have
different service allowances and quality of service levels.
The customer can be informed of the new service tier e.g. by
SMS, and it is also possible for him to purchase an increased
tier for the ensuing months, for an additional fee, in the case
that the conditions (such as specific level of ARPU) from the
previous months are not met.
The self service portal of the operator can be used in various
business scenarios for policy management – from defining
the service limits (e.g. service type or specific URL/domain)
in parental control scenarios, to defining consumption
restrictions, and time-of-day limits. This reduces the risk of
bill shocks and also provides more choice for end customers
to define the appropriate service allowance.
Conclusions
The scope of policy management is extending from
traditional usage of network throttling towards value-added
services, by using subscriber and service data available
for the decisions that have an effect on the services that
the subscriber is using. Operators are able to use policy
management for the offering of personalized services and
tariffs to their customers.
The Comarch Policy Management solution enables
Communication Service Providers to control their
network, service sessions and subscriber access, and
simultaneously provide subscribers with differentiated
services and improved customer experience.

The figure presents a general

CRM Billing
architecture of the Comarch
Policy Management solution,
situated between the billing/
CRM and network layer. The Comarch Policy Management
solution is integrated with the
underlying network elements Online and Offline Application
HTTP
to enforce the policies, and Charging System Function
can also be integrated with
Partners

Content
the external billing and CRM Web Services
systems, instead of using its Subscribe Profile Policy and Charging
own online/offline charging Repository Rules Function
functionalities and the Web Services
subscription profile repository.
Service Control
The supported interfaces not
only follow 3GPP standards
Gx, Gy Diameter, RADIUS API Provisioning
(Gx, Gy), but also provide
additional interfaces and
APIs for integration with
the network environment
and external systems, making Fixed, Cable IP, IMS, NGN Mobile
it usable for multiple types
Various network types
of Communication Service
Providers.
  Figure 2. Comarch Policy Management solution

Comarch Technology Review   02/2010

 OSS/BSS Features 19

M2M market trends

Overview of the M2M value chain

he Machine-to-Machine (M2M) business, related Thanks to this connectivity, all machines and devices with

T to the communication between machines and

other traditionally non-computing remote devices
or sensors, is attaining a global presence. According to The
European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI),
the M2M market has the potential to connect up to 50 billion
machines today, and even more in the near future. Mobile
network operators, seeking new revenue sources when
faced with reduced voice revenues, have developed an
interest in the M2M segment.
Devices with embedded connectivity are used in the
various sectors: energy, automotive, logistics, infrastructure,
security, healthcare, merchandising, payment, monitoring,
industry etc. We can encounter machines with SIM cards
installed in both our professional and private lives. Their
application can be wide, from the monitoring of energy
usage, through car connectivity to entertainment.
M2M cards installed can be efficiently monitored, updated and
diagnosed remotely, without human intervention. Errors can be
detected automatically and alerts can be sent immediately.
An example of the application of M2M cards in the
automotive sector is presented in Figure 1. In this case,
drivers can benefit from faster passage through a road
toll, due to the automatic charging of cars and the top-up
possibility in the prepaid model. Moreover, logistics and
insurance companies can attain accurate information about Agnieszka Czulak
the routes’ their employees and customers’ take. Comarch SA
BSS Solution Manager,
The schema for healthcare monitoring is presented in Telecommunications
Figure 2. The remote diagnosis of the patient is one of Business Unit
the advantages of this M2M application. Besides a rapid
diagnosis, M2M monitoring reduces the cost of treatment
and guarantees more freedom for patients who can go home,
while still receiving care.

Road Toll Company

IT Systems

M2M solution

Pekka Valitalo
Internet Comarch SA
EXIT
BSS Market Analyst,
EXIT Telecommunications
EXIT Business Unit

  Figure 1. M2M application in the road tolls business

Comarch Technology Review   02/2010

 20 OSS/BSS Features

Ideas in brief: Telco Operator IT Systems

Hospital
Why the M2M IT Systems
M2M Platform
business is
becoming
more and more
attractive

Which actors are Internet

present in the M2M
value chain Mobile
Network
The dilemma
network operators
face

Which trends are

present on the
M2M market
Monitored
Patient
Monitored
Patient

Monitored
Patient
The M2M enabler
can be different to
that of a network
  Figure 2. M2M application in the healthcare industry
operator, although
in some cases the
solution provider Overview of the M2M ecosystem Device manufacturers
and network
operator are Figure 3 presents the different actors of the M2M market: Device manufactures who provide hardware and firmware
actually the same Device manufacturer, system integrator, M2M enabler, to M2M partners are equipping devices that were originally
company. network operator and end user. Each has different needs and designed to operate without reference to mobile technology,
roles related to their activity. with hardware that enables M2M communication.

M2M
Enabler

Comarch System End User

Self Care Integrator

MNO

  Figure 3. Actors of the M2M ecosystem

Comarch Technology Review   02/2010


Certification requirements are high. Devices have to be
compliant with various standards. The performance
assurance of devices should be confirmed by detailed tests.
For example, the M2M-dedicated SIM cards must be able to
operate in certain environments. Thus, device manufactures
work constantly on the improvement of their wireless
hardware & firmware, in order to satisfy their customers:
MNOs, system integrators, M2M enablers, and also end
customers of the M2M business.
System integrators
The M2M solution needs to be customized depending on the
target M2M segment. Attaching a SIM card to an electricity
meter does not automatically enable the automatic meter
reading scenario; additional effort is still required. System
integrators are in charge of development & maintenance
of hardware, embedded & server software, bug tracking,
and also updates for the M2M solutions. System integrators
assume customer risks and guarantee the efficient
functioning of hardware & software.
Because M2M applications can be complex to set up, the role
of system integrators in the M2M value chain is important.
The typical end users of M2M services are not focused on
technical issues, so it is the system integrator that develops
the solution, regarding the hardware and applications. In
comparison to device manufacturers, the system integrator
may need specific applications from external companies to
compose the required M2M solution.
M2M enablers
The main role of an M2M enabler is offering the end-to-
end M2M solution. They provide the complete product,
connectivity, support, SIM logistics and applications updates.
The end users usually prefer to purchase an “all-in-one” solution
from the M2M enabler, instead of purchasing the individual
elements of the M2M solutions from various different vendors.
The M2M enabler can also provide dedicated applications
for specific types of M2M segment. For example, the fleet
management industry may be interested in applications that
provide all necessary data for transportation management
purposes. These applications can be run on the M2M
enabler’s M2M platform. From the fleet management
company’s perspective, the availability of transportation
management applications, as a hosted service, reduces the
initial investments in the proprietary IT platform.
Comarch Technology Review   02/2010
OSS/BSS Features 21
Network operators End users usually
prefer to purchase
Network operators provide the connectivity (network & an “all-in-one”
support) to M2M partners and end users. They are interested M2M solution
in the simplification of internal business operations and from a single
optimization of network utilization, in order to provide flexible vendor, instead
and efficient services to their customers. of purchasing
individual elements
Some MNOs have created distinct units responsible for of M2M solutions
M2M business, which work solely on the rapid development from various
& implementation of new M2M services. In addition to different vendors.
a dedicated organization, MNOs amplify the cooperation with
device and application providers in order to create common
M2M functionalities. The amount of network elements
dedicated to the M2M business is increasing. Many MNOs are
deploying their own network elements for this purpose.
End users
Even if the global interest towards the M2M business is
high, knowledge of required technology and implementation
experience in this area are still rare. Only some end users
(enterprises) have already entered the M2M business.
But there are also numerous end users conscious of possible
M2M opportunities, and who are willing to integrate M2M
technology into their existing portfolio, although they do
not know how to launch it. Furthermore, a large group of
end users exists who are unaware of the existing M2M
opportunities within their industries. And many potential
end users have also considered the M2M business, but the
possible costs have been a barrier. However, the reducing
costs of M2M-related hardware and connectivity services are
making more M2M-related business cases viable.
End-to-end solutions and high levels of support are necessary Some MNOs have
for organizations that wish to outsource M2M-related business created distinct
processes. The organizations need support from M2M partners units responsible
who will provide them with appropriate solutions. This enables for M2M business,
organizations to focus on their core businesses. which work solely
on the rapid
development &
Trends in the M2M ecosystem/value implementation of
chain new M2M services.
MNO strategies differ; some of them decide to cooperate with
platform provides, while others are looking for a proprietary
platform. Recently, the role of MNOs in the M2M value chain
has shifted. Previously, MNOs were not as interested in
directly entering the M2M business, while the revenues from
traditional voice and data services were still rising.
 22 OSS/BSS Features
Device System
Manufacturer Integrator
  Figure 4. MNO as an M2M enabler
The growing revenue forecasts for the M2M business have
pushed MNOs to enter the M2M market more directly. Figure
4 presents this type of scenario, where the MNO also takes
the role of M2M enabler.
The MNO can deploy additional network elements (e.g. HLR
and GGSN) that are dedicated to M2M traffic. This can also be
carried out by the M2M enabler that uses the same masts as
the MNO, but sets up its own network elements. For the MNO,
the usage of separate network elements enables the MNO to
use the network resources more efficiently and reduces the
internal bureaucracy. For the M2M enabler, the proprietary
network elements grant more independence from the MNOs,
and better flexibility for provisioning activities and error
MNO dilemma: is diagnostics.
it better to use an
external solution Depending on the type of M2M segment, the MNO may wish
provider (e.g. M2M to cooperate with niche M2M enablers focused on a specific
enabler) that M2M segment. For example, the M2M enablers that focus on
provides a hosted fleet management hardware and applications can help the
M2M solution for transport companies to focus on their core businesses, thus
end users, or to set creating a win-win situation for both. These niche companies
up a proprietary are able to provide a complete end-to-end solution for the
M2M platform? fleet management industry, starting from hardware delivery,
to providing a hosted platform with fleet management
applications. These kinds of end-to-end offerings can be too
Device System
Manufacturer Integrator
  Figure 5. Cooperation with an M2M enabler
Comarch Technology Review   02/2010
MNO, M2M End User
Enabler
narrowly focused for a large MNO, meaning it can be a more
suitable business case for a smaller scale M2M enabler,
instead. Figure 5 presents this type of business case.
MNOs can also provide additional services for increasing
revenues, such as design, deployment and support of M2M
solutions for enterprises, although these types of services
are more commonly offered by a smaller business unit within
the MNO organization. These business units can set up the
partnerships with device and application manufacturers
more rapidly, to provide complete end-to-end solutions.
Conclusions
Which approach should the MNO consider: cooperation with
an M2M enabler, or setting up a proprietary M2M platform?
No unique strategy exists for MNOs that is optimal for all
types of M2M business cases. Many different approaches
are possible, and the individual MNOs should evaluate
which is the best strategy for them. The ongoing trend of
MNOs entering the M2M market more directly transforms
the revenue stream towards MNOs. The smaller players will
still have business opportunities on the market, but they will
need to focus on more niche segments, while MNOs focus on
the areas that have the highest volumes.
MNO
M2M End User
Enabler

