| Foreword | p. xiii |
| Introduction to IICs and OSS | p. 1 |
| OSS' Role | p. 2 |
| What are Some of These "Expectations?" | p. 3 |
| What is an Internet Infrastructure Company (IIC)? | p. 5 |
| IIC Business Models | p. 7 |
| Dependent on OSS and One Another | p. 12 |
| What is an OSS? | p. 13 |
| A Detailed Look at OSS | p. 15 |
| OSS Functionality | p. 15 |
| A Little History | p. 15 |
| Order Entry | p. 16 |
| Service Validation | p. 17 |
| Product Catalog | p. 18 |
| Service Reservation | p. 19 |
| Order Types | p. 19 |
| Order Management | p. 20 |
| Order Decomposition | p. 20 |
| Workflow Management | p. 21 |
| "Design and Assign" | p. 22 |
| Communication with Trading Partners | p. 23 |
| Interconnect Gateways | p. 23 |
| Gateway Components | p. 25 |
| Handling USOC Codes | p. 27 |
| Network Inventory | p. 27 |
| Inventory Management and Auto-Discovery | p. 29 |
| Provisioning and Activation | p. 30 |
| Flow-Through Provisioning | p. 31 |
| Activation | p. 32 |
| Provisioning with Trading Partners | p. 33 |
| Billing and Mediation | p. 33 |
| Mediation and Rating | p. 34 |
| Convergent Billing | p. 35 |
| The IP Effect | p. 36 |
| Billing Schemes | p. 37 |
| QoS and SLAs | p. 38 |
| Network and Trouble Management | p. 38 |
| Network Management Systems (NMSs) | p. 39 |
| Trouble Management Systems | p. 41 |
| Policy Management | p. 43 |
| OSS in the Cable World | p. 46 |
| OSS and the Web Portal | p. 46 |
| The Web Portal as an OSS Component | p. 47 |
| Defining eBusiness for the IIC Marketplace | p. 48 |
| Automating the Internet Infrastructure Supply Chain | p. 51 |
| What Stands in the Way? | p. 51 |
| Interconnection as a Choke Point | p. 51 |
| Lack of OSS Integration | p. 54 |
| Why the Focus on Technology? | p. 55 |
| TMN | p. 56 |
| The Internet Infrastructure Supply Chain: Basic Components | p. 58 |
| Wholesale-Retail: The DSL Example | p. 62 |
| Digging Deeper | p. 64 |
| Communicating with the Wholesalers | p. 65 |
| The Internet, Workflow and Gateways | p. 68 |
| Cable's Last Mile | p. 68 |
| Provisioning a Cable Modem | p. 69 |
| New Challenges for Cable OSS | p. 72 |
| Real-Time Provisioning | p. 72 |
| Open Access | p. 73 |
| Device Conflicts | p. 73 |
| The Growing Network | p. 74 |
| Voice Services | p. 75 |
| Infrastructure Services vs. Virtual Services | p. 76 |
| The Mobile World | p. 76 |
| The Mobile Supply Chain | p. 78 |
| OSS for the Mobile IIC | p. 81 |
| Basic Mobile Provisioning Process--CSR Based | p. 82 |
| Looking at Some Missing Pieces | p. 84 |
| Content Transformation | p. 85 |
| OSS for 2.5 and 3G Networks | p. 86 |
| Moving Forward | p. 89 |
| Developing an OSS Strategy | p. 91 |
| Value Proposition and Business Strategy | p. 92 |
| Products and Services Strategy | p. 93 |
| Network Strategy | p. 94 |
| Sales and Service Strategy | p. 95 |
| Budget and Investment Strategy | p. 95 |
| Funding Strategy | p. 96 |
| Operational Strategy | p. 97 |
| Configuration and Process | p. 98 |
| Enabling Competitive Differentiation | p. 99 |
| Business Partner Integration and eBusiness Capability | p. 99 |
| Flow-Through | p. 100 |
| Business Intelligence | p. 101 |
| Developing an Implementation Strategy | p. 102 |
| The Build vs. Buy Decision | p. 102 |
| Big Bang vs. Phased Deployment | p. 103 |
| The "Big Bang" Method | p. 103 |
| Developing a Phased Approach | p. 105 |
| Best-of-Breed vs. OSS-in-a-Box | p. 107 |
| In-House or Outsource? | p. 107 |
| Risk Mitigation Strategies | p. 109 |
| Lessons Learned | p. 111 |
| The Enterprise OSS Platform | p. 113 |
| OSS Vendors | p. 113 |
| Evaluating the OSS Vendor and its Goods | p. 115 |
| Vendor Origins | p. 116 |
| Understanding Vendor Solutions | p. 118 |
| Customization vs. Configuration | p. 118 |
| Packages, Frameworks and Toolkits, and End-to-End Solutions | p. 119 |
| Evaluating OSS Solutions and Vendors | p. 120 |
| Common Pitfalls | p. 123 |
| Evaluating the Applications | p. 124 |
| Building the OSS Platform | p. 130 |
| Tackling Implementation and Configuration | p. 130 |
| The Web Portal's Role in OSS | p. 138 |
| B2B Wholesale Portals | p. 140 |
| Account Creation and Maintenance Transactions | p. 141 |
| Ordering Transactions | p. 141 |
| Trouble Ticketing Transactions | p. 142 |
