OSS Abstract

To adapt at the new market, telecommunications service providers (carriers) need to supply a larger variety of low cost and high availability services, as well as speed in the development and delivery new value added services and control. Therefore, carriers need to implement Operation Support Systems (OSS) able to attend the customer's new needs and market opportunities quickly, but preserving the existing infrastructure of network elements and management systems. Thus, the market requires a system which is easily adaptable to carrier's conditions, employing plug and play, re-usable components and open and distributed architecture concepts to achieve scalable systems, with high performance data acquisition, routing processing, data analysis, configuration control, scheduling, control features, and performance guarantees, all of these functions operating with high availability. This paper proposes a differentiated approach to implement an OSS, based on best practices of open system architecture, in order to comply with the requests of the modern telecommunications market.

http://www.telenor.com/en/resources/images/Telek_2-09_Page_166-169_tcm2851682.pdf http://www.telenor.com/en/resources/images/Telek_2-09_Page_157-165_tcm2851681.pdf http://www.osstransformation.com/ http://www.centurylink.com/wholesale/clecs/preordering.html http://www.centurylink.com/wholesale/clecs/lsog.html http://www.centurylink.com/wholesale/forms/asr.html http://frontier.com/Print/PrintPage.aspx?pageid=451&origPath=%2FVerizonAcquisitionI nformation%2FWholesaleSystemFlow http://frontier.com/Documents/wholesale/Frontier_091802_EDI_Guidelines_Preorder.pdf http://www.frontier.com/wholesale/ContentPages.aspx?p=44 http://www.synchronoss.com/images/stories/Videos/Synch-iNow-Demo-06-2-10.swf http://www.oss-system.net/telemanagement-forum.html

1. OSS created through discrete integration of components. This means you will be building up your OSS by selecting components for integration. In this case, you will be responsible for the integration of components yourself. With this approach, compliance will be entirely up to your organization.

Order management is about the orders of the customers. This also involves maintaining the customer relationship by ensuring the delivery of the product by the customer's "due date." While order management specialist Synchronous may be best known for its AT&T iPhone activation and other device management deals, it also does big business providing the receipt gateways that replace legacy systems and synchronize information for many smaller CLECs acquiring assets and leasing circuits from larger service providers. Those CLECs are looking for solutions that can help them wring the cost out of service provisioning while preserving the quality of experience for customers, who of course want a seamless transition from one carrier to the next during M&A or interconnect and leasing activities. eBonding is emerging as a means for ensuring cost control and cost management in these carrier-to-carrier interactions, particularly in turning up services or accomplishing repairs on leased circuits. As [service providers] try to balance a need for shorter, more cost-efficient implementation times for new services with the need to preserve the quality of the customer experience, eBonding is becoming of paramount importance as they piece together specialized capabilities in either order management or workflow, says Mark Mendes, executive vice president of InterconnectNow, a solution that has been expanded to improve access service request (ASR), local service request (LSR) and e-trouble management capabilities and streamline send and receive e-bonding capabilities.

Because most suppliers provide point solutions that specialize in either order management or workflow, Synchronoss felt it was time to create a holistic solution that brought together ebonding, workflow and order management. By converging its InterconnectNow (ebonding), ConvergenceNow (workflow) and ConvergenceNow Plus+ (order management) platforms, Synchronoss believes service providers will more efficiently and cost effectively manage the entire life cycle of a circuit orderfrom the time the end customer asks for a service to the back-office steps necessary to turn up the service and maintain it through repairs and ultimate decommissioning of the circuit down the road. To make this as streamlined as possible, we have further automated our order receive capabilities by adhering to ATIS OBF standards around ASR, LSR and trouble management, said Mendes, who noted the Synchronoss rules engine is driven by standardized rules sets for trouble administration, which improves the communications necessary to send orders back and forth between carriers. By incorporating industry trading rules for local services and for access service ordering, it helps improve the provisioning of local services riding over those pipes that exist among carriers and between carriers and high-bandwidth users, said Mendes. We improved our business rules components as we strive to achieve higher level of testless automation. We want our systems to make the logical choices formerly left to people. As we refine those rules across electronic gateways, carriers can accomplish more sophisticated and automated send and receive transmissions. To further streamline carrier-to-carrier communications, Synchronoss has also more tightly integrated with Granite and other telco inventory systems. In many cases, carriers have to lease circuits and interconnect with other carriers through third parties, yet they want to keep that leased circuit in their inventory as though it were their own, so this integration will help them know circuit locations, as well as the identities of the customers whose services ride over those circuits, explained Mendes. The solution will also boast enhanced Web-based rules management and publishing capabilities to further push self-care among carriers and among carriers and end customers. CSPs want to displace the need for a CSR; they want to do the legwork through an easy-to-use interface that allows interactions without a lot of added cost, said Mendes. Synchronoss will be demonstrating the InterconnectNow platform at next weeks Billing & OSS World conference.

