Enhancing Geodata Display for the Enterprise
Benefits
Background
Telecommunications today is an industry of dramatically opposing forces struggling to find a
balance. Drastic changes including "re-regulation", business models, and technology are
hampering the ability of service providers to effectively provide products and services to their
customers. Current management systems were created in an era where uniformity of technology
and services was pervasive. Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) was the primary service
provided. Network element provisioning was essentially a manual process. The elements carried
little to no intelligence and did not have the capability of delivering complex services or the
capability to understand their environment. Craft people were dispatched to the elements and
performed mechanical manipulation of the equipment for the purpose of provisioning and the
isolation and repair of faults. The element management systems provided surveillance and
database inventory functions. Connectivity between managers was not always automated, and if
automated, connection management was proprietary.
Following the divestiture of AT&T in 1984, the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs)
further complicated this disjointed approach by adding new and proprietary products to manage
the new advanced network elements. The legacy systems had no capability to provide operations,
administration, maintenance, and provisioning (OAM&P) services for the new elements, thus
requiring the new vendor to design a proprietary or "homegrown" management systems to be put
into place.
An end-to-end view of the network was virtually impossible. Vendor specific managers became
islands of mechanization throughout the network. Additionally, the Telecom Reform Act of 1996
(TA96) broke down the barriers to preventing new service providers (e.g., competitive local
exchange carriers - CLECs) from gaining entry into the marketplace and enabled incumbent
local exchange carriers (ILECs) to enter new geographic markets by complying with the TA96's
mandates. Considering the lack of connectivity within and between the current ILEC network
and service management infrastructure, the TA96's mandates for allowing CLEC’s to wholesale
purchase segments of the ILEC network (including OSS OAM&P information) is not easily or
economically attainable.
Moreover, complex combinations of POTS services with new data and video overlay networks
will add significantly to the complexity of the OSS dilemma. These new and advanced services
will require a whole new domain of network management protocols and tools, coupled with new-
non-traditional network elements. Routers, bridges and switches for the new data services will be
added to the network. Asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) will become more ubiquitous,
enabling the mix of voice, data and video services to be effectively delivered to end-users. The
difficulty of creating an end-to-end view of the network is increasing.
The GeoData Display tool can help solve both the internal and the external management issues
around OSS interconnection. This tool in its ultimate implementation can bridge the gap between
legacy to legacy connectivity, as well as the additional mix of vendor and homegrown
proprietary solutions.
End-to-End Views of the Network
Since the divestiture of AT&T in 1984, the telephone network has been continuously evolving
technically and in the business arena. As operational issues dictate, new technologies are
repeatedly introduced to resolve operational issues and to be more cost effective. New services
were not necessarily required as part of the technology improvement. For instance, when
asynchronous copper-based trunk usage was being exhausted, fiber based Synchronous Optical
Network (SONET) technology was introduced to relieve the bandwidth shortage. There was little
pressure to innovate and create. Network management was not end-to-end. To mitigate this
problem the GeoData Display tool can:
- Provide spatial end-to-end views of the network and views of relationships between physical
network elements.
- Provide views of both physical and logical resources of the network.
- Support real-time network wide alarm correlation, fault management, network provisioning,
and new service bundles.
- Support One Call or CBUD operations.
Views Crossing Technology Boundaries
De-regulation and liberalization of the global telecommunications industry has created an
enormous paradigm shift with respect to competition. In North America, the and associated FCC
mandates have changed the competitive environment. Local service competition has become a
reality.
ILEC and CLEC network management integration, requires innovation to provide market
advantages. Access and utilization of databases tied to physical resources will need to be
dynamically connected to logical resources. The GeoData Display tool can support the
integration effort in the following ways:
- Bundled services that cross technology boundaries with spatial relationships can be viewed
and analyzed.
- The connection of cellular, paging, home, and business access by one number (Number
portability) can be visualized.
- Operations, administration, maintenance, and provisioning (OAM&P) operational support
systems (OSS) data can be accessed, along with the related network elements for switching,
transmission and access in both wired and wireless domains.
- Locations of physical and logical resources can be viewed. As dynamic changes occur, they
can be made available and visible to network managers.
- Routing tables that provide information about logical connections between network elements
can be spatially represented in dynamic views of the network.
- If a fiber is cut, the new route can be easily displayed through this process by combining
logical connections, data and physical resources in a single network view.
