Coming of age

By necessity, operations support systems have always been a priority of digital wireless network carriers. But with so much focus over the past several years on air interface technology selection, network expansion and customer acquisition, it has seemed sometimes as if OSSs weren't too high on the list.

Behind the scenes, however, most of today's operational wireless carriers have been quietly bolstering the software that drives the activation, provisioning, monitoring and customer interface functions of their networks. Now, with competition at full tilt, having an organized OSS strategy has become an even more crucial part of everything from speedy service activation and service assurance to customer billing.

"We've always looked at things like provisioning, network management and billing as part of the overall network buildout," says Limond Grindstaff, chief technology officer at PrimeCo Personal Communications. "They weren't afterthoughts."

For the more established of the wireless pack-the incumbent cellular carriers, the PCS operators that were spawned by mammoth wireline operators and those that were the result of cellular carrier partnerships-the issue now is managing expansion. All of them are in the midst of a growth spurt and, as a result, in the midst of addressing the OSS challenges that go along with it.

Keeping up "As we grow our network, the challenge becomes volume-being able to do for a larger network what we were able to do for a smaller one," says Keith Paglusch, senior vice president of technology services and network operations for Sprint PCS.

Requirements for scaling up the OSS come in many forms: More infrastructure is added to the network within already operational markets to plug coverage holes or bolster in-building coverage. New processing and intelligence functions are added, providing the opportunity for carriers to offer enhanced services. All of it must be supported by operations software.

"As we add more features and functions to our network, we must be able to manage it," Paglusch says.

But scaling up the OSS and adapting it to meet new needs may be a monumental task for those carriers saddled with legacy software systems. Before they can expand to meet the management requirements of new features and processes, they must first invest in untangling the makeshift systems that have managed their networks for years.

"They're in a replacement mode, but they have the money to do it properly at this point," says David Hughes, regional vice president at TCSI, an OSS softwaredeveloper.

And for true wireless start-ups-of which there are few at this point-finding the capital for proper OSS investment could prove to be as difficult as paying off licensing debts.

"They're not going to buy a whole OSS," says Jay Farquar, vice president of marketing and business development at TCSI. "They're going to buy the things they need to get started."

For well-funded newcomers such as PrimeCo and Sprint PCS, though, growing the OSS may be a somewhat simpler task. They were able to enter the competitive wireless market with greenfield approaches but had the benefit of years of collective experience in the cellular world. They had already learned from mistakes and missteps, so when they put OSSs in place they did so with expansion in mind.

"It's just a matter of scaling these systems, not reinventing them," Grindstaff says.

One vision Although most wireless network operators tap multiple third-party software developers to provide different pieces of the overall OSS, even those that have built networks that span the better part of the country generally use core infrastructure from just a few vendors. That, they say, drastically simplifies core management issues.

PrimeCo, for example, began life as a two-vendor carrier, building out its code division multiple access network with gear from both Lucent Technologies and Motorola. Recently, however, PrimeCo pulled out the Motorola equipment, leaving it with a one-vendor network (Telephony, Oct. 26, page 16).

"That makes the software portion even easier," Grindstaff says. "We're able to stabilize network management and system performance and simplify our overall OSS requirements. We've streamlined our operations."

Likewise, Canadian operator Rogers Cantel relies on a single vendor for the radio access layer of its network, simplifying network management issues and cutting costs.

"These newer platforms tend to come with a higher degree of network management support embedded in them," said Robert Berner, senior vice president and chief technical officer of Rogers Cantel, in a presentation at TeleManagement World in October. "Our single-vendor approach is one of avoiding downstream consequences." Like most carriers, however, Rogers Cantel uses a multivendor approach to the OSS, tapping best-of-class functions from a wide variety of software developers.

The quality question In the wireline world of widening bandwidth and increasing volumes of data transport, network and service level assurance are crucial. The standards for wireless transmission are different, but service assurance is still an important part of the OSS requirements in some respects.

"While that wasn't that important in the early days, now it needs to be comparable in service assurance and reliability to wireline," says Beth Adams, president and CEO of the TeleManagement Forum.

Part of the reason for that is the gradual increase in complexity of wireless, including new features and functions such as enhanced services and data transport that go far beyond voice.

"Wireless is suddenly interesting from an OSS perspective because it is more complicated," says Anders Engvall, corporate TMN business manager for Digital Equipment Corp., which gears its OSS offerings toward wireless operators. "Their problem now is quality of service."

Different carriers have different methods of measuring and assuring service quality. Few, if any, offer flat-out guarantees akin to those now offered by many wireline operators, but wireless operators are still aware of and concerned about network performance and service quality.

"Our service assurance systems have benchmarks," says Paglusch of Sprint. "If system performance drops below that benchmark, it triggers an alarm." The company does not offer service guarantees as such, he says, but it does have agreements with its equipment suppliers that give the company the confidence to make promises.

"We have a level of expectation and closely monitor that, but we don't make guarantees," Paglusch says. "We continue to hold our vendors accountable."

Rogers Cantel is also concerned with performance and has invested heavily in management components to monitor it, Berner said. "The decision to do that has eased complexity but increased capital expenditures," he said.

Part of PrimeCo's own type of service assurance will come in the kind of two-way data offerings it is planning to introduce, in which handsets sending and receiving data will also send and receive acknowledgements of its successful transmission.

"There's a closed loop-a guarantee that the data was delivered," Grindstaff says.

The bottom line for wireless carriers mulling the evolution of their OSS strategies is that failure is not an option. Most wireless operators have undertaken incremental buildout strategies, but that does not mean that they have taken a piecemeal approach to any part of their networks within any given markets.

An organized and thorough approach to OSS implementation-and a method for scaling it up in line with network growth-is crucial to its image and success with customers.

"You can decide you're going to launch Denver and not Colorado Springs-that's fine," says Paglusch of Sprint PCS. "But when you launch Denver, you have to be able to do everything. There's a core set of functionality you need to do that."