Lackluster lingo

In an ever-evolving field like communications, we often find a need to coin new words. Sometimes we do a better job than others.

When we miss the mark, it's sometimes due to short-sightedness. Initially, the 1900 MHz spectrum was envisioned for "low-mobility" services that would have been akin to having a cordless phone with very good range. Years later, we're stuck with the confusing name of "personal communication services" for something that now supports mobile use.

Other times, a new word or phrase seems to appear out of nowhere and be on everyone's lips. 1997 was the year the word "space" took on new meaning-as in, "We're introducing a new product for the telecom space." This reached a crescendo at Supercomm, which at times reminded me of nothing so much as high school: Was it 1971 or 1972 when all the cool kids started using "for sure" to indicate agreement, the same way the British use "indeed"?

To the extent that the use of new jargon is motivated by a desire to learn and keep up with things, I'm all for it. So why do I find "space" so annoying?

Aside from the pack mentality, what bothers me about the new use of "space" is that it doesn't add any value. There are already at least three perfectly good words that mean the same thing. "Market," "segment" and "area" should provide enough synonyms to satisfy even the most repetition-conscious editor. Perhaps I'm also haunted by an earlier incarnation of the word, as in "My boyfriend and I broke up because we both needed some space."

Another term that bothers me comes from data warehousing. The idea that any company could be so far removed from its customers that it has to "drill down" to reach them is rather alarming. Happily, an alternative term, "granularity," has appeared to more accurately describe what data warehousing allows users to do-look at customer data in larger or smaller units of measurement.

Other descriptive and useful terms: caching, wave division multiplexing and incumbent carrier. Other dogs: most of the DSLs, customer care and schema.

Some day, technologists may learn from packaged goods marketers and examine the implications before coining new words. Until then, "search" and "replace" are familiar choices on my computer menu.>CNIntelligence & Software>TI Picture this, if you will: Data visualization techniques show carriers the big picture

The volume of data that carriers generate on network use and customer behavior is so great that it can be impossible to understand what it all means without using analysis tools. Although tools for generating monthly reports are continuously improving in quality and capability, both carriers and their customers are finding that a month may be too long to wait to use the data efficiently.

Spurred by this, a new emphasis is being placed on data visualization, or the ability to quickly summarize large amounts of information in an easy-to-understand visual form.

Companies such as Hewlett-Packard that are already ensconced in the network management market have begun to apply these techniques to telecommunications. Lucent Technologies found the field lucrative enough to start a new business venture division within the company that focuses on delivering data visualization products.

"These tools can quickly provide a visual overview of what's going on within a large business to help managers understand the impact of events across applications, enable faster strategic planning and plan for the use of outsourcing," said Dan Fyock, director of technical sales support for Lucent's Visual Insights enterprise.

The tools use high-performance database engines and various software algorithms to cull pertinent data from the masses of call-record and network information that carriers record.

This data is then imported to a high-performance interface that arranges the data in easy-to-understand graphical forms. The systems can be used to sort through data at any time, allowing carriers and their customers to create snapshots of the data in near real-time.

AT&T already is using Lucent's software to fight toll fraud by detecting unusual calling patterns in masses of telephone call data, Fyock said. "There are two ways they can use this data-in a tactical way, to determine which situations they [should] cancel service, call to check on anomalies or ignore, and in a strategic way, by helping fraud analysts understand behavior over time to help update fraud prevention systems."

Lucent also has developed assessment tools for finding Year 2000 problems within the network and switch management tools.

"There's a lot of interest on customer visualization," Fyock added. "That means profiling, understanding behavior, calling habits, traffic patterns and so on."

While Lucent's emphasis is on providing large-scale network management tools, Bohemia, N.Y.-based Computer Concepts is focusing on tools that carriers can offer their customers over the Internet to perform the same tasks.

Computer Concepts' approach revolves around d.b.Express Internet Information Server, an Internet database information server accessed through direct dial, intranets or the Internet. This system eliminates the need to download data before analysis, allowing customers to see summaries of data quickly without suffering through the long delays associated with downloading.

"This can help customers analyze their own company's phone usage, study cost thresholds and traffic patterns," said Tim Nicolaou, executive vice president of sales and marketing at Computer Concepts.

"There's no need for a carrier to generate paper reports or deliver a CD-ROM of data to the customer-he can get the information himself when he wants it and in as granular a form as he wants it."

SPRINT TURNS TO HP'S INTERNET ADVISOR Sprint will use Hewlett-Packard's Internet Advisor to support the installation and maintenance of its ATM customer services. The carrier will use the equipment for network testing services across DS-3, OC-3c and T-1 connections and for monitoring and troubleshooting customer premises and edge networks.

VIENNA IS NEXT VIP GATEWAY VIP Calling Inc., a facilities-based international carrier using the Internet to provide wholesale international telecommunication services, has installed more than a dozen Vienna.way gateways from Vienna Systems, enabling carriers to terminate voice and data traffic across VIP Calling's international network.