From circuit
to soft (packet)-switching
hen, in 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was awarded
W a patent for the electric telephone by the United
States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO),
nobody, including Bell, nor any other inventors for that
matter, could envisage the future of voice transmission.
Not so long ago, as the traditional Public Switched
Telephone Network (PSTN) evolved from analog to digital
(thanks to digital Time-Division Multiplexing (TDM)
technology), we entered the era of NGN networks (Next
Generation Network), based on Internet protocols such
as IP (Internet Protocol) and MPLS (Multi-protocol Label
Switching). Therefore, next generation networks are often
named “all-IP” networks, to emphasize the transformation
towards IP protocol. Packet-based NG networks are able to
provide data, text, fax and numerous types of multimedia
such as video, in addition to the traditional landline
telephone system (POTS – Plain Old Telephone Service).
The rapid development of broadband Internet access in the
early years of the 21st century accelerated the growth of
services supported by VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol).
The standardization of IP-based signaling protocols such
as H.323 or SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) raised voice
services migration from circuit-switched architecture (PSTN)
to VoIP. And so the era of Internet telephony has begun.
Softswitch technology’s evolution to an
IMS architecture
The necessity for voice transformation from circuit-switched
(PSTN, SS7) to packet-based form (IP) initiated the evolution
of softswitch technology. In telecommunications networks,
softswitch is a software-based central device responsible
Comarch Technology Review   02/2010
OSS/BSS Features 23
for VoIP call control and integration with the PSTN network. In
the early stages of softswitch technology development, the
solution architecture was based on a Call Agent, responsible
for call control, call routing and signaling and a Media Gateway
responsible for end-to-end media (voice, data) streaming. The
Call Agent would control several Media Gateways interfaced into
PSTN or IP networks. In modern softswitch-based architecture,
the Call Agent is separated from the Media Gateway. Due
to the immaturity of the technology, various definitions of
softswitches have been used by different manufacturers. Lukasz Grodzki
With the development of NG networks, softswitch technology Comarch SA
matured and was standardized as an IMS (IP Multimedia BSS Solution Manager,
Subsystem) architecture by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Telecommunications
Partnership Project) and ETSI (European Telecommunication Business Unit
Standards Institute). Within the IMS architecture, the role of the
softswitch is performed by an MGC (Media Gateway Controller)
using MGCP protocol (Media Gateway Control Protocol) or H.248
protocol (also known as Megaco).
Where does Unified Communication fit in?
NG network convergence introduced VoIP technology into
fixed and mobile networks. Softswitch technology was
designed to provide voice and data services, while the IMS is “...the era of
focused on all multimedia and IP network features, offering Internet telephony
the customers of fixed, mobile and cable providers’ access to has begun
multiple services such as:
Voice and video telephony
IP PBX, hosted PBX (Private Branch Exchange)
Automated Attendants, receptionist
 24 OSS/BSS Features

Signaling
Ideas in brief: Media Application
Service / Application Plane

HSS Servers
(AS)
What are the
trends in mod- SCIM
ern telecommu-
nications?
Control / Signaling Plane
CSCF
What are the S-CSCF I-CSCF
BGCF
benefits of voice P-CSCF MGCF
transmission SGCF PSTN
RACS
through IP pro- NASS A-RACS (S)PDF
I-BCF /
SIP ALG
tocol? MRF

UE DSLAM BAS / MRCF

How to under- R7: Broadband A=BGF MGW
MRFP
stand Unified IPv4
UE WAG PDG
Communication I-BGF /
Network
R6: WiFi GGSN Core
Network TrGW
Why Internet UE RAN SGSN
IPv6
Protocol seems R5: GPRS/UMTS
Media / Transport Plane
Network
to be the future
  Figure 1. IMS Functional architecture
of convergent
communication
VMS (Voice Mail System) and IVR (Interactive Voice costs. The idea of Unified Communication is to deliver
Response) communication services seamlessly to any device, across
any access network. Fixed and mobile convergence can
The migration from Enhanced phonebook, with a presence feature benefit both residential and corporate customers with new
circuit-switched to services, its simplification and unification.
packet-switched Enhanced messaging, with chat and history features
technology seems The main advantages of a mature IMS architecture delivered
to be inevitable. Enriched call, with multimedia content-sharing during through packet-switched technology are:
voice sessions
IP-based NGN architecture (well-defined modularity and
This set of multimedia services is usually referred to as interfaces)
Unified Communication (UC). The advantage of UC is that
it enables providing services through multiple devices Common media control and network management
and media types anytime, anywhere and in any way. It functions
allows service providers to offer fixed-mobile convergence
(FMC) without any other additional equipment. Mobile Lower OPEX through remote and centralized
communication services such as enhanced phonebook, management, and common network infrastructure
enhanced messaging or enriched call are known as
a Rich Communication Suite (RCS). RCS is an IMS-based 140000
specification of communication services, developed by the
120000
The evolution of consortium of mobile manufacturers and operators, such
IMS stimulates as AT&T, Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, SonyEricsson, 100000
the growth of T-Mobile and many others.
Millions of Minutes

80000
mobile and fixed
telecommunication 60000

networks. The benefits of IMS and Unified 40000

Communications
20000

IMS, as the advanced carrier-grade service delivery platform, 0

enables operators to deliver innovative real-time and non 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
real-time services or Web 2.0 applications to demanding traffic 5544 11021 18502 28706 46057 68900 97567 123974

customers through a unified platform, thus lowering

  Figure 2. International voice IP traffic growth

Comarch Technology Review   02/2010

 OSS/BSS Features 25

Decreased CAPEX through scalable server-based generation network). The main advantages of LTE are high Glossary:
hardware architecture (multiple hardware platforms throughput, low latency and flat architecture, which imply
supported) and user-based licensing minimal operating costs. The first LTE services are available in HD - High Density
Scandinavia (opened by TeliaSonera in Stockholm and Oslo),
Revenue-generating services and shortly operators will announce the running of all-IP LTE –Long-Term
based LTE networks. Global mobile operators and device Evolution
manufacturers support VoLTE (Voice over LTE), an initiative
120% Source:CIBC
announced in February 2010 and adopted by GSMA (GSM VoIP - Voice over IP
Network Equipment
100% Physical Facilities
World). The purpose of VoLTE is to standardize the method of Protocol
Fiber delivering voice and messaging services in the future for LTE,
Operations
80% using IMS specifications developed by 3GPP. GSMA VoLTE is USPTO - United
45% built upon the following principles: States Patent and
60% Trademark Office
25%
40%
Single implementation promotes scale - single
25%
15% technology being used across all networks, phones and PSTN - Public
20% 20% devices Switched Telephone
20%
Network
10% 7%
0%
Legacy NextGen
Single implementation reduces complexity
TDM - Time-Division
  Figure 3. NGN Network benefits Single implementation enables roaming Multiplexing

The prognosis states that the top 25 LTE operators will attain MGC - Media
LTE – the future of IMS - VoIP goes HD 200 million subscribers by 2015. Gateway Controller
and wireless
POTS – Plain Old
VoIP traffic is constantly growing in international networks, What’s next? Telephone Service
replacing TDM international networks. TDM traffic has
noted negative growth since 2004. Nowadays, billions of Migration from circuit-switched GSM and 3G networks to SIP - Session
minutes of international long distance calls are transferred IP-based LTE networks won’t happen overnight. Operators will Initiation Protocol
over IP via wholesale carriers or global voice providers. need to provide service continuity. However, besides all of
The evolution of IMS stimulates the growth of mobile and the challenges, operators have no other choice. IMS in mobile PBX - Private Branch
fixed telecommunication networks. Third generation mobile networks is materializing. By 2011, 80% of service providers Exchange
networks (3G) provide a High Density (HD) of voice and video, will deliver voice over IMS. What’s next? LTE Advanced, the
with an elevated quality of service (QoS). The migration younger brother of LTE, will emerge in the second decade of VMS - Voice Mail
from circuit-switched to packet-switched technology the 21st century, with the benefits of a throughput rate level System
seems to be inevitable for both fixed and mobile networks. of 1 Gbit/s, and low power nodes such as pico or femtocells.
Mature 3G networks, such as UMTS (Universal Mobile IVR - Interactive
Telecommunication System), which is a combination of What is beyond this? The human need for communication – Voice Response
circuit- and packet-switching technology, will be replaced the only consistent factor stimulating technologies to evolve
by all-IP flat networking architecture. The way to achieve to bring communications to us more cheaply, simply and at FMC - Fixed-mobile
this is LTE (3GPP Long-Term Evolution), also called 4G (fourth a higher standard convergence