Order Management Requirements Features and Functions

1. Capture of order and service requirements through all contact channels. The functionality is integrated into the CC&B solution 2. Automatic display of the correct terms and penalties when the customer wishes to change their service or tariff 3. Access for all users to the details of centrally held products and services 4. Prevention of orders if the customer is bound by contractual terms forbidding userdefined change 5. Secure environment for storing, processing, and verifying credit card details 6. Easy-to-use UI that provides the ability for a CSR to order products or services using a "drag-and-drop" type of interface 7. Copying of an order and application of it to another account 8. Flexible workflow management capabilities, whereby users can set up and maintain different workflow profiles for different services, tasks, or jobs 9.Escalation process to manage outstanding tasks, in the relevant section of the workflow 10.Prioritization of the completion of orders by location, geography, BSC Prioritization of the completion of orders by customer segment 11. Checking of the customer's credit limit when a new product or service is ordered 12.Check stock level by product 13.Check stock level by delivery date 14.Check stock level by location 15.Suggest alternate product based on stock availability 16. Send out status updates and acknowledgements to the customer through multiple contact channels (e.g., SMS confirmation of delivery report, e-mail read receipt, etc.) 17.Override system-specified delivery date for high value customers 18.Override system-specified delivery date for any customer having specific authorization 19.Real time order processing 20.Batch order processing 21.Active account numbers that are restricted to one subscriber at a given time 22.Changing of identifying numbers singly or in batch 23.Set activation and deactivation dates for future processing 24.Set work orders for activation on a future date 25.Customers may have multiple subscriptions 26.Recycle account numbers through rules defined by the user 27.Load telephone numbers into the system by number range 28.Application of charges to be generated for the allocation of certain numbers to customers

29. Definition of regionally marketed products and services, updateable only by users in the specific region 30. Reserve identifying numbers based on customer type, sales person, or dealer, etc. Pre-Order Validation The Pre-Order Validation information below is provided as a resource before placing an Access Service Request (ASR). These web-based tools are available to you in the Access Ordering application.

Circuit Facility Assignment (CFA) Search The CFA Search form allows you to check if a channel of a facility is busy or spare by using CFA List, CFA Details and CFA Channel Details. >more Service Address Validation Service Address Validation form allows you to check the end-user address prior to submitting an access service request (ASR). The Service Address transaction allows you to perform an address validation by telephone number or service address. >more SONET Facility SONET Facility form search allows you to retrieve SONET Ring and Node details prior to submitting an ASR. >more SPUNE / SWUNE Search Search by circuit or two-six code (TSC) to retrieve data for a SPUNE / SWUNE ASR. >more Circuit Facility Assignment (CFA) Search Form Overview The CFA Search allows you to check if a channel of a facility is busy or spare by using CFA List, CFA Details and CFA Channel Details. Pre-Order validation of a circuit does not take into account any pending activity. CFA Search allows you to perform several types of searches:

CFA List CFA Wildcard (Not available for West Virginia) CFA Details CFA Channel Details

When to Use This transaction should be used when you are not sure what facility and channel assignment you are going to use on your ASR. Searches are available for all leased facilities in states serviced by Frontier. Please note: You must have the appropriate CCNAs and ACNAs built into Access Ordering before viewing CFA Details. How to Complete Required fields for a CFA Search are:

Facility Designation Facility Type Channel A Location Z Location State Note: For Wildcard searches one CLLI code must be a minimum of 7 characters with an asterisk (*) as the seventh character. The other CLLI code must be must be 11 characters. Service Address Validation Form Overview Service Address validation allows you to check the end-user address prior to submitting an access service request (ASR). The Service Address transaction allows you to perform an address validation by telephone number or service address. When to Use The Service Address validation is used prior to submitting an ASR for service at a new location, prior to making changes to existing service and prior to moving service to a new location. How to Complete To validate a service address by telephone number (WV only), the required fields are:

Telephone Number (TN) State To validate by address, the required fields are:

Address Format Type (AFT)

Service Address Number (SANO) Street Name (SASN) Street Address Thoroughfare (SATH) City State Zip Code SONET Facility Form Overview SONET Facility search allows you to retrieve SONET Ring and Node details prior to submitting an ASR. When to Use How to Complete Required field for the SONET Facility search are:

Facility Designation Facility Type A Location Z Location State SPUNE / SWUNE Search Form Overview Search by circuit or two-six code (TSC) to retrieve data for a SPUNE / SWUNE ASR. When to Use The Facility search is used for SPUNE Circuit information. The Serial search is used for SWUNE Circuit information. How to Complete The required fields are:

ICSC State

Type of search </

o o o

Facility (SPUNE) Serial (Loop or IOF) TSC

OSS: A Must-Have Tool for CLECs - Technology Information OSS solutions enable providers to be more effective and efficient in today's hot business and regulatory climate. ILECs and CLECs are rapidly evolving into multiservice, multimarket enterprises. The result is an intense swirl of companies furiously competing over new market terrain. The winners will be those that provide quality service, manage their business-critical processes most efficiently and scale their operations to offer new services and enter new markets. This intense emphasis on competitiveness and efficiency places a premium on a corporate infrastructure--particularly its operational support system (OSS). For a CLEC, in particular, an OSS becomes a mandatory foundation tool to support its business. The key to success is execution from point of sale through provisioning, installation, billing, collection and customer service. An OSS is the key enabler for companies wanting to reduce costs and accelerate time of service deployment to customers. While different solutions offer varying features, the typical OSS focuses on logical inventory control, circuit assignment and design, network element management, and the management of all orders inside and outside the company (see Figure 1). Most OSS solutions provide functions and features to support the following critical operations: * Order management. Entering and tracking the status of customer orders and service requirements; * Service provisioning. Executing the tasks for delivering a new service to a customer; * Inventory management. Managing available network facilities, how they are deployed, and the repair processes for equipment failures;

* Network management. Activating, monitoring, testing, troubleshooting and reporting the performance and operation of the network; * Billing and customer care. Billing the customer for service, providing detailed reports on services the customer has used, and managing the customer service process; * Trouble management. Providing network surveillance, handling alarms and processing trouble-tickets while offering a comprehensive view of each customer's service and service level; and * Automated business processes. Automating and synchronizing all of the above processes through electronic workflow management. An integrated OSS solution enables competitive providers to bring new features to market faster and respond more quickly to changes in the business and regulatory climate. It does this by: * Allowing work to flow electronically across the organization, providing visibility to processes and resource utilization. For example, the provider can relate tasks to specific service requests. If there's manual work involved, checklist items can be associated with those tasks to simplify status tracking. "Gateway" events, where the provider interconnects with another carrier or other third party to share provisioning-process information, can be associated. In this manner, a CLEC's OSS can automatically transmit a local service request (LSR) to an ILEC when a certain task is initiated or completed. * Managing the end-to-end service delivery process, which can often involve more than one type of order or transaction across the organization, as well as with other service or network providers. Most services offered by CLECs create a work flow that is dependent upon other parties--such as ILECs--to activate them. This creates "dependency" orders, such as regulated orders that help fulfill retail orders. If a company wants leased-line service from Kansas City to Chicago, the CLEC's retail order causes the OSS to issue an access service request to the ILEC (thoroughly validated and structured according to defined standards). The ILEC responds with a firm order confirmation and a design layout report. The CLEC finishes the provisioning process and fulfills the retail order. Enabling service providers to offer more timely and accurate information about improved product capacity, capability and availability, as well as enhanced customer service and responsiveness to customer inquiries. The OSS can capture all se rvices in a single catalog. Service availability can be captured for each switch, preventing sales representatives from inadvertently offering services that individual switches cannot support. The OSS can also provide the foundation for an information repository that provides answers to customer inquiries. The CLEC's Plight

