Telcos work to standardize access models across multi-technology networks

For decades, the combined network access technologies of copper coaxial cable, fiber optic and fixed wireless have formed the backbone of modern communications infrastructure nearly everywhere. But this composite infrastructure can cause problems for customers and CSPs alike.

Uneven deployment of these technologies (whether from regulatory requirements, geographical impediments or organizational incentives) and the resulting culture of differentiating the offering by technology means customer choices over network service and speed are often dependent on understanding the capabilities of each access technology and its local availability.

Many customers can neither be sure which products they can access where, nor understand the differences between technologies – and for too many, it’s not something they think about until it’s too late. Customers often, for instance, move property only to find network features they have previously enjoyed are no longer available to them – and of course it’s to nobody’s benefit when customers are told they simply have to make do with a narrower range of network services.

A frustrated customer is never good for any CSP, and the current network access architecture only limits their ability to improve matters. Moreover, the complexity of network access burdens CSPs organizationally – each technology requires unique product managers and operations support systems (OSS) and business support systems (BSS) requiring considerable capital and operational expenditure.

The industry-wide need to improve matters has already led to a raft of initiatives for each technology aimed at improving network access standards. The Broadband Forum, ONF, ETSI, 3GPP and ORAN are all enhancing their specifications, to take advantage of device fabric exposing capabilities and APIs to third party software applications which replace – and significantly improve – proprietary element management systems (EMS). However, these enhancements are limited in what they can achieve because they still do not address the fundamental issue of how to simplify network access across technologies.

This is precisely the challenge the Converged access for ODA Catalyst seeks to address. TM Forum’s Open Digital Architecture (ODA) principles and Open APIs provide the appropriate framework for CSPs to move away from offering access technologies as differentiators and reducing high cost of ownership for the access network.

For CSPs one benefit of converged access is the ability to simplify fulfilment of different customer-focused services.

"Verizon is proud to be part of the Converged Access Catalyst that has the goal to standardize and streamline the access models across different access technologies resulting in simplifying the fulfilment of the different types of services, processes and deliver the customer focused products," according to Praveen Jhurani, Senior Manager for Solution Architecture and Strategy at Verizon.

Another is facilitating the development of a platform model for access network delivery.

“Converging VNPT’s access network infrastructure into an agile platform for acceleration in developing and providing new services to customers is our long-term strategy and participating in this Catalyst is an excellent step for us on the journey," says Dr. Dang Dinh Trang, Director of VNPT R&D Center at VNPT Group.

Telstra also highlights the importance of reducing architecture complexity. “This convergence of access Catalyst provides thought leadership - we are excited to join and take part in this new technical development, leading to streamlined access and reducing our architecture complexity," says Mark Sanders, Chief Architect at Telstra.

As part of its contribution to the Catalyst, Incognito provides the fulfillment platform to support the customer’s move request, using Future Connections with their qualification platform. This in turn works with STL’s converged access platform to gather current usage and compare available technologies at the new location to ensure that they will support the same or greater usage as they have currently. STL translates the various TM Forum API requests while converging and abstracting the various access technologies interworking with access standards such as BBF, ONF, ETSI 3GPP and ORAN.

For the CSP, the result is significantly simplified access network with reduced interfaces and EMSs, improved cloud native support and the ability to easily overlay value-added applications and introduce customer-focused products.

Most importantly, this Catalyst will result in fundamental improvements for the customer, who will as a result experience significant reductions in time and cost when changing networks – finally, network access will be a swift and non-technology-focused simple selection of uniform products, regardless of location.

“NBN has been a long-term member of TM Forum and is proud to contribute to the development of next-generation carrier network architecture, which can help resolve challenges associated with multi-technology networks and improve standardization, availability and resiliency," says Ray Owen, CTO at NBN Co Australia.