UC - Unified
Communication
Excellent Mobile Broadband Today Enhanced User Experience
Voice and full Range of IP Services Improved voice and data capability
RCS - Rich
Communication
Rel-99 Rel-5 Rel-99 Rel-7 Rel-8 Rel-9 & beyond
WCDMA HSPA HSPA+ (HSPA Envolved)
Suite

3GPP - 3rd
LTE leverages news, wider and TDD Rel-8 Rel-9 Rel-10 Generation
spectrum LTE LTE-A
Partnership Project

2009 – 2010 2011+ ----------> ETSI - European

Telecommunication
  Figure 4. Mobile technologies evolution
Standards Institute

Comarch Technology Review   02/2010

 26 OSS/BSS Features
Knowledge transfer
or change announcement?
very company requires an ongoing
E communications and training program. They should
be designed to ensure that all employees, full
Ideas in brief: time and temporary, as well as contractors understand the
enterprise’s policies, processes and software and know
Different training how to follow and use them properly.
methods for
different types Imagine the following situation: new software has just
of users and been implemented and we have several or a few dozen
systems employees that must be trained to use it. There is always
reluctance to change at work, always thoughts of: “there
Scheduling - one will be reductions”, “I won’t be needed any more”, “I will have
of the keys to more problems now”, “I liked the old way better”, and these
success types of sentiments can be multiplied. How can an employee
be convinced that this change will have a positive affect
Not only teach, and how can the training be made more effective for the
but also listen company? Here are some tips to do just that.
Comarch Technology Review   02/2010
Don’t hide anything
According to Murphy’s law, when everything is well organized
and every detail has been perfectly arranged, something
always happens to ruin the ‘happy ending’. This is exactly why it
is best to reveal each and every stage of a new project to those
who it may concern. Starting from the context of the change,
its strategy and ending with the contact peoples’ names or the
exact dates of the implementation. If any threats to the project
exist, it is in the company’s best interest to raise the awareness
of the team responsible, in order to make them more focused
on the given problem. In the end, this new software may not
meet all requirements and expectations due to various reasons.
It is better to disclose this at the beginning, rather than to wait
until the last minute, and make the issue seem like a bolt from
the blue for system users.
 OSS/BSS Features 27

Blue-Collar
White-Collar Vertical Immediate
Type of Training New Employees Mobile Filed Skills Training
Mobile Workers Applications Response
Workers
Classroom √ √ √ √
Web-Based Virtual
√ √ √ √
Classes
Personal Trainer √ √ √
E-Training Modules √ √ √
Cheat Sheets √ √ √ √
Help Desk Training
Katarzyna
√ √
Modules Gajewska
JITT Embedded in Comarch SA
√ √ √ √
the Application Marketing&PR Specialist,
√ = Appropriate to user or application Telecommunications
  Figure 1. Training Method Comparison Business Unit

Consult new features Consult changes with engaged

Every employee will feel appreciated if you are informing
her/him about planned changes. This is especially true if
it concerns the job that they perform. Usually a delegated
team is responsible for First Site Application (FSA) tests
and the final user may not have much in common with the
new features being planned for the next release. Imagine
how they would react when coming back from holidays:
they read an email explaining how a new version of the
software was installed and the interface has changed.
Frustration along with many raised eyebrows would be
common. Questions would be asked such as: “Our bosses
don’t use this software on a daily basis! What do they
know about it?” or “On which basis was this change
requested? What for?” There are ways that may bring you
benefits while keeping end users satisfied: a Mailing list,
a dedicated website or a meeting with several agenda
points. New software should have features that the old
system did not have, features that allow users to work
faster, more effectively and most of all, make their life
easier. There is no better way to obtain this information
than from the end users themselves!
Proper communication
Everybody wants to be well informed about impending
changes. Remember that decisions should be sent in
advance. The type of application, the sophistication of
the end-user audience and the geographic distribution of
the users will create all kinds of demands. In addition to
standard classroom training, just–in-time-training cannot be
overlooked. Every training delivery mechanism is specific to
certain situations, and always comes with advantages as
well as disadvantages. In general, the entire set of training
mechanisms, as shown on the table below, is required.
Source: Gartner [Toolkit Best Practices: Training End Users].
employees
A training plan cannot be taken from a template. It must In most cases,
be well-suited to the scheduled training. It must literally be a user’s attention
“tailored” to the specific needs of the customer. Off-the-shelf span drops
training is usually a very fundamental mistake. Of course for significantly during
products which are standard and unchangeable, this course training that lasts
of action may be appropriate. However, in the real world of IT more than half
projects, such a situation is like discovering a unicorn. Project a day. For mobile
leaders should discuss use cases with workers and after the field workers who
first training sessions, the training plan should be adjusted. work in vehicles or
Maintaining and measuring workshop effectiveness is also outside all day, the
very important. Ideally, workers should be able to use at least attention span can
80% of the system’s functionalities. If there are many teams be as low as 30
to be trained, managers must measure this effectiveness minutes.
and make corrections for subsequent groups.
Constant improvement based on
feedback
Getting feedback from training participants is vital in the E-training is a cost-
process of constant improvement. Effective communication effective approach
between a trainer and system users will benefit both sides. for off-the-shelf
Using feedback forms and questionnaires after every training applications. Users
is a great practice. This can help highlight issues that may can work on their
have been overlooked during the training planning phase or own schedules
topics that users are not concerned with. and pick the
appropriate level of
difficulty.
Worst-case scenario
The worst-case scenario is providing no training at all. Poorly
trained or untrained users will cost the company significantly
more to support than well-trained employees. Workers who
are devoid of training, who spend a significant portion of their
time away from the office, and who often have networking
questions from multiple remote locations, are generally the
most expensive to support.

Comarch Technology Review   02/2010

 28 OSS/BSS Features
Boosting service innovation
– getting through the jungle of buzzwords:
SDP, service broker, orchestration,
SOA, service composition…
ommunication Service Providers (CSP) strive
C to boost service innovation to augment basic
connectivity services. They are aware that they may
need new tools to realize this goal, but are bombarded with
Ideas in brief: buzzwords, by many claiming they have the right solution.
This article suggests taking the problem-centric approach, to
SOA is a concept, avoid being drawn into the flood of new buzzwords.
tools can only
help CSPs to Currently, CSPs face two main challenges: firstly, they are
realize it pushed by Internet players, Google, Apple and alike, which may
result in rendering CSPs as dumb pipe providers. Secondly,
Right level CSPs do not receive proportional compensation for the costs
of service inflicted by the serge in data consumed by customers. The
composition is latter change makes the effect of the first even more severe.
key for effective
service reusability As a remedy, CSPs aim to refocus more on customer
applications and end customer services, instead of
Service purely on communication services. This also leads to the
component introduction of new business models, which allow CSPs to
granularity should assume a central role in the value chain. (This subject I have
match CSPs discussed in blog post [1]).
expertise
To realize this trend, CSPs need to boost the service innovation
Service catalog- rate, and this may require novel tools. This demand has been
driven fulfillment recognized by many who claim to have the right tools for CSPs.
and service The problem is that in order to market these new tools, many
execution is an buzzwords have been created. There is nothing wrong with
answer new terms introduction, as long as they help us to understand
and solve problems, but quite often they are simply used as
CSPs require marketing ploys to convince CSPs to buy tools which sport the
use cases longest list of popular buzzwords.
demonstrating
how to quickly
introduce new SOA, reusability, components, mash-ups…
services, not new
buzzwords Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is not a product, but
a concept. Even the best tool will not guarantee the benefits
Comarch Technology Review   02/2010
of SOA - it can only help you to employ this architecture.
For me, SOA is all about reusability, realized by component-
based service creation. In other words, the concept that
you can create new services from reusable building blocks.
This is, in fact, also the main concern of mash-ups. Newly
created (assembled) services can be used farther for
composing higher level services. This may lead to confusion,
as many tools assisting service composition may operate at
a different level of service composition.
Why does understanding service component granularity
matter to CSPs? CSPs are unlikely to want to compete with
developers, or even force them to change their favored
development environments, but on the contrary, aim to
leverage the creativity of a developer’s work. This means
that what, from a CSP perspective, should be treated as
an atomic service component, might, from the developer’s
viewpoint, represent a coarse-grained composite service
component. An example could be an augmented reality
application, which when simplifying, can be perceived as
composed from: a geolocation service, image recognition,
customer preference services, searching information and
overlaying the found information on top of other original
images. From the developers perspective, searching can be
a complex service leveraging indexing, key matching and
a rating service.
What is also worth realizing, is that the more fine grained
a component is, the more complicated service assembly
is. ‘Complicated’ in this context refers to requiring more IT
expertise. Although implementing SOA means replacing
cumbersome, monolithic services with composite services
built up from more fine-grained components, it does not
mean that service components should be broken down into
tiny pieces. The CSPs should only tackle service composition
which does not require programming skills, leaving more
fined grained types to developers.
 OSS/BSS Features 29