| Billing Transactions | p. 143 |
| Business-to-Consumer (B2C) Portals | p. 143 |
| Building Effective Web Portals | p. 145 |
| Implementation and Architecture Case Studies | p. 145 |
| Integrating the OSS Platform | p. 151 |
| Common Integration Objectives | p. 151 |
| Order Flow-Through | p. 152 |
| Service Assurance Flow-Through | p. 152 |
| Integrated Customer View | p. 153 |
| Data Synchronization | p. 153 |
| The Integrated OSS Platform | p. 153 |
| Who Owns The Data? | p. 154 |
| What Are The Transactions That Flow Among Systems? | p. 157 |
| Sales Force Automation Transactions | p. 158 |
| Web-Based Care Transactions | p. 158 |
| Order Management and Provisioning Transactions | p. 159 |
| Billing Transactions | p. 160 |
| Business Goal: Service Assurance Flow-Through | p. 161 |
| Network Monitoring Transactions | p. 161 |
| Customer Relationship Management Transactions | p. 162 |
| Web-Based Care Transactions | p. 162 |
| Billing Transactions | p. 163 |
| Business Goal: Deriving Integrated Business Intelligence | p. 164 |
| Why Is Integration So Difficult? | p. 165 |
| Application Package Flexibility | p. 166 |
| Process and Data Assumptions | p. 167 |
| Application Programming Interfaces | p. 168 |
| Product Catalog Integration | p. 169 |
| Business-to-Business Integration | p. 172 |
| Integration Technologies | p. 173 |
| Getting to the Data | p. 173 |
| Integration Techniques | p. 176 |
| Point-to-Point Integration | p. 178 |
| Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) | p. 179 |
| EAI Functional Components | p. 180 |
| Other EAI Components | p. 183 |
| EAI Vs. Point-to-Point | p. 184 |
| What Connectors are Available? | p. 184 |
| Where Do I Manage Workflow? | p. 185 |
| What Kind of Skills Do I Need to Deploy EAI? | p. 187 |
| Is Enterprise Application Integration Possible? | p. 189 |
| How Much Time Does Integration Require? | p. 191 |
| Integration Approaches and Phased Implementation | p. 192 |
| Integration Case Studies | p. 192 |
| Sales Force Automation to Order Management | p. 192 |
| Order Management to Billing | p. 194 |
| Order Management to Network Activation | p. 195 |
| Service Assurance | p. 196 |
| Web Portal | p. 198 |
| Summing Up Integration | p. 199 |
| Supporting the Life of an OSS Integrated Platform | p. 201 |
| Moving to Production | p. 201 |
| Migration Phases | p. 203 |
| Lessons Learned in Conversion | p. 206 |
| Support Organization and Cost | p. 207 |
| Examining the IT Organization | p. 208 |
| Maintenance | p. 208 |
| Application Support | p. 208 |
| Costs | p. 209 |
| Configuration Management | p. 210 |
| Maintenance Models | p. 210 |
| Handling Mergers and Acquisitions | p. 211 |
| Next-Generation OSS | p. 215 |
| The Driving Force: The Next-Generation Network (NGN) | p. 216 |
| Driving Intelligence into the Network | p. 217 |
| Moving to Packets | p. 218 |
| IP Switching to the Core | p. 219 |
| QoS Guaranteed Service Delivery | p. 220 |
| The Converged Network | p. 221 |
| The Technologies and Protocols for NGN | p. 221 |
| Integrated Access Device (IAD) | p. 221 |
| Broadband Aggregator | p. 223 |
| MPLS | p. 224 |
| Softswitch | p. 226 |
| Next-Generation DLC | p. 228 |
| SIP | p. 229 |
| DOCSIS and PacketCable | p. 231 |
| 3G Wireless | p. 232 |
| Support for the Next-Generation OSS | p. 234 |
| Multi-Domain Management | p. 234 |
| QoS and SLA Management | p. 242 |
| Real-Time Usage Collection and Billing | p. 243 |
| User-Interface Considerations | p. 243 |
| Component-Based Architecture | p. 244 |
| Standards and Trends | p. 248 |
| The Standards: TeleManagement Forum--NGOSS Framework | p. 248 |
| The Web Services Revolution | p. 248 |
| What Are the ISVs Doing? | p. 250 |
| The Future of OSS | p. 251 |
| Network Intelligence and Service Logic | p. 252 |
| Application Services, Interactive Media and Billing | p. 252 |
| Interactive Television | p. 253 |
| Managing Where the Money Flows | p. 254 |
| Further eBusiness Requirements | p. 256 |
| Access--Privacy and Security | p. 256 |
| Integration | p. 257 |
| OSS Spending | p. 259 |
| The Effect of Globalization on OSS | p. 259 |
| Expertise | p. 260 |
| velOSSity | p. 261 |
| Glossary | p. 263 |
| Index | p. 279 |
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