The demand for new, easily accessible Internet services, along with high-speed Internet access technologies, is increasing rapidly. That's good news for service providers. They can extend their offerings beyond basic network services to include value-added services like VPNs, VoIP and specialized application services.
But to ensure customer retention and continue on the exponential growth curve toward greater market share, service providers need to meet customer demand for these new services, and exceed customer expectations for user access services.
Meeting--and exceeding--customer expectations and demands is no easy task, especially when traditional policy management systems have been focused solely on pure policies within the network (e.g., bandwidth shapers, QoS).
Policy-Driven Management Enables Service Providers to Know: |
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Source: Bridgewater Systems Corp. (www.bridgewatersystems.com) |
Benefits of Networkwide, Policy-Driven Management Systems |
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Source: Bridgewater Systems Corp. (www.bridgewatersystems.com) |
Not only that, many of these systems have been built to manage a single service, for example, separate policy servers for VPNs, VoIP and messaging, which is a nightmare for service providers trying to provide differentiated services that can be mass customized for a diverse customer base.
There are two major issues with today's policy management solutions: There is a much stronger emphasis at the network level--which is resource or vendor specific--while there is little emphasis at the administration level; and application-specific solutions (e.g., solutions focusing solely on providing QoS to VPNs) have a limited view of the service provider's environment. These solutions can make decisions based only on criteria that fall under their purview. Purpose-built solutions have all the necessary components to fix isolated policy-management problems, but they are unable to correlate services across the network.
As You Wish
If service providers want to survive in this new customer-driven era, now is the time to look at policy-based service management solutions to ensure services are delivered according to users' preferences. (For example: When do users want these services; how do they want them; and where do they want them to be delivered?) The only way to achieve this is by tying together the user, the network and the service policies.
To do this, service providers need centralized, dynamic, policy-driven service management capabilities that go beyond the network level to focus on users and their services. Service providers need to be able to reach out directly to the core of revenue generation--the subscriber base.
The ability to customize services based on individual user preferences--regardless of the device and location--is vital. For example, users want access to the same set of services regardless of where they are located.
To satisfy demand for new services and the explosive growth in subscribers, policy management systems must also offer carrier-class scalability and reliability (to meet customer service expectations), along with proven interfaces to applications such as messaging, and integration to other service provider OSSs such as provisioning and billing.
Having a simple, secure customer management interface to enable users to set their own preference offloads administrative tasks and allows users easy access to their own service profiles. A policy-based management system that can "sit" behind existing user administration tools to automatically provision the network with user preferences will further reduce the service providers' customer support burden.
Networkwide policy-driven management can provide multiple benefits to service providers and their customers. By delivering consistent and personalized service to customers through the synchronization of services across multiple systems and islands of technology, policy-driven management can improve the customer's experience. By doing so, it can reduce customer churn, indirectly reducing the service provider's level of administration. Policy-driven management can also directly reduce administration through simplified database structures, provisioning systems, applications, access and network devices.
Controlling the Customer Experience
To get into the driver's seat--and stay in control--service providers need a policy-driven network that, most importantly, can correlate network and applications service policies. And in this era of acquisitions, where service providers are rapidly swallowing other service providers and gaining thousands of new subscribers in one fell swoop, the solution must possess carrier-grade reliability and scalability, along with multivendor support. Not only must service providers quickly integrate new technologies, but they must also be able to roll out new and differentiated services to keep their existing customers and attract new ones.
The ability for ISPs to see what's happening in their network at any given moment--and the network's ability to act on this real-time data--is critical to controlling the customer experience, as well as controlling who's on the network when. Counting users, sessions and groups in real time enables service providers to proactively monitor SLAs to ensure that customers are receiving the quality for which they've paid.
Real-time security and session control lets service providers uncover fraudulent users. The ability to track active sessions allows service providers to detect users who are logged on simultaneously, while the policy-driven network can determine whether a particular user has paid for this privilege and can enforce the policy accordingly. The benefits of this are obvious--service providers can convert these fraudulent users into paying customers, or they can resell the space to new customers.
Employing comprehensive accounting through policy-based management also enables service providers to detect invalid users who are trying to access the network. A centralized, policy-driven management system consolidates all customer records in one location. By doing so, the system can immediately correlate the paying accounts with the active accounts in the service provider's network--detecting which active accounts are not being paid for.
Knowing what applications customers are using--and from where and when--provides invaluable information. Service providers can use this information as the basis for targeted marketing programs designed to upsell additional components to customers. Up to 30 percent of customers will buy new services or upgrades, if asked.
Russ Freen is the vice president of R&D and operations for Bridgewater Systems Corp. (www.bridgewatersystems.com). He can be reached at rfreen@bridgewatersystems.com.
Network Solutions Briefs
CTC Communications Group Inc. (www.ctcnet.com) will purchase an additional $10 million worth of multiservice broadband access equipment from Accelerated Networks Inc. (www.acceleratednetworks.com) over the next three quarters.
OpenVoB (www.openvob.org), an open industry organization formed to accelerate the deployment of voice over broadband (VoB), drafted implementation guidelines to serve as the basis of the upcoming "CallFest." CallFest is the first in a series of forums featuring multivendor interoperability testing that will allow service providers to evaluate and benchmark VoB technology. Founders of OpenVoB have also drafted a white paper that presents a road map detailing the steps needed to taken to achieve interoperability of multiservice networks. The white paper can be found at the organization's website.
Level 3 Communications Inc. (www.level3.com) plans to deploy a new generation of Corning Inc. (www.corning.com) LEAF optical fiber throughout its U.S. intercity network. Level 3 has signed a letter of intent to buy more than two million cabled fiber kilometers of the third-generation LEAF fiber. Installation is expected to begin during the first quarter of 2001 and be completed by the end of next year.
The ORiNOCO Home/SOHO solution is the latest product from Lucent Technologies Inc. (www.lucent.com). ORiNOCO allows end users to connect to wireless networks or the Internet at high speeds from home, home offices or small office settings. The solution is comprised of Residential Gateways (RG-1000) that act as base stations and ORiNOCO World PC Cards that slide into notebook computers or other portable computing devices.
Lucent Technologies Inc. (www.lucent.com) unveiled two new DSL access multiplexers targeted for Tier 2 and 3 markets, carriers operating out of collocation environments, and medium to large multitenant units. QS Communications AG (www.qsc.de) out of Germany and XO Communications Inc. (www.xo.com)(formerly NEXTLINK Communications Inc.) are the first announced customers of the new products.
Rhythms Canada Inc. (www.rhythmscanada.com) will purchase DSL equipment from Netopia Inc. (www.netopia.com).
Integra Telecom Inc. (www.integratelecom.com) expanded its agreement with Lucent Technologies Inc. (www.lucent.com). Integra will use Lucent's 7R/E Networks Distinctive Remote Module and VCDX switch to convert its network to ATM transport. Lucent will also supply its Unified Messenger for Service Providers, a unified messaging system that allows for management of voice, e-mail and fax messages using the telephone or multimedia personal computers.
AEVIA Inc. (www.aevia.net), an ASP-CLEC that provides terabit metropolitan-area transport networks as well as network- and server-based business services and content, has selected Alidian Networks Inc.'s (www.alidian.com) Optical Service Network family as its backbone technology. AEVIA expects to invest more than $700 million to deploy networks in the Los Angeles, Orange County and San Francisco Bay area in Calif.; New York City; and Washington, D.C., by the first quarter of 2001.
Tut Systems Inc. (www.tutsys.com), which provides multiservice broadband systems for multitenant residential and commercial buildings, expanded its Connected Program to include silicon, technology, equipment and application companies that will provide chips and build compatible equipment and applications for Tut's systems and networking technology.
Teligent Inc. (www.teligent.com) and its German partner, Mannesmann Arcor AG & Co. (www.arcor.net), selected Siemens AG (www.siemens.de) as the supplier of broadband wireless equipment for ArcTel, the Teligent-Arcor joint venture in Germany.