Fulfillment and execution time promising to diminish the silos problem. Another hyped term
orchestration is “Service Broker”. This name is defined by 3GPP, but there
are extensions to the 3GPP definition which add additional
New service introduction must comprise three main areas: roles, like Reverse IM-SSF and even Web 2.0 gateway.
service fulfillment, service assurance and service execution. The former is to enable IN applications to leverage new
The first two areas are well-defined process verticals on components developed on the IMS platform. The Web 2.0
the eTOM map. Service execution is simply the period when gateway includes the role of Network APIs (reference to blog
a service (after it has been ordered) is used by a customer. post “Network API – Business Models”) for web developers to
Introducing the SOA service composition concept also means leverage network assets. To depict how service broker refers
bringing in the term “orchestration”. If a service is composed to NGSDP would be a subject for a dedicated article. Lukasz Mendyk
of smaller pieces, delivering a service means leveraging Comarch SA
the functionality of these components. Orchestration is OSS Product Manager,
focused on employing the functionality of these components. Conclusion – practical approach for Telecommunications
We can identify two types of orchestration: fulfillment CSPs Business Unit
orchestration, and orchestration at the point of execution.
Fulfillment orchestration is also related to the term “order Understanding what buzzwords really mean and how
decomposition”, when the initial customer offers’ are different terms relate to each other may be somewhat
decomposed down to orders, against the components from challenging, especially when quite often there are no What is important
which a service is built up. From a technical point of view, common definitions for them. The practical approach CSPs is that the
orchestration refers to invoking the service management can take when evaluating different solutions, is to simply ask granularity of
API of the service component. Execution time orchestration for a use case for introducing a new service. The use case the components
accounts for invoking the functional API of the component should demonstrate the whole process and cover: managed by the
when a customer uses a service (during a call). These two service catalog
methods of orchestration should naturally relate to each where service composition is controlled should be limited
other, as the service execution must comply with what to the level where
a customer has ordered. This leads to the concept of the what granularity of service composition is intended to composition
common model for the fulfillment and execution environment. be managed by the CSP does not require
programming
what skills are required – how complex composition/ skills, and ought
Service catalog-driven composition orchestration definition is to enable CSP
product managers
To really enable CSPs to rapidly introduce new services, whether it embraces service fulfillment, execution and to introduce new
there should be a single location where service composition service assurance services to the
is controlled. Ideally, it ought to be a service catalog which market.
drives service order fulfillment, and by orchestrating service if it is integrated with the service catalog which drives
components, management API should define execution customer order management
orchestration. What is important is that the granularity of
the components managed by the service catalog should how easily I can reuse my existing services, and what
be limited to the level where composition does not require is required to make them service components
programming skills, and ought to enable CSP product The practical
managers to introduce new services to the market. This whether it is accompanied with design patterns approach CSPs
concept is described in my whitepaper [2]. can take when
This article may prove to be controversial, and so I encourage evaluating different
further discussion on my blog, where the article is also solutions, is to
SDP, NGSDP, service brokers… published. simply ask for a use
case for introducing
The Service Delivery Platform was initially touted as a new service.
a complete solution for CSPs to rapidly introduce new References:
services. The problem is that many SDPs turned out to
be stove-pipe SDPs, and as a result CSPs would require [1] “Seeking New Revenue Opportunities – Application
a constellation of SDPs, and so the issue of reusing service Platform Wars” Comarch blog:
components implemented on different SDPs remained. www.telcosphere.comarch.com
Then, the term “Next Generation SDP” appeared, and this
defines a solution which may be perceived as the “SDP” of [2] “Fulfilling the Promise of Component-Based Service
“SDPs”, meaning the introduction of a horizontal service layer Creation” – Comarch whitepaper

Comarch Technology Review   02/2010

 30 OSS/BSS Features

Bright future for IPTV

– are you ready?

y the end of 2010, Vodafone will present its
B proprietary IPTV offer, named Vodafone TV, at IFA.
Based on a hybrid approach, satellite and cable
signals are processed via a platform developed by Vodafone
Ideas in brief: Germany. Following Telekom and Alice, Vodafone will now be
the third provider of IP television in Germany.
What is IPTV
nowadays In light of the growing competition, the market
research enterprise Canalys sees the conventional
Requirements and telecommunications providers as under pressure to clearly
offerings of IPTV increase their average revenue per user (ARPU). According to
Canalys, many of these companies may resort to IPTV. In the
The basic future, IPTV will be an inherent part of complete service offers
structure of an to consumers.
IPTV headend
The growing competition is primarily provoked by cable
Comarch’s network providers that retrofit their cable networks for
proposal for IPTV broadband Internet, and who now want to join in the large
operators telecommunications market as quadruple players. Kabel
Deutschland (KDG), the German cable network operator, is
one example here. KDG already offers analog / digital cable
TV, broadband Internet, fixed-line telephony via Voice over IP,
as well as mobile telephony via the Telefónica O2 network.
This way, the operative business of cable TV operators and
conventional telecommunications providers equals more and
more.
Normally, IPTV is offered by a telecommunications provider
via its broadband network, with defined quality (QoS) and
fixed program bouquets, which reflect TV contents that can
be subscribed to by certain users.
The strongest motor for the spread of internet-based TV is
most definitely the development of broadband connections,
such as DSL, ADSL2, or VDSL promoted in recent years.
The transmission of TV contents in PAL or SDTV (Standard
Definition Television) quality requires a data rate with an
average of 2-6 Mbit/s. HDTV even requires bandwidths with
an average of 6-16 Mbit/s. Furthermore, it must be possible
to operate several TV sets in each household at the same
time, which would cause a respective multiplication of the
bandwidth required. Therefore, IPTV supporters forecast

ISDN, DSL, ADSL, VDSL Internet over Cable

In the future, IPTV
Internet
will be an inherent
part of complete ISDN, PSTN VoIP
service offers to Telecommunications Telephony
consumers. Provider
GSM, GPRS, UMTS GSM, GPRS, UMTS
Mobile Communications CATV
MVNO Provider
IPTV
TV, HbbTV
Television

  Figure 1. Convergence of Telecommunications and CATV providers

Comarch Technology Review   02/2010

 OSS/BSS Features 31

future demand for Internet bandwidth to reach a rate of at Video on Demand enables playing any video clip at any
least 30-50 Mbit/s per household. time

However, new technologies and improved coding procedures Hooking up multiple audio programs, foreign language
such as, for example, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC – a standard channels, subtitles
for highly efficient video compression – help to minimize
required data rates and to optimally use existing bandwidths. Interactive television (hypervideos)

So why do conventional telecommunications providers Purchase transactions and T-commerce

increasingly include IPTV in their service portfolio, and
thus take the plunge into the television world when facing Web 2.0 functions Daniel Kloppich
competition from cable network operators? Comarch SA
In fact, conventional television also tries to enhance its OSS Consultant,
functional range by means of Internet or newly established Telecommunications
So is there a future for IPTV? standards, in order to offer viewers not only the broadcasting Business Unit
of TV channels, but also innovative services. HbbTV (hybrid
While the bandwidths of Internet still grant ample scope both broadcast TV) represents a new international standard, on
in telecommunications and cable networks, the question that which leading European TV operators and companies of the
remains unanswered is: which TV medium will dominate in electronics industry agreed. This expansion of television
the future – conventional analog / digital TV or IPTV? connects broadcasting and Internet contents, and offers, Conventional
amongst others, the following services: television also
IPTV normally requires a broadband Internet connection, tries to enhance
whereas its bandwidth and the signal form (SD or HD) restrict Integrating media libraries of TV channels and Video on its functional
the simultaneous broadcast of several television channels, and Demand range by means
thus also the operation of various TV sets. Moreover, the image of Internet or
quality is often of lower quality than that of conventional analog Integration of HTML pages newly established
/ digital TV a typical television consumer is used to. standards, in order
Transparent overlay presentation on the current to offer viewers
However, IPTV currently offers viewers more than traditional television image (interactive text and image information, not only the
television image transmission. Due to the integral return menu functions, news tickers) broadcasting of TV
channel of IPTV, a variety of new functions and services channels, but also
opens up like, for example: Improved options for teletext, like high resolution innovative services.
presentation of pictures and graphics
Searching for video clips or TV channels via clear-text
queries Combination of previous TV services such as the
Electronic Program Guide (EPG), current Internet offers
Generating TV contents based on user preferences and/ of TV broadcasters, videotext
or viewer profiles

Comarch Technology Review   02/2010

 32 OSS/BSS Features

Signal processing in IPTV headends

The reception and processing of TV channels, as well as conversion for Internet, take place in so-called “headends”. An
example of signal processing by resources of an IPTV headend is given in Figure 2.
Comarch offers
a comprehensive Broadcasters (television stations or their service providers) deliver the signal either via satellite or cable connection
solution for efficient (e.g. glass fiber). Direct delivery is primarily used for adequate HD signals. The L-band matrix enables the flexible
and centralized interconnection of any inputs and outputs, so that diverse satellite signals will be transmitted to connected receivers or
IPTV channel IRDs (Integrated Receiver Decoder).
management.
This solution IRDs receive and decode the satellite signals. Since some channels are delivered in a scrambled form, additional
supports IPTV descrambling is required, using a CA (Conditional Access) module. IRDs provide two different output signals. On the one
service providers hand, a SDI (Serial Digital Interface) signal is generated with an uncompressed audio/video signal, and on the other
with connecting, hand, a compressed ASI (Asynchronous Serial Interface) signal is generated. In addition to audio and video, the ASI signal
managing and includes, for example, signal streams for service information and teletext. Direct delivery over cable can take place via
planning several various signal streams, which are then connected to different devices for further signal processing. In part, these signals
hundred TV are conducted through IRDs, as they have to be decoded.
programs, as
well as with An SDI signal delivered over cable can be directly transferred as well. For further audio/video processing, the SDI signal
inventorying and enters into the SDI router either from an IRD or from direct delivery. This router enables switching from inputs to outputs
configuring the without changes being necessary to the wiring. In the audio leveling system, the audio signal is separated from the SDI
headend devices signal (de-embedding) and the sound level is adjusted. Depending on the type of signal, additional processing steps
involved. are required. In contrast to simple stereo signals, Dolby Digital signals (e.g. AC3) have to be decoded before leveling, and
encoded again afterwards. The SDI signal is passed on from audio leveling, over an encoder router, to an encoder that
corresponds to the video format (SD or HD). The encoder converts the signal within a multiplexing process and generates
a MPEG4/AVC transport stream. This stream includes audio and video, but the EIT (Event Information Table) data required for
the EPG (Electronic Program Guide) are still missing.

