Let freedom reign: Flow-through provisioning gets a universal spin

Service demands increase or change every day, and providers face the added challenge of aggregating and provisioning those services efficiently.

If the providers - competitive local exchange carriers in particular - can't find ways to provision services quickly and precisely, their chances for survival could be dismal. They, in turn, are seeking a remedy for the service provisioning thorn in their side that is turning Wall Street somewhat against them.

Many service providers are migrating to multiservice networks to help bring their services closer together. At the same time, many are deploying a myriad of different vendors' equipment. Over those multiservice networks, providers are delivering many services and products, such as DSL access, DS-3 circuits, T-1 lines and the ability to handle data and voice traffic. To bring all those elements together and integrate voice and data in a central office, providers are enlisting the help of multiservice access concentrators. But although services may be aggregated, provisioning issues still need to be addressed.

To solve those needs for service provisioning, providers look to equipment vendors. One vendor of multiservice access platforms, ANDA Networks, has stepped in to develop antivenom for the provisioning sting afflicting providers.

First, ANDA seeks to eliminate the need for so many network elements by collapsing multiple functionality into one box.

"We take three network elements and stuff them all into one," said Graham Hunt, director of marketing for ANDA. So instead of having a separate fiber optic terminal, digital loop carrier and DSL access multiplexer, a provider would use ANDA's UAP-2000 multiservice access platform, Hunt said (see figure).

For the provisioning portion of the equation, ANDA proposes to make its method of flow-through provisioning an industry standard. ANDA submitted its Open Provisioning Standard to the Internet Engineering Task Force in mid-October, Hunt said. The standard is intended to define the interfaces and commands for service provisioning to give service providers uniform remote control and monitoring of devices on a platform.

"All the other methods of service management for multiservice access developed by other vendors have been proprietary," said Raymond Jamp, chief technology officer for ANDA. An open standard will be more broadly accepted and interoperate with participating vendors' equipment, Jamp said. That will catalyze the deployment of integrated access services because it will automate service turn-up while simplifying the service monitoring and management.

The reduced need for end-user intervention and truck rolls with ANDA's proposed standard is a big bonus, said Bill Fox, vice president of PairGain Technologies' small subscriber business unit. "We are really a big supporter of open standards because everyone involved will benefit," he said. "The value proposition is huge when I [as a vendor] give you control of your services - and this standard will enable that."

In addition, the standard is the first step toward enhanced online provisioning, which further lessens the likelihood of errors, Fox added. Although a standard may start out strong, as more people get involved, the politics of standards bodies can delay things, Fox said. "It's like a bill going through Congress."