- In addition to the physical and logical resources that need to be tracked dynamically, human
resources (location, technical skill sets) can be recognized and understood by linking to a
work force management system.
- Locations of parts, and their details (e.g., version and functions) can also be acknowledged
by linking to materials system.
- All elements (physical, logical, and spatial) can be viewed in order to be targeted for
maintenance and repair of the network.
UNE Support
ILECs are required to open their local resources--spatial, physical, and logical--as well as the
relational data contained within all of their OSS that provide OAM&P functionality. CLECs can
purchase the ILEC unbundled network element (UNE) resources at wholesale rates and package
them with their own local services. New tools and applications to support the management and
sharing of infrastructure between the ILECs and CLEC’s are desperately needed. The GeoData
Display tool can support the following:
- ILECs providing certain required information to the CLEC.
- Protection of ILECs' sensitive OSS data from CLEC scrutiny.
- Management and visibility of resources--physical, spatial and logical--that need to be tightly
coupled.
- Migration from traditional monolithic, centralized legacy OSS infrastructure to a more
distributed application environment.
- CLECs quickly and efficiently utilizing the purchased ILEC information to model their new
network and related services to provide superior product and services to the end user.
- CLECs utilizing spatial solutions with dynamic views of the network.
- ILECs and CLECs being proactive thereby improving reliability of advanced voice, data, and
video products.
- Operations and maintenance functions flowing through spatial based network management
system views, enabling the viewing of network elements (wholesaled and CLEC installed),
logical connections, performance statistics, fault.
DSL Deployment
The ILECs will have numerous challenges to integrate new technologies into the local loop.
Local loop qualification with legacy equipment is just one challenge for the ILEC. Locations of
bridge taps and determination of Customer Service Address (CSA) loop lengths will need to be
predetermined before new copper overlay technology enhancements (e.g., ADSL) are
introduced.
In many cases craft people will need to travel to the outside plant resources to remove
impediments for the deployments of these services. Amplifiers and bridge taps will need to be
removed or relocated to enable the deployment of these services. Other resources such as digital
loop carrier remote terminals will need to be identified in an attempt to counter wholesaling of
dry copper rather than the wholesaling bandwidth.
ILECs would prefer to provide 64 kbps services at wholesale prices to CLECs than home-run dry
copper. If a CLEC is provided with the dry copper, they have the ability to overlay premium
broadband services at wholesale POTS costs. With location information ILECs can strategically
place digital loop carrier equipment into their local loops to prevent this wholesale give-away.
A CLEC who has an effective spatial based network management system can accurately review
ILEC resources and equate them to local planning board approvals. In certain cases they could
potentially wholesale dry copper for "dollars" a month and overlay DSL services, while charging
business customers hundreds of dollars a month for the broadband service.
CLECs will need to effectively survey the ILEC properties and combine service capable
resources with marketing information to select their initial customer targets. With an spatial
based network management system the CLEC will be able to input ILEC wholesaled facilities
information and combine that with marketing demographics and planned municipal expansions
to lower risk factors for market entry. A CLEC could target upscale residential neighborhoods or
business parks containing small businesses for the deployment of broadband overlay networks.
Broadband service delivery would provide a stronger return on investment in these targeted
locations.
Marketing and Sales
A new business and technical model is being used to support the CLEC community. CLECs
from all market tiers enter new markets simultaneously. They purchase wholesale resources from
the ILEC, including but not limited to, customer and network information.
• A scaleable, spatial based network management system combined with business geographics
capabilities will be mandatory for the ILECs and CLECS to be competitive.
- Since the CLEC will be operating in many different markets of variable size and growth, the
spatial network management system must scale bi-directionally (up and down) to the market
requirements.
- By utilizing a spatial network management system solution, key business goals will be
supported and achieved.
- The ability to serve new customers with services that originate in the legacy loop will be
readily available since interfacing to and integrating with the data repositories in legacy
OSSs will be possible.
- ILECs will sell the required network services and data to the CLEC. For the CLEC to be
successful, it will be necessary to put this information to work.
- The spatial based network management system will enable telemarketers to select certain
target neighborhoods based on demographic overlays of ILEC infrastructure.
- By combining proper economic targets (customers) with matched services and resources, the
CLECs will have the ability to sell the appropriate and available services to the targeted
customer base that will buy.
- Once the customer is "sold", the spatial based network management system will enable the
CLEC to interface into the provisioning databases. This will allow the CLEC to configure
and provision the customer and their services in a timely and efficient manner.