Parallel to the audio/video processing, the ASI (Asynchronous Serial Interface) signal is conducted from the IRD to
a corresponding multiplexer, in which only the SI data are processed and summarized as signals with several SI streams.
These signals are analyzed in the SI subsystem, and the EIT data included in them are processed. If the TV channel
does not contain any embedded SI data, such data can be uploaded via external data sources also. The SI subsystem
processes all kinds of information and provides the necessary EIT data as an output signal. The EIT data and the MPEG4/
AVC stream are combined in an IP multiplexer. The complete transport stream is conducted over an IP switch to the
distribution platform (e.g. Microsoft Mediaroom), and from there it is distributed to customers.
Customer-
Services
facing

Transmission Path

Delivery Platorm TV Channel Distirbution Platorm

Internal Services

Receiving System Audio Leveling Encoding SI Data Processing Multiplexing IP Routing Backbone Access
Connection Connection
Resource-
Services
facing

SAT L-Band SDI Stereo SDI SD ASI ASI SI IP IP Distribution Router DSLAM CPE
Matrix IRD Router Levelling Router Encoder Router MUX Subsystem MUX Switch Server
Resources

Headend Core Network Access Network

  Figure 2. Service tree of a full Transmission Path

Comarch Technology Review   02/2010

 OSS/BSS Features 33

IPTV channel management – Comarch’s supports the IPTV operator with planning new TV channels,
approach as well as with the required headend equipment. Glossary:

TV signals are predominantly delivered by broadcasters in
various ways. They can differ, for example, with regard to
signal source, coding, scrambling, or video format. For this
reason, diverse technical devices, connections, and software
packages are applied within a headend, and connected to
each other as transmission paths for TV programs, according
to specific channels.
Comarch offers a comprehensive solution for efficient
and centralized IPTV channel management. This solution
supports IPTV service providers with connecting, managing
and planning several hundred TV programs, as well as
with inventorying and configuring the headend devices
involved. In the Comarch Resource Inventory, all headend
devices, their parameters, software licenses, as well as
physical connections between the devices, are stored and
managed. In addition to these physical objects, broadcaster
information, as well as the profile data of the TV channel
(e.g. name, language, genre, etc.) are saved. The Comarch
Service Inventory stores the structure of TV channels as
service templates. A service template is modeled with
regard to the channel characteristics and groups the various
devices required for realizing a channel type. Based on these
service templates, new TV channels can be easily created
as a service in the system. Furthermore, Comarch’s solution
KnowHow Trouble Ticketing
BSS (3rd party)
Database system (3rd party)
The configuration of headend equipment is guaranteed by ADSL2 –
Comarch Configuration Management. Device configurations are Asymmetrical Digital
also saved and managed in the form of templates. This way, Subscriber Line 2
different templates can be created for one device and assigned
to TV channels. Thus, it is possible, for example, to allocate ARPU – Average
a template to the encoder of a sports channel with its specific Revenue per User
configuration parameters. The respective configuration of the
devices is transferred to such devices using the Comarch ASI – Asynchronous
Mediation Platform. This way, the system can automatically Serial Interface
carry out a complete channel connection and the adequate
configuration of the devices required for the respective CA – Conditional
channel in the headend. Furthermore, the actual configuration Access
of devices can be gathered and compared with the target
configuration stored in the system, in order to resultantly detect CATV – Cable TV
discrepancies and avoid misconfiguration of the TV channel.
Comarch OSS Process Management automates the different DSL – Digital
operations with respect to channel connection, channel Subscriber Line
deactivation, and the transfer of configurations.
EIT – Event
Additionally, Comarch’s IPTV Channel Management solution Information Table
can be upgraded with the Service Assurance solution. In
doing so, the Comarch Mediation Platform collects alarm EPG – Electronic
signals and performance data from headend equipment, and Program Guide
informs the administrator about possible service impact, in
order to ensure the proper broadcasting of TV programs. H.264/MPEG-4 AVC
– Advanced Video
Coding
HbbTV – Hybrid
Other systems Broadcast TV

HDTV – High
Definition TV
Enhanced Communication Bus
Reusable components of
Comarch OSS
IPTV – Internet
Comarch OSS Process management
Protocol Television
Comarch Service Comarch Resource Comarch Planning Comarch Configuration
Inventory Management Inventory Management Module Management

Authentication IRD – Integrated

Service
Receiver Decoder

Network Provisioning & Reconciliation

...
Comarch OSS Reporting
PAL – Phase
... ...
...
& WEB Console Service
Alternating Line
Enhanced Communication Bus
SDTV – Standard
Comarch OSS Notification System
Definition Television
Mediation Mediation Mediation Mediation Mediation Mediation PlatforM & Escalation Repository &
Device Device Device Device Device (CORBA, JDBC, SNMP, XML, Proprietary) Service Configuration

SDI – Serial Digital

Interface

IRD Encoder Switch

VDSL – Very High
Headend devices
EMS 3rd party system
Network Environment
Speed Digital
Subscriber Line
  Figure 3. Comarch’s solution for IPTV Channel Management

Comarch Technology Review   02/2010

 34 OSS/BSS Features
Why use Plain Old Inventory Management if you
no longer sell Plain Old Telephone Services?
f we look to the future of Communications Service
I Providers, we will see LTE technologies emerging
with constantly increasing power. Among others,
The plain old the new technologies were designed to make networks
inventory more flexible, adaptable and cheaper to deploy. The time
management required for enabling new services shrinks from weeks to
systems, seen as days, and maybe even hours.
databases storing
network element Delivering services to the customer requires several coarsely
configurations and grained steps being performed through different operations
network topology, departments. These departments use dedicated systems,
decorated with usually from different vendors, to perform their tasks. That’s
some wizards for today’s future. Today’s past relates to how all these
and consistency sophisticated and full-featured systems do not integrate
checks, simply do seamlessly. Each stores its own data (often relating to the
not fit anymore. same things) in separate databases and in different formats.
Interfaces cut out advanced functionalities, simply because
they are not flexible enough. The data exchange is often a
(inverted) trade-off between complexity and reliability - less
complexity, less reliability.
Comarch Technology Review   02/2010
Future-proof inventory management
We live in exciting times, when some terms require
redefinition. The plain old inventory management systems,
seen as databases storing network element configurations
and network topology, decorated with some wizards and
consistency checks, simply do not fit anymore.
The following questions will help us to draw borders, for what
is future-proof inventory management.
Do you know your network?
What You See Is What You (have) Got. This well-known
acronym describes a system in which content displayed
during editing appears within the final output. In the case
of an inventory system, this applies to systems, accurately
reflecting important network and service structures.
Unfortunately, synchronizing the state of the real network
with its virtual representation in the inventory is not a trivial
 OSS/BSS Features 35

Ideas in brief:

Why the
‘inventory
management
system’ term
needs to be
redefined

Some useful
questions that
will help you
recognize future-
proof inventory
management
systems

What builds
the perfect
ecosystem for
inventory data

task, for it usually involves thousands of elements being
scanned, and their model representation created and
compared with corresponding data in the inventory. And still,
this is the only way.
Can you plan your network?
Every day, engineers must plan network development.
They try to predict the future to satisfy growing customer
demands, or to prepare for large-scale events lasting several
days. In each case, they need to try out new configurations
in connection to the current network state, although not
influencing it. The plans also need to be validated, yet the
character of the plans differs from that of the operational
data. Plans can be incomplete, even invalid – that’s perfectly
fine. There still, however, must be a degree of validation
allowing planners to work efficiently.
Do you control your network?
We do not only create plans, we also execute them. Some
plans deal with hardware to be added or dismissed, others
with software or hardware configurations. Networks are
heterogeneous organisms, built from thousands of elements
from different vendors. The manifold of networks creates
problems with many vendor-specific configurations, and the
only effective way to cope with it, is to configure network
using generic models, and let the system translate it to
vendor-specific parlance. Paweł Sabina
Comarch SA
Can you do so in a consistent and automated way? OSS Solution Manager,
Are you aware of the details for introducing a new base Telecommunications
station? Finding the location, leasehold, construction, Business Unit
hardware/software deployment, configuration etc. - single
tasks performed by operations departments which comprise
a greater process. You should be able to define, manage,
automate and optimize network and service processes,
according to business and technical rules.

