Pipeline Publishing, Volume 7, Issue 10
This Month's Issue:
Unlocking Next Gen Networks
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Monetizing BSS-to-SDP Integration
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By Fareed Khan

The ability to assemble service components like presence/location, integration, and media control is crucial if operators are to enable service “mashups” that innovate, entertain and empower customers. Offering such services is a necessity if operators are to stave off disintermediation by OTT players and improve thinning margins in core services.

Exposing BSS

Much of the effort around mashups has focused on what operators should do to expose networks to 3rd party developers. But more can be done to expose capabilities from operators’ BSS environments that enhance customer-experience. The evolution of Web Services and gateways like ParlayX, SIP and standard interfaces will foster better communication among BSS functions, like order management, product catalogs, billing, and charging, and IP, PSTN, mobile and cable networks.

For example, today, order management systems orchestrate orders as they come in from front-end systems and travel to activation, billing, inventory and charging.

Integration will be critical to the communication between SDP and BSS.



which services could be created and orchestrated and where the complexity of service stove-pipes could be abstracted. Today, however, there is an opportunity for SDPs to provide aggregation layers through which operators’ sophisticated BSS capabilities are exposed to 3rd parties. 3rd parties would in turn pay for the opportunity to leverage operators’ dynamic catalogs, and ordering, provisioning, billing, charging, payments and customer care systems.


There is an opportunity for monetization here. Everything is managed through a secure order process with carefully designed workflows that can be updated at any time. As a result, all orchestration and SDP-related order decomposition can be handled as part of the order process. This can be valuable to partners or MVNOs that want to view SDP services, via a catalog, and place orders for services leveraging the operator’s infrastructure. Potentially, the service could be billed and activated by operators’ order management systems as part of their wholesale bundles or offerings.

Integration will be critical to the communication between SDP and BSS. A few years ago SDPs were hyped as “horizontal” or “common” layers across


The potential for monetization goes further, as more non-traditional players, such as banks and utilities, look for ways to extend their services into the telecom industry. To accommodate these and other potential partners or customers, operators must abandon any silo pattern of doing business in favor of a more integrated approach. They need to focus on opening up a path of least resistance to 3rd parties seeking partners experienced with not only networks and BSS, but also partnership management, settlement, and SLA management—all increasingly important in next-gen services. If operators can consolidate service access points and stop the practice of managing multiple silos and solutions for every service, they can become coveted as key “enablers” to 3rd parties and consumers alike.

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