The TeleManagement Forum (TM Forum) today announced several technology member organizations have collaborated successfully in the TM Forum’s Managing IPTV Services with NGOSS Catalyst project at TeleManagement World. Sponsored by BT and IPDR.org, telecommunications software and system providers are showing a complete IP Network Management solution for provisioning and activating IPTV services.
Service providers deploying advanced IP services, such as IPTV, which are complex to provision, present a challenge to service providers to ensure installation and provisioning not only are automated (and, therefore, low-cost), but are right the first time.
“IPTV is one of the most interesting service propositions for next-generation networks. The ability to manage these service propositions using industry standard-based management interfaces is an exciting prospect as it will help reduce OSS capex and opex costs,” says Dave Milham of BT Group Chief Technology Office.
The Catalyst Showcase demo, Managing IPTV Services with NGOSS catalyst (IP Network Management Catalyst Phase III), addresses the challenge of real-time provisioning and service billing for advanced video over IP services. It focuses on automated, user-based service enablement for voice, video and data over IP with residential access via DSL technologies.
“IPDR.org supports this Catalyst project as an imperative project that will allow service providers a cost-effective and automated way of providing IPTV service,” says Kelly Anderson, president and COO, IPDR.org. “In conjunction with this work, IPDR.org will be focusing on service specifications that will meet accounting and settlement requirements for IPTV services. The service specifications will be used to ensure easy compatibility and integration between the two areas and will enable an end-to-end solution for the communications industry.”
This Catalyst project, to be demonstrated at TeleManagement World Catalyst Showcase in Dallas today through Thursday, brings together multiple vendors who will demonstrate interoperability and plug-and-play principles and specifications. (See also “TeleManagement World Hosts Catalyst Showcase”)
The TM Forum's New Generation Operations and Support Systems (NGOSS) architecture and IPNM Catalyst Demonstration work, illustrate how to accomplish this by using application interfaces to link multiple Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) products.
Visitors to TeleManagement World will be able to view a demonstration of a subscriber-based IPTV scenario, which begins with a subscriber logging into a Web portal of a service provider to order IPTV service. The request is verified and authorized, the service is activated for the subscriber, and the service policy package is displayed to the subscriber via the Web portal.
The subscriber then orders video on demand (a movie, for example) and this request flows-through to activation and billing systems. The activation system queries the inventory system for resource availability after the order is placed. Then the appropriate resources are provisioned as needed. The subscriber then views the video-on-demand item, and the Web portal displays real-time service billing information for the subscriber.
This project will utilize an NGOSS-aligned architectural model and employ COTS OSS applications and industry standards-based models, frameworks and tools to provide an efficient and effective end-to-end OSS infrastructure for service fulfillment and billing of advanced IPTV services.
“The Catalyst project leverages the TM Forum’s NGOSS principles and the IPNM specifications to integrate heterogeneous components from multiple vendors,” says Neil Prasad, chairman of the TM Forum IPNM team and senior group manager at Cisco Systems Inc. He adds, “Decreased systems integration effort and costs with automated service fulfillment and billing for advanced IPTV networks and services translates into reduced total cost of ownership while increasing return on investment for service providers.”
The TeleManagement Forum Managing IPTV Services with NGOSS Catalyst is sponsored by BT and IPDR.org. Participants in the Catalyst include Broadhop, Cisco Systems, Cognizant Technology Solutions, Digital Fairway, Fujitsu, Intec Telecom Systems, Spirent Communications and Telcordia Technologies.
