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Increasing Operator Service Delivery Agility with Service Brokers
By TMCnet Special Guest
Joe McGarvey, Principal Analyst, IP Services Infrastructure, Current Analysis
The word most often thrown around during discussions of the service delivery advantages of Web-based service providers over telecommunications operators is agility. Though a concise commentary, it’s an honest and accurate assessment reflecting the stark differences between the Internet and operator networks as hospitable application environments.
The Web, essentially a software-only environment governed by a few universal protocols and interfaces, is the ideal venue for rolling out services and applications that are compatible with existing applications and accessible to essentially any device with a browser or the required client software. Operator networks, which are really 100-year-old amalgamations of multiple services and switching domains, all with their own protocols and interfaces, are something completely different. In the vertical realm of telecommunications carriers, each new service is essentially isolated on its own island. For operators to introduce a new service to a cross-section of subscribers they must negotiate this labyrinth of protocols, switches and service domains, a time-consuming process that has robbed operators of the agility and efficiency required to compete with their Internet counterparts.
It is against this backdrop that service brokers are beginning to gain traction as mechanisms for equalizing the service creation and delivery agility of operators and Web-based service providers. Service brokers possess a Rosetta Stone-like ability, enabling operators to build bridges of commonality between the multiple service domains and switching environments that make up their networks -- and fragment their subscriber universes. Whether the task is extending legacy services to next-generation environments or ensuring that services created in IP-based domains are accessible to subscribers still attached to legacy networks, service brokers are designed to assist operators in mimicking the agile and universally accessible nature of the Internet.
A byproduct of the homogenizing nature of service brokers is the opportunity it presents for service innovation. When the boundaries between switching and services domains are erased, operators gain access to a new palate of service components that can be combined and manipulated to create unique and personalized services. With the ability to combine services from multiple and previously incompatible IN platforms and to blend them with SIP or IMS-based services, operators have access to a range of new product promotions that is limited only by the operator’s imagination.
While telecommunications operators still face considerable obstacles in wrestling subscriber loyalty away from business entities that deliver services over the top of carrier networks, the adoption of service broker technology is a key component in helping them to overcome their agility deficiency.
A deeper examination of this and related service broker topics can be found in the recently publish report from Current Analysis (News - Alert) available at http://www.currentanalysis.com/f/2010/servicebrokers/nr10/
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Edited by Marisa Torrieri