Comarch
Comarch Technology
Technology Review 
Review   02/2010
 01/2010
 36 OSS/BSS Features

The unique Comarch Inventory ecosystem

combination of
the following With Comarch OSS Suite modules composed together, you can reply YES to all these questions. The unique combination of the
Comarch OSS following Comarch OSS Suite components: Reconciliation, Inventory Management, Planning and Provisioning & Configuration
Suite components: Management, build the perfect ecosystem for your inventory data.
Reconciliation,
Inventory And this is how:
Management,
Planning and
Provisioning
& Configuration
Inventory management Inventory planning
Management,
build the perfect
ecosystem for your
inventory data. Plan

Inventory
Operational

Generic model + vendor-specific data

Data
Network
State Delta
ion
liat
nci
o

Provis
Rec

Config
Mana

ionintgion
geme
ura nt
&
Live Network
State
(Generic)
Conversion

Each stores its own

data in separate
Vendor specific data
databases and in
different formats.
Interfaces cut Process Technician
Live Network
out advanced State (Vendor
functionalities, specific)
simply because
they are not flexible
enough. Sca
nni
ng
Network

  Figure 1. Comarch Inventory ecosystem

Comarch Technology Review   02/2010


Knowing the network…
To know the network, means to have an insight into its very
workings. Comarch’s Reconciliation component is able to
scan the network, employing a rich mediation layer.
Accurate inventory requires continuous scanning of the
network in search of changes. Indeed, LTE claims network
equipment of the future will report their statuses over the
common Northbound Interface. At this moment, however –
and in the near future – we will still rely on network scanning.
Comarch reconciliation employs powerful multi-vendor
mediation, so you will never need to work with an outdated
network inventory. This also has business implications.
Accurate inventory leads to reduced OPEX, through better
organization of tasks and limiting unnecessary onsite visits.
Planning the network…
Comarch OSS Planning seamlessly integrates with inventory
components. This means you can plan using accurate data
from an operational inventory. Moreover, planned executions
can be verified (and measured), because the inventory
always contains accurate data – thanks to the Reconciliation
component.
Planning is a long-running process, and you can expect
incomplete or even invalid data within them. On the other
hand, plans are made on an operational inventory, which
treats invalid data as errors. To cope with this dual-opposing
assumption, Comarch Inventory employs multilevel
validation; a configurable set of check-rules reporting issues
depending on the network context (operational, planning,
strategic).
Controlling the network…
Controlling a network, consisting of thousands of network
elements, from different vendors, in a consistent way is only
possible using umbrella systems. Such systems employ
dedicated mediators for particular network element types.
This seems like the perfect solution, yet to be so, another
level of abstraction is needed. Furthermore, bringing all the
mediators under the hut is surely cost-effective, but it doesn’t
necessarily resolve the problem of many vendor-specific
configurations. In the case of Comarch Reconciliation and
Provisioning & Configuration Management, it does. These
Comarch Inventory employs multilevel validation; a configurable set of check-rules reporting
issues depending on the network context (operational, planning, strategic).
Comarch Technology Review   02/2010
OSS/BSS Features 37
modules work with two layers of element parameters: You should be
generic – homogenous for the given element type, and able to define,
vendor-specific. In this way, inventory management tasks manage, automate
can be performed the same way, regardless of who delivers and optimize
the equipment. Such generic parameters are automatically network and
transformed to vendor-specific configuration. In this way, service processes,
inventory management tasks can be performed the same according to
way, regardless of who delivers the equipment. Nevertheless, business and
specific vendor configurations are also stored in the technical rules.
inventory, and thus are accessible if needed. The necessary
simplifications are introduced on purpose: resignation of
some vendor-specific attributes helps achieving business
benefits: reduced CAPEX - no need to buy separate vendor-
specific software; reduced OPEX - due to less onsite visits
and simplified configuration.
In an automated and controlled way
All the aforementioned components of the Comarch
OSS Suite cooperate perfectly, in terms of data flow, and
the natural consequence of this is wrapping all these
components (and activities) with processes. OSS processes
are, by nature long-running - lasting hours, days, months
or in many cases, years. Their elements vary from highly
detailed tasks manipulating data in the inventory, to coarsely
grained types, like invoking services to tasks performed by
humans. Comarch’s processes integrate seamlessly with all
Comarch OSS Suite components, acting as a central point
of management and automation. And from the business
perspective, you should be able to remove ‘the integration
tax’ (cost and time inefficiencies created by disintegrated
systems) from business processes, and provide enhanced
integration and improved efficiency of these processes. No
more forgotten tasks, nor work duplication.
Inventory management system revisited
This paper highlights that we can no longer refer to an
inventory management system as a slightly more intelligent
database for network element configurations. The bleeding
edge inventory system is merely an organism of perfectly
connected components, building a data ecosystem. This is
especially valid in the context of upcoming LTE deployments
which, to fully exploit their features, will require powerful
Operation Support Systems.
 38 Telcosphere blog

Unlimited data plans

– disappearing into extinction?

Many operators have already removed their offerings of unlimited mobile data plans, and
replaced them with new plans that have a monthly data quota (in the case that the quota
is exceeded by the subscriber, an additional fee is paid to the operator). The reason for the
removal of such unlimited data plans, is because data service revenues are not covering the
network investment and maintenance costs for handling the growing amount of traffic.

While traffic expansion for mobile data services can reach
50% CAGR until the year 2014, the actual revenue growth from
Pekka Valitalo data services may only amount to 13% CAGR for the same
Comarch SA time period (source: OVUM).
BSS Market Analyst,
Telecommunications The subscribers already used to the “freedom” of unlimited
Business Unit data plans may of course be annoyed by such a change
(e.g. no more video streaming). Despite the fact that
current contracts will not usually be affected (thus, existing
customers still have the chance to benefit from limitless data
usage until the end of the contract period), new subscribers
will have the “privilege” of choosing a new, limited data plan,
and will potentially have to change their usage habits.
Introduction of a monthly data quota will also have an
effect on the businesses of third party service providers.
For example, streaming services such as YouTube and
Spotify will suffer from the data caps, because subscribers
will have to pay more attention to their mobile data usage.
Of course, third party service providers can cooperate
with the operators (e.g. video on-demand with guaranteed
bandwidth) via a revenue-sharing scenario, where the
operator charges a specific fee from the service provider.
On the other hand, the removal of unlimited data plans brings
additional revenue opportunities for operators. Mobile data
offerings can be customized, basing on individual subscriber
habits. For example, expect to see the following types of
promotions in the near future: “6 hours of smartphone web
surfing for 10 EUR per month”, “Facebook-only mobile data
services for 5 EUR per month” and “2 hours of YouTube
viewing (with high bandwidth and no latency) for 8 EUR
per month”. These examples can be offered as an add-on
service, or as an individual data service. A customer may
only be interested in using his smartphone for updating his
Facebook status, as opposed to using it for visiting other
websites too.
Are you willing to pay extra for your favorite services? Will
the removal of unlimited data plans affect your smartphone
usage habits?

Comarch Technology Review   02/2010

 Telcosphere blog 39

Murphy’s Law in 21st century

telecommunications

A thought-provoking thing occurred during the TM Forum webinar I led last week on
a cloud computing CRM solution. Both I and the other moderators were dialed-in to
a conference bridge, each of us calling from a different country (the audience was
connected via a live audio stream). When I finished my segment of the presentation,
the other presenter started his part.

Pawel Lamik
Comarch SA
CRM and Self Care
Product Manager,
Telecommunications
Business Unit

After perhaps 30 or 40 seconds, his connection was lost. As
this was a live event, I had to take over and continue with his
slides until the end of the show. It was an exciting experience.
Thank goodness I had reviewed the slides beforehand.
Afterwards, I had an afterthought:
Murphy’s Law is alive and well – always be prepared for
the least probable occurrence. Fight the thinking: it’s so
unlikely to happen, not now, not today, not to me
21st century communications is great – take online
meetings – people from different countries and time
zones can gather, share thoughts and exchange ideas,
without even leaving their desk. I do think, however,
that the webinar formula should be developed and
made more interactive (as it stands, the typical webinar
format is one-to-many communication, with questions
from the audience posed via chat)
Alas, 21st century communications is still surprisingly
far from being perfect. Connections are lost. Trust gets
undermined. I’m not surprised webinar organizers
conservatively require the call to be made on a fixed,
non-VoIP phone, due to the required high reliability and
extensive quality. Think about it when you have an
important call to make
Have you ever had a similar experience? What is your view on
this matter?

