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By
Trevor Hayes
A good SDP solution makes it possible for a CSP to define and deploy all of the network and service elements required to deliver innovative services with incredible speed and cost-effectiveness. An SDP makes launching new services an absolute snap, doesn’t it?
Sure does. Well, maybe. A few years ago, the SDP concept made a lot of sense. CSPs ran several different types of network, each with specific functionality that supported certain services. It was also conventional wisdom that new services offered by CSPs should be deployed, managed, and billed using the same OSS/BSS environment used for everything else. It was held to be of utmost importance for a CSP to have a single view of the customer, and for the customer to have an entire bundle of services all billed in the same way by the local friendly CSP. Because services depended on specific network functionality, a standardized platform that supported service creation and deployment could be very helpful.
The concept of an SDP works best in the context that there are many different kinds of networks, and only some services work on some networks. The concept also includes the necessity of connecting these transactions to specific pre-existing OSS and BSS components that can handle the unique provisioning and billing aspects of each service. This is still the case for most CSPs. Those CSPs, therefore, need a way to get the right network elements involved in providing the requested service. Orchestration is required to identify the customer, identify the service requested, validate entitlements and subscriptions, alert the right network elements, and initiate the transaction.
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An SDP makes launching new services an absolute snap, doesn’t it? Well, maybe. |
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handle complex (read “expensive”) multi-vendor transactions and settlements.
However, maybe there are some assumptions in this story that should be questioned, and some awkward questions that need to be asked. I sometimes feel like a visitor from another planet, when I find myself asking my CSP buddies: “Exactly what are these ‘innovative services’ of which you speak, earthling?” The earthlings always tell me something along the lines that the company’s top priority is to reach up into the content layer. My interpreter tells me this really means they want to run websites offering useful information, applications, and media. That covers just about everything out there on the web, including social networking and merchant sites.
Cool. I have no problem with phone companies diversifying into those areas, as long as they don’t lose sight of the need to
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For CSPs still living with those challenges, and with those business assumptions, SDPs can still accelerate deployment of new services, reduce risk, and reduce costs. Good idea, So it is easy to understand why every CSP must have an SDP, and an SCE, all accompanied by Provisioning and Billing systems that can
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keep my Internet access and wireless phone service humming along smoothly and at a reasonable price. (Actually, they have a bit of work to do in both those areas, so I hope not too many people are being deployed onto reinventing Facebook.)
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