Telcordia’s Noonan discusses his new role on the TMF board

The TeleManagement Forum (TMF) officially announced this week the appointment of Stephen Noonan, group senior vice president of new generation systems at Telcordia Technologies to its board. Noonan replaces previous Telcordia representative and core systems expert Ed Pinnes. Noonan is responsible for the product strategy and management of Telcordia’ new generation network management systems for managed IP and optical solutions and will add to the next generation focus of the board. Today, Noonan spoke with Telephony about his appointment and the focus of the TMF.

What is your role on the board of TMF?
We see TMF as the preeminent body for enabling the industry to realize all the benefits of truly open, modular and more powerful solutions from multiple vendors. We think it is boiling down to a [commercial-off-the-shelf] versus a platform or IT build argument and the TMF leadership does the best job of articulating the value proposition on why you should go with COTS software solutions. We [at Telcordia] are aligned with that strategy and want to promote it. Their information model work is key. We need to educate the carriers on the value proposition of those models versus building in-house. In addition to key carriers like AT&T and BT being involved, I hope to play a significant role in bringing more service provider folks on board.  

How does your involvement help Telcordia?
Telcordia has a heritage of developing systems for a well-defined set of carriers and much of what we are trying to do is about broadening that customer base. So it is a significant opportunity for Telcordia to communicate to the industry that we really are looking to the future. We have adopted state of the art technology and standards and because of our strong financial position, we have invested significantly over the last few years when most competitors had throttled back. We have significantly pumped up the feature functionality of our next generation systems, such as our managed IP solution.  We were known for our TDM prowess, but I think the TMF visibility allows us to communicate to our customers that we are multi-domain and can be to a degree top carriers will appreciate and in a way we can provide solutions to medium and small carriers—those solutions under $1 million. Philosophically, we couldn’t be better aligned.

What is the board’s top priority?
It is to take their approach to modularity and openness, their approach to data models and the eTOM definition of services and get folks to use it. They are in dire need of a showcase carrier having adopted this and have them demonstrate the benefits of it. Making a lot of the good work and [technical] papers manifest themselves in a carrier being able to bring up service faster, better, cheaper is what the TMF needs first and foremost. 

How important is the new agreement between the ITU and the TMF regarding input on standards development?
It is huge. With the agreement, the ITU has kind of anointed the TMF as the single voice in the OSS area. And with that, you’ll find more willingness on the part of carriers to adopt what the TMF has. 

How has TMF best served the industry and where has it fallen short?
I think it has done a good job of getting the various [independent software vendors] together and developing a common language and approach, which really reduces the carrier’s total cost of ownership. They deliver that value already, but as I said, they need to find a showcase. If anywhere, that is where they have fallen short. 

Did you draw the last straw at Telcordia to get picked to represent on the forum?
No. I am actually a big (TMF Chairman) Keith Willets fan. I think the guy is one of the thought leaders in the industry and has done good things. He takes pride in the fact that with our industry being sick he gets juiced every morning knowing that what he is doing plays a big part in curing it. And that’s not an overstatement.