Comarch Technology Review   02/2010

 40 Telcosphere blog

Why doing your laundry

can be a lot like talking on the phone

Companies representing the energy industry are focusing more and more on
telecommunications, including us and the things we do. One might think that our industry
Krzysztof fascinates them, because as their sector develops, they begin to see similarities between
Kwiatkowski
Comarch SA
their own business and the world of telecommunications. You may be wondering: how does
BSS Product Manager, voice even remotely relate to electricity? Where are the similarities?
Telecommunications
Business Unit
Yet there are many. Even if you are not currently able to see We turn on the light or the TV and everything works. The
them very clearly, they may well soon emerge. electrical meter rotates more quickly or slowly, yet we do
not analyze it or view it as a complicated process. Beyond
We all realize how vast the industry related to production, individual users, there are larger consumers of energy,
transmission and retail of electrical energy is. Everybody such as factories, supermarkets and various others.
both benefits from and pays for it. Sometimes these bills are Large enterprises do not use the same amount of energy
higher than those you receive from your telecom operator. all the time, either. All of this leads to the point that the

Comarch Technology Review   02/2010


overall consumption of energy, on a nationwide scale,
is highly changeable. One day it may increase, and the
next decrease. It also differs from one time of the day to
another. However, power plants produce energy relatively
steadily, and turning its individual grids on and off is in fact
complicated and costly. Therefore, there are some attempts
to predict energy consumption for the following day. Various
factors are taken into account, even the weather forecasts.
It’s quite obvious - when the weather is cloudy or it rains,
people turn the lights on, when it is hot, they turn on the
air conditioning. Nonetheless, there are always some
shortages or surpluses of energy on the market. Both cause
enormous losses, because the surplus of electrical energy
cannot be cumulated and used when faced with shortages.
Furthermore, gigantic batteries do not exist.
This leads on to the concept that scientists are currently
working on entitled “smart grids”. These are somewhat
substantial revolutionary measures for the entire system of
transmitting and receiving energy, which I will not describe
in detail. For many energy recipients in Europe, the first
perceptible symptom of introducing smart grids is the
exchange of electrical meters for so called smart meters.
These are electrical meters that measure the usage of
energy at a given moment, and then send this information to
a central device. As a result, people or companies are able to
pay for energy usage according to their exact consumption
(as opposed to the current situation – according to certain
annual estimates). Also, it will enable the diversification of
energy prices depending on the time of day.
And it is here where the first similarity to the
telecommunications world is visible.
Have you ever wondered why operators never offer “cheap
Wednesday” tariffs, whilst they do advertise “cheap
weekends” or “cheap evenings”? Initially, this was due to the
fact that the network was not being used by large companies
at these times, meaning they could be offered to private
customers – and at the same time it encouraged them to
use the network at these specific times more frequently
than during the day. Further down the line, network usage
problems were no longer a problem and it evolved into a
purely marketing-driven activity. I mean, who would decide to
go for a tariff with “cheap Wednesdays”?
Introducing this novel means of measuring energy usage
could render it possible (through the diversification of prices)
to encourage people to e.g. do their washing at the weekend
and save energy during the week, thus allowing companies
Telco Sphere blog - a place to share ideas on the developments in the telecom world:
telcosphere.comarch.com
Comarch Technology Review   02/2010
Telcosphere blog 41
to use it during the working week. How it will actually affect
the balancing of energy usage remains to be seen. There is
one more thing, however.
The second similarity lies in the introduction of new
regulations for the energy industry by the EU. It creates clear
segmentation into energy manufacturers, energy network
operators and energy suppliers, who sell energy. When
discussing the similarity to the world of telecommunications,
I was referring to the latter. Energy suppliers purchase
energy from the manufacturers and transmit it via a “rented”
network. The deregulation means that new suppliers can be
established freely, and can compete with each other on the
common market. There is a similarity here, as deregulation
of the telecom market led to increased competition among
operators, also.
It would be fairly difficult to convince someone that “our
electricity is better”. The main factor will be the price; or
rather its adjustment to our individual needs through special
offers/discounts, or weekend and evening rates etc. When
this finally happens, the offers of energy suppliers may well
become more comparable to those of telecom operators,
will come in packages and will be customized to consumers’
needs. Perhaps one day we will receive free energy minutes
for doing our laundry at the weekend? Almost everything
that goes on in relation to formulating private and corporate
offers in telecommunications is closely monitored by energy
suppliers.
How the market will develop and how we will pay for energy
usage, will depend on development in each country,
individually.
For example, in Italy, smart metering has been working
for some time now for the majority of the population, with
an energy provider capable of remotely turning the power
on and off for the customer, detecting service outage or
unauthorized usage of electricity, setting the maximum
amount of energy that the customer may consume at any
time, and remotely switching price plans between credit,
prepaid, flat-rate and others. Doesn’t it remind you of the
telecommunications sphere?
In addition, similarities are also visible in the technologies
employed, for example, the idea to use telecommunications
signaling (SIP, to be specific) as “signaling for electricity”.
These are, in fact, not only ideas – there are numerous
studies on this topic and a vast array of real cases. However,
there are technical issues that require discussion elsewhere.
 42 Technology & Innovation
Performance in action
ustomers require a better quality of software.
C They also need improved performance of business
processes. High availability is a standard
requirement. It calls for more and more testing. How do
you perform increased testing in a more diversified test
environment?
For Comarch, it is of paramount importance to provide bug-
free software to its customers. Any qualified specialist in the
software testing industry could tell you that this is impossible
without increasing the costs of testing to the highest level.
It is highly important that the architecture of the Comarch
Sylwester BSS Suite platform allows scalability. However, it is also
Oskwarek important to analyze the system periodically. When
Comarch SA it is growing, new processes are designed and new
User Experience Manager, functionalities are added, and the architects of the
Business Development platform have to think about how to avoid degradation
Center of performance. Comarch performs such monitoring
and analyzes even the smallest changes to hardware
configuration and the data model.
Paweł Kasza
Senior BSS Engineer
Comarch
Comarch Technology Review   02/2010
This is true. However, we are obliged to search for the most
effective method of system testing, every day.
In July 2010, in accordance with this concept, Comarch
ran a set of tests at the IBM Innovation Center, on the key
elements of the Comarch BSS Suite platform.
The tests performed on the Linux platform, incur the following
conclusions:
Low-cost hardware suffices (and is ready
for use on an enterprise level) for typical
Tier 1 and Tier 2 communication service providers.
The tested hardware configuration displayed
a significant margin of performance
• Tests were performed using low-cost servers, typical
of most data centers currently operating: HS22 Blade
Servers (2x X5570 processors) with Linux as an
operating system. The servers were equipped with
only 25% of possible RAM
• The virtual storage used for testing was based on
the IBM® XIV Storage System®, which was equipped
with only 72 discs (180 discs being the possible
maximum). Testing utilized only 15% of the maximum
I/O performance available for this configuration

The whole billing cycle (five substantial processes) was
tested for 2, 5, 10 and 20 million postpaid subscribers.
Process performance showcased linear scalability
Testing highlighted that excessive billing cycle
processing (20 million subscribers) has no impact
on the CRM system. The response times of the CRM
screens for when the billing processes were running
and were stopped, were identical
For 400 concurrent sessions, all average response
times for the CRM screens were below 0.5 seconds
(the results were irrespective of the number of
subscribers in the database)
The performance of real-time charging did not indicate
a dependence on the number of prepaid subscribers in
the system, however it showcased linear scalability
One HS22 server (2x X5570 processors, 24GB RAM)
sufficed for processing 5 million subscribers at
a speed of 5200 transactions per second. To process
more subscribers using the same performance, it
was sufficient to extend RAM without changing the
processors
The BHCA1 for real-time charging was 9.36 million
How the tests were performed?
Prior to testing at the IBM Innovation Center we ran a set of
in-house tests. These indicated that an extremely low-cost
solution, for 1 million subscribers, is possible using Comarch
Convergent Billing and that the entire billing cycle, with
PC-class computer, lasts no more than 24 hours. The solution
is sufficient for most start-up operators.
It was very important for us to run the tests with complex
architecture and configuration. We wanted to ensure for
our customers that there is no impact on performance
When the new version of the system is tested, it can be
assumed with very high certainty that hidden problems
will start to reveal themselves. A more diverse test
environment increases the likelihood of their detection.
Therefore, following our own testing at the Comarch Data
Center we ran heavy load and performance tests at the
IIC. The probability of finding a bug in Comarch Real Time
Charging has to be decreased to an absolute minimum.
Krzysztof Kwiatkowski
Product Manager of the Comarch BSS Suite,
Comarch
Comarch Technology Review   02/2010
Technology & Innovation 43
when Comarch CRM for Telecoms is loaded by hundreds
of concurrent users, whilst simultaneously rating the IBM Innovation
processes of tens of millions of subscribers’ when Comarch Center (IIC) in
Convergent Billing is running. For testing, we defined a typical Warsaw offers a
configuration of tariff plans with voice, SMS, MMS and data wealth of resources
for both corporate and individual customers, including including technical
roaming and non-roaming events. expertise, marketing
and sales facilities
We value the concept of the IBM Innovation Centers, which and skills, access
states: “Test with us, not on the customer”. We tested the to IBM hardware
Comarch BSS Suite platform with several different hardware and software, as
configurations and levels of data in the databases. well as training
opportunities.
We also tested the high availability under the huge load of Business partners
the system. For example, we tested crashing of the master and customers
server of Comarch Real Time Charging and switchover to the can visit IIC to host
replica. Following the crash of the server, we measured the lead generation
time required for system recovery. Also, after the restart, we and sales closure
tested the switchover from replica to master server again. meetings,
During these tests, the replica was loaded continuously by collaborate
thousands of transactions per second. The results were with local IBM
as expected. The master server was restarted and the sales teams, IT
thousands of calls were switched from replica to the master. consultants and
industry subject
When the tests ran within normal operation of the system matter experts, who
incurred acceptable results, we started to measure system are ready to provide
performance and scalability when the amount of data to hands-on support
be processed was increased. It is a common situation in for the development
the software industry that the performance of the system projects.
calibrated at the beginning decreases as the amount of data
grows. The algorithms have to process more data, the functions ibm.com/pl/iic
in the systems are executed significantly more times, and the
final result is that the system works more slowly. Therefore, this
test is very important in a real life scenario.
Tested platform: Comarch BSS Suite
Tested elements of the platform:
Comarch Convergent Billing
Comarch Real Time Charging
Comarch CRM for Telecoms
Comarch’s engineers spent 6 weeks at the IBM Innovation Center running hundreds of
tests. The support of the IBM hardware specialists was invaluable. Furthermore, all of the
work carried out for the customer ensured the quality of the system, which guaranteed
smoothness and performance management by parameters, thus minimizing the possibilities
of over-scaled infrastructure.
1
BHCA – Busy Hours Call Attempts
 44 Technology & Innovation

Improving the scalability of modern

web-based software systems

owadays, the scalability of software systems, (actor model), distributed task execution and dispersed data
N considered as their ability to handle growing
amounts of work, is of great importance. Modern,
storage.

web-based applications should often handle thousands

of requests per second, and it’s impossible to achieve this
throughput without rapidly-operating hardware and well-
designed systems with the ability to be enlarged. Methods
of adding more hardware resources for use by applications,
fall into two categories: improving one physical node by
replacing a processor with the most rapid version and
adding more memory (which is known as vertical scaling
or scale-up) and augmenting more physical nodes to the
system, or increasing the number of processors on every
node (horizontal scaling or scale-out). Vertical scaling is
Wojciech highly limited (because of Moore’s law), so to achieve true
Durczyński scalability, the system must be designed to work on many
Comarch SA physical machines with multiple processors. There are
Software Developer, many concepts regarding how to cluster applications and
Telco BSS R&D allow them to grow in response to the greater demands
of processing throughput. Some of them include scalable
programming language, an event-driven concurrency model
Scala – a scalable language
Scala is a modern, multi-paradigm programming language
designed to ease the writing of highly-concurrent applications.
It was created in 2001, by Martin Odersky, and its popularity
among Java programmers is rising. Scala programs are
compiled to Java classes, and run on JVM. Scala code can
be invoked from Java and vice versa, which allows seamless
integration of Scala modules in existing Java applications, and
using well-known Java libraries in Scala.
Scala was designed to express common programming
patterns in a concise, elegant and type-safe way. It supports
multiple inheritance (by using mixin classes – traits), has
mechanisms for avoiding nulls, a great collections library,
powerful implicit conversions and many other improvements.
Also, Scala as a hybrid object-functional language, grants

Vertical scaling
is highly limited IMDG
(because of
Moore’s law), so
to achieve true Relational DB
scalability, the Application nodes
system must
be designed to
work on many
physical machines
with multiple
Application
processors. node
Reverse
proxy

Non scalable architecture scalable architecture

  Figure 1. Difference between the scalable and non-scalable architecture.

Comarch Technology Review   02/2010


the ability to define functions as variables, pass functions
to other functions as arguments, and to take advantage
of pattern matching. All these features of Scala make
programming easier, and allow for shorter and simpler code.
The concurrency model in Scala is based on Erlang’s actor
model, which treats “actors” as the universal primitives
of concurrent digital computation. “Actors” share no state
information with each other. Instead, they communicate by
exchanging immutable messages. By eliminating the need to
synchronize access to shared, mutable states, it is far easier
to write robust, concurrent applications.
Akka – powerful actor model
Another powerful implementation of the actor model is
contained in Akka. Akka extends Scala’s actor model and
allows for fine-tuning actors in a desirable manner. Some of
the new additions that Akka provides include supervision
of actors (restarting them in the case of failure), changing
actors’ behavior in response to messages, and load
balancing messages between actors grouped in a pool.
Akka also enables creating remote actors transparently,
and contains an implementation of Software Transactional
Memory (STM) based on Multiverse. STM turns a Java heap
into a transactional data set, and assures atomic and
consistent modifications of it. Akka provides API in Scala and
in Java, and so can be used successfully, even without Scala.
Distributed Databases – the best way of
storing huge amounts of data
If an application is written in a scalable and distributed
format, usually one bottleneck remains - a database.
Very often, all data is stored in one place (for example, in
an Oracle database) and cannot be easily divided into
unrelated pieces, mostly because of aggregated queries
used in reporting. Even if the database server is extremely
fast, it can’t process queries as quickly as distributed data
storage would. To bypass this restriction some distributed
databases were implemented. The most important of these
are Cassandra (used by Facebook, open source), BigTable
(based on the Google File System and used by Google,
proprietary) and HBase (based on the Hadoop File System,
open source). These databases are designed to work in
a fail-safe manner, among many physical nodes, and using
them significantly improves the scalability of applications.
Distributed databases are usually non-sql databases, and
provide a map-like interface for reading and writing data.
They also commonly provide map-reduce implementations
for fast aggregation queries involving all data. Using
Comarch Technology Review   02/2010
Technology & Innovation 45
distributed databases allows storing petabytes of data on If an application
thousands of physical nodes, which is impossible to achieve is written in
with relational sql-based databases. a scalable and
distributed format,
usually one
In Memory Data Grids – extremely rapid bottleneck remains
data access – a database.
Another solution enabling data distribution is In Memory
Data Grids (IMDG). They are very similar to distributed
databases, but hold the data in memory. This allows them
to be extremely rapid, but restricts data size to the amount
of RAM on all physical nodes that create an IMDG cluster.
The most interesting distributed memory databases are
Oracle Coherence (commercial), Hazelcast (open source) REFERENCES:
and JBoss Infinispan (open source). IMDG nodes can usually
be embedded in an application, and do not require separate Scala
dedicated servers. Besides providing quick data access, http://www.scala-lang.
IMDG often provides additional functionality. For example, org/
Hazelcast provides the implementation of a distributed
Executor Service, easy-to-use http session clustering, and Akka
encrypted communication between nodes. http://akkasource.org/
Apache
Reverse Proxy – load balancing and Cassandra
security for web applications http://cassandra.
apache.org/
Last, but not least, for a solution that helps improving
the scalability of web-based software systems a reverse HBase
proxy can be used. If the system is composed of many http://hbase.apache.
nodes, the proxy allows balancing the load between them, org/
and automatically switches HTTP traffic to a different
node when one goes down. This allows disabling certain Google BigTable
application nodes, and upgrades them unnoticeably. Proxy http://labs.google.com/
also improves security by separating applications from the papers/bigtable.html
Internet, and providing numerous security improvements
like: introducing HTTPS, recognition of SQL Injection, DoS Hazelcast
and other popular attacks, access filtering based on IP or http://www.hazelcast.
geographical location of the client, and many others. One com/
of the most powerful reverse proxy implementations is
embedded in the Apache Http Server (open source). JBoss Infinispan
http://www.jboss.org/
There are other ways of improving the scalability of web- infinispan/
based applications, in addition to the aforementioned. Their
usefulness depends on the chosen application model. For Oracle Coherence
small, real-time web systems, considerable improvements http://www.oracle.
include IMDG for improving data access speed, and a reverse com/us/products/
proxy for heightening reliability. For large, multi-user systems middleware/coherence/
with many physical nodes and high amounts of data, using index.html
a distributed database seems a wise choice. Scalable
language and the actor model improve the readability and Apache Http Server
supportability of any application, and are undoubtedly http://httpd.apache.org/
recommended.
 46 COMMENTARY
Relation after Comarch BSS/CRM/OSS
Workshops in Stockholm
Local workshops presenting a vendor’s portfolio and
capabilities are a great supplement to global events such
as trade shows or forums (like Mobile World Congress or
Marcin Mizgalski Telemanagement World in Nice). Considering that global
Comarch SA events limit the number of participants (usually targeting the
Business Development CXO level, or being either too big or too general), the focus of
Manager, presentations is often quite diversified. On the other hand,
Telecommunications local events offer the possibility to invite engineers interested
Business Unit in a particular subject matter and provide a way to overcome
logistical obstacles (meetings organized in an operator’s city,
no travel restrictions).
Workshops were organized for the first time on the
Scandinavian market and took place in the spring of 2010 in
Stockholm. The agenda, divided into two separate sessions
(OSS on the first day and BSS/CRM on the second day),
allowed Comarch to introduce its portfolio, focus on specific
business cases and present how the design of particular
modules can suit various business cases. Such an approach
helped participants better understand the capabilities of
our solutions, the experience of engineers, and allowed
participants to consider new challenges and possibilities
in the telecommunications market. This professional and
technical focus involved participants in active discussions
and served to help identify services for future elaboration.
Comarch Technology Review   02/2010
From the OSS point of view, the most interesting technical
issues for future discussions were related to comprehensive
Next Generation Network & Service Management systems
as well as the Service Assurance approach and QoS policies
for mobile traffic. In turn, the BSS session exposed areas of
interest such as Master Resource Management and Central
Product Catalogue, solutions for supporting M2M business
cases and Convergent CRM.
Furthermore, attendance by customers using Comarch
solutions and services was very helpful for the rest of
the participants, as it gave them an opportunity to verify
Comarch’s quality of cooperation with its business partners.
The workshops in Scandinavia have certainly helped us
to improve the processes involved in making such events
more efficient and interesting for technical engineers.
Such an approach is being continued this year in the DACH
and Benelux regions. Following a positive feedback from
participants, we will endeavor to organize a second edition of
the workshops in Scandinavia next year.
Resources
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experts that make us one
of the industry’s thought leaders.

Browse online the recent white papers,

watch the webcasts and tune to our blog.

telecoms.comarch.com
 Showing ROI on Service
3G investments bundling
Showing return
Migration on short-term
to 4G/LTE investments

Cost Increase

your
reduction ARPU

Managing
B2B
customers
partnerships M2M

Mobile
broadband
Managing new
services
Dealing with excessive Pricing
data consumption

Dont’ lose focus on what is REALLY important

– YOUR CUSTOMERS

The communications market is constantly changing – there are more and more areas in your business that require
professional support. With 17 years of experience Comarch is able to help you answer the current challenges and address
them with a solution that is best suited to a particular area. Our OSS/BSS systems have already helped many operators
worldwide. We will assist you with managing all your business areas so you can stay focused on your customers.

COMARCH – solutions focused on customers

telecom-solutions.comarch.com