The dynamic changes under way in the communications industry, including mergers – such as SBC/AT&T, Sprint/Nextel, Cingular/AT&T Wireless, Verizon/MCI – and end-user demand for personalized services, accessible anywhere, have created a subscriber management challenge for service providers.
The challenge is the result of consolidating separate networks, whether those built out by a single carrier or those obtained through acquisition, and the desire to deliver services across a carrier’s consolidated network(s) or across networks owned by different carriers.
Historically, as the telecommunication services market has evolved, vendors have developed a number of new technologies and network capabilities to address specific needs – subscriber management point solutions, if you will. These can be capable solutions for a carrier’s specific requirement.
However, the challenge that many of these solutions face is that they typically are configured to service a single network and are not able to evolve with a given network or simultaneously support multiple networks, or also provide the diversity to enable new services on existing networks. In order to provide that support, additional independently managed solutions to support each network type may be required.
“Network and carrier consolidation is inevitable,” says Peter Jarich, principal analyst for wireless infrastructure at Current Analysis. “So is the development of new revenue-generating applications – some of which may be built on a standalone basis. Ultimately, however, combining these carriers, their networks and disparate applications represents a daunting subscriber management mission. Service providers are left to replace existing subscriber management systems or find a way to make them work together.”
The predominant subscriber management architectures deployed in wireless and wireline carrier networks today consist of several characteristics that make them a roadblock to greater profitability in our rapidly evolving communications industry. The existing architectures frequently consist of separate databases for each service or application. These solutions may be integrated in existing switches or deployed as separate, standalone solutions. Having multiple databases also may mean multiple interfaces that are more expensive to manage.
These legacy systems also do not support the blending and personalization of services across multiple network types. In addition, subscriber information isn’t shared across networks and applications, making manual updates and synchronization a necessity to support consistent service across multiple networks. This also can complicate customer care, and updating a database usually requires taking it out of service. Operating costs also may be higher due to unique database solutions that are specific to a particular protocol. On top of these factors, carriers may have capital constraints that limit new network equipment purchases.
The traditional approach to subscriber management places databases such as Home Location Register (HLR), Home Subscriber Service (HSS) and Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA) on separate platforms, adding to network operations and service delivery capital costs.
The list of subscriber management issues to mitigate or eliminate can be daunting and possibly prohibitive for a service provider that wants to move to a next-generation communications network capable of delivering enhanced VoIP services or the multimedia grand slam of services (voice, video, data and wireless), or anything in between.
The existing situation calls for a next-generation solution that simplifies subscriber management; meets the carriers operating and capital expense goals; and facilitates the delivery of the personalized, advanced services that can help increase revenue, attract subscribers and reduce churn.
The alternative choice that service providers have is to build out a new network infrastructure that gives them the ability to offer new services within a converged environment, whether they are supporting wireless, wireline services or both.
“[Without] a solution for sharing subscriber profile data, the creation of a converged, unified service environment would place heavy capex and opex burdens on the operator. New infrastructure would need to be acquired and deployed. Bandwidth would need to be supplied to the network. Specialized support personnel would be required,” says Jarich. “A solution including universal subscriber management clearly avoids these issues.”
Next-generation subscriber management (NGSM) places the databases such as Home Location Register (HLR), Home Subscriber Service (HSS) and Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA), and relevant capabilities, such as interworking between new and legacy systems, on a single logically centralized yet physically distributed platform that is highly reliable and fully redundant supporting geographical diversity. Another key is that the database functions can be deployed in modules that are added as the carrier needs them. The ability to pay or build as you grow gives carriers a cost-effective way to evolve their networks. A next-generation solution should also include the following characteristics:
- Simultaneous interoperability with 2G/3G, GSM/UMTS, CDMA/EV-DO, Radius, IETF SIP, ANSI-41 and IPTV
- Subscriber domain roaming
- A virtual database utilizing universal subscriber profile management and reporting capabilities for distributed architectures
- High scalabitility to fit largest customer requirements
- Ubiquitous management of HLR, HSS and AAA functions
- Easy integration with existing deployments
- Disparate data sources within a network
There are several advantages for wireline and wireless service providers using next-generation subscriber management:
- Elimination of duplicate equipment for multiple network types
- Global view of all subscriber information
- Rapid deployment of new services
- Elimination of multiple access points, reducing SS7 network overhead and providing major savings
- Support for multiple networks simultaneously for single sign-on, subscriber profile domain roaming
- Network-agnostic
- Smooth migration of legacy data based on business requirements
- Ubiquitous support for multiple applications
- Leverage of existing network investments
- Faster deployment of personalized, revenue-generating services over existing and next-generation networks
Next-generation subscriber management fundamentally reduces the cost of providing a service and enables new services, including blended lifestyle services when NGSM is part of an IMS solution.
For example, when using an NGSM solution, with the characteristics described earlier, as compared to a HLR that exists in many networks today, a service provider can reduce operating expenses by as much as 60 percent over a five-year period.
Clearly, wireline and wireless service providers have the ability today to address the subscriber management challenge in a way that will provide the flexibility to grow their network and quickly add new services while managing expenses. The sooner carriers deploy a next-generation subscriber management solution, the sooner they will have the opportunity to increase profitability.
Sandip Mukerjee is applications vice president at Lucent Technologies. He can be reached at smukerjee@lucent.com.
Lucent Technologies Inc. www.lucent.com