Consider the case of a CLEC offering digital subscriber line (DSL) services across hundreds of cities and towns in several states. CLECs' primary goals are ambitious: * Differentiation based on customer service; * Scalability to accommodate growth; * Customer retention; and * Compelling, streamlined business propositions that will be attractive for partnering/acquisition. The biggest differentiator is meeting the demands of service activation and provisioning in the shortest possible time. For broadband providers, the process is tricky and requires several days or sometimes weeks. A few years ago, the processes an OSS managed were simpler to oversee because the ILEC had complete control of all facets of provisioning, network management, maintenance, billing, and so forth. Today, a multitude of players are involved in the market, exponentially complicating the process. A CLEC offering DSL has to carefully manage all of its internal processes and also track what other companies, such as the ILECs, do. In addition to ILECs, CLECs work with other external carriers and parties such as E911 authorities and long-distance providers. With a properly deployed and configured OSS, the CLEC now has the information infrastructure to manage all of the participants in its various processes. From an internal perspective, an OSS brings the CLEC closer to the customer. Since the greatest differenctiator among service providers is the ability to provide the highest quality service, it only makes sense to deploy a solution to automate and manage servicerelated processes. What's more, customer expectations must be carefully managed. An OSS provides careful tracking, benchmarking and trend analyses that help keep processes on track. Once a CLEC has an interconnection agreement with an ILEC--complete with contractually agreed-upon time commitments--the OSS can help the CLEC track the ILEC's performance and ensure smooth collaboration. For example, the OSS can track the interval between the time a loop order was sent to the ILEC and when the ILEC fulfilled the order, allowing the service provider to match this against the committed timeframes. Scalability is also a major concern. Many CLECs and providers start out with homegrown platforms on multiple systems to support systems such as billing and provisioning. However, if a provider is looking to grow from 20 to 200 service areas,

these systems are unlikely to scale efficiently or in synch to support the new level of operations. Enabling E-Business The OSS has also become the platform for electronic interconnection between CLECs and their competition. These gateways are designed to interconnect the OSS platforms of competing service providers that must trade information and share network capabilities to provision a growing range of services for customers. CLECs across the United States are in the process of deploying gateways to interconnect with incumbents. These gateways help automate the preorder sales process, expedite the exchange of order forms between CLECs and incumbents, and support long-distance service and problem resolution. Until recently, CLECs typically mailed or faxed local service requests to the ILEC with predictable results: lost orders and delayed service. Using common, standard definitions, rules and guidelines centered on an open architecture, ILECs, CLECs and other stakeholders can use the OSS to create a seamless, intercompany flow of provisioning service orders. Like an ERP system in a manufacturing setting, the OSS can track when an order is entered and the progress that the ILEC is making toward fulfilling it. The same type of electronic data flow can also connect an OSS to internal billing systems for additional efficiency. With a smooth process and data flow, the interconnected OSS enables the CLEC to focus on and provide improved customer service. Armed with complete intercarrier information--like a manufacturing supply chain--they can know where orders are and how many days to completion. A simple local service request might involve three steps: 1. Send the retail order to the ILEC. The OSS creates a "gateway-to-gateway" event that transmits the structured order to the ILEC--much like EDI techniques create information sharing in the manufacturing industry. 2. The ILEC issues a receipt. The CLEC receives a local service confirmation (receipt). This step alone represents a significant improvement for CLECs, which can confirm that the ILEC has the work order. 3. Complete a due date with the LSR. When the ILEC completes its portion of the process, it sends notice of the completion to the CLEC, which can continue to close out its retail order and complete its provisioning process for the customer.

For consumers, these electronic interconnection initiatives are the key to receiving predictable, high-quality service pegged to established benchmarks, auditable processes and defined procedures and timelines. For the ILEC, the electronic bonding/OSS isn't a cudgel wielded by the CLEC in a oneway, win-lose relationship. Faced with a storm of LSRs from dozens of different CLECs, the ILEC can similarly rely on an OSS to help manage the different relationships and requests efficiently. By demonstrating its ability to respond in a timely fashion and open its facilities to CLECs, the OSS can help the ILEC justify its application to provide long-distance service. Many ILECs are rapidly expanding into new service areas, with legacy systems designed in a single-carrier/single-service world. They, too, are turning to OSS solutions to help them manage these new initiatives. For ILECs and CLECs, the proliferation of services, markets, carriers and competitors has created a non-negotiable requirement for speed, efficiency and manageability in all aspects of provisioning and customer care. New-breed OSSs are a win-win-win for ILECs, CLECs and customers. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0TLC/is_6_34/ai_63330505/pg_3/?tag=content;col 1 Seamless Interconnection Evolving gateways bridge the gap by George Alto and Ian Carter Telecommunication interconnection used to be relatively simple. A handful of monopoly carriers linked up with one or two of their neighbors to deliver calls, while giant offices full of content employees tallied the accounts and mailed out the bills. It was a functional, dependable and relatively static system, and it