Winning friends and influencing people.

The best measure of success for a group trying to interpret industry standards is how closely the industry seems to be listening.

Since the recent Network Management Forum conference and expo in Barcelona, the industry seems to be listening to the NMF, but the NMF also must listen more closely to the industry's pulse.

The release of the NMF's OMNIpoint 2 solution sets last fall was seen as a watershed episode in the industry's transition from the reactive age of network management, one characterized by unthreatened, fat-cat carriers, to the proactive age of network management, one dominated by packs of lean, competitive carriers (Telephony, Oct. 30, page 22).

The solution sets-six in all-were designed to help carriers better manage their networks by establishing common processes, some of which reflected practices that some carriers already had been following. The need for the solution sets reflected the fact that network management standards such as the Telecommunications Management Network (TMN) and the common object request broker architecture reek of ideology and theory but offer few hints regarding practical implementation.

At the time of their unveiling, most industry watchers suggested to carriers that adopting the solutions sets in the following year would be critical to their long-term value and, in effect, the value of the NMF's ongoing work. One year later, the impact and reception of the solution sets is a mixed bag.

"A couple of [the sets] have been widely implemented. Others were great pieces of work and the concept of having guiding principles was important to carriers, but nobody's adopting them right now," says Elizabeth Adams, managing director of the NMF.

In particular, the first two solution sets-focusing on multinetwork bandwidth management and leased circuit management-have been quite popular. Carriers understand them and have begun to specify them to their vendors for future network management system deployment.

The wide adoption of the bandwidth management set has been driven by increasing demand for dynamic bandwidth services from carriers' high-usage data customers. In a multivendor network environment, flexible bandwidth adjustment can be complicated. Carriers have seen the value of the set's concept of implementing common commands between service management systems and operations centers to streamline these adjustments.

The leased circuit management set has been most widely adopted in Japan, where it was originally proposed. The country's carriers were in need of a common process for disseminating leased-circuit status information to users and are now wholeheartedly endorsing this set.

Meanwhile, solution sets for switched service feature administration, multivendor switch interconnection management, generic alarm monitoring and local area network-to-TMN alarm interfacing have not won such strong support.

"There has been interest developing among carriers in the solution sets over the last year, but their presence hasn't created a groundswell of acceptance," says Bernard Harris, director of industry standards at GTE.

"It's true that there hasn't been so much acceptance yet, but I think there will be more and more in the coming years as carriers begin exploring real management applications and as these applications become integrated with their processes," adds Lee Jobe, vice president of business operations at Pacific Bell.

The broader impact To say that just two out of six solution sets struck gold is to ignore the obvious ascent of network management principles to the industry spotlight over the last year.

Pacific Bell's Jobe explained at the Barcelona conference how his company has essentially put out bounties on its legacy network management systems and processes by offering employees extra money to brainstorm on ways to scrap the old systems.

"It was an incentive to get people to burn a little of the midnight oil to figure out how to get rid of the fat," Jobe told his audience. "The complexity of management systems that has evolved over the years is just staggering. New systems have come in, but others have been kept around for some reason. Now we need to simplify.

A few years ago, network management complexity was not a terribly high priority for carriers, especially the Bell companies. They were implementing new management systems for newly deployed equipment and services but were adamant about milking past investments by keeping legacy systems in place.

Now, however, competition is forcing carriers to dump their old attitudes about network management and conform to new, common processes that will allow even the most stalwart competitors to present a seamless and reliable front to customers.

Keith Willets, founder of the NMF and senior vice president of marketing for vendor TCSI, says the NMF's solution sets were designed to put carriers on common ground for the sake of their customers as they try to address this transition.

"Big carriers like Deutsche Telekom have embraced TMN with religious fervor, but sometimes there can be an overcommitment to these lofty network management principles," says Willets. "You can't just take something like TMN and try to jam it into everything you do. That's where the solution sets come in.

And that is where the true value of the NMF and its solution sets may be seen in the years to come. Nascent attitudes about competition-and realities such as new telecom legislation and the Federal Communications Commission's order for carriers to open up their operations support systems (OSSs) to competitors-will stir more industry interest in adhering to common processes.

Several NMF members commented in Barcelona that carriers may have been slow to adopt last year's solution sets because they were waiting for the FCC's ruling, though it was largely a telegraphed punch.

Now, many carriers believe the implementation requirements of such regulatory moves, combined with the thickening of competition, will lend new velocity to the sets' acceptance. They also believe the significance of the NMF's role in this transition is becoming clearer.

GTE became involved in the NMF because it wanted to automate its trouble ticketing process between its local networks and AT&T's interexchange networks.

"The NMF was catalytic in helping us do that but also in initiating the creation of a common process for doing it," says Harris. "Otherwise, we would have had to use a proprietary solution. Now, we don't have to think about developing a unique solution for every interexchange carrier interface we have.

Although the jury is still out on how influential the solution sets will be, it is clear that the NMF has been fairly successful with another part of its mission-motivating the industry to more progressive attitudes about network management.

Keeping apace NMF's Adams admits that she thought more solution sets would have been unveiled by now, but she adds that the group has had to shift its emphasis to helping define requirements for real-world management applications.

For example, in the wake of this summer's FCC ruling, carriers have begun to pursue electronic bonding solutions that allow them to establish gateways between their own OSSs and their competitors.

In this situation and others, the NMF could play a role in influencing carriers' deployment directions, if it listens closely to members' concerns.

It is also apparent that the NMF needs to do a better job of luring new voices to the forum to maintain its viability in a convergent industry.

Rod Matthews, president and chief executive officer of Scottish Telecom, explained to attendees of the Barcelona conference how the NMF's work helps his upstart carrier (Figure 1). However, NMF representatives from smaller service providers, wireless carriers, Internet service providers and cable TV companies are still few and far between. Extending its appeal to these companies will be a key mandate for the NMF in the years ahead, says Willets.

The forum's ability to do so will be a key to its future success. As Willets is fond of saying, the NMF has done a fine job of laying the foundation for a house and building its frame. Now it must assemble a set of furnishings that is not only complete but also reflects the style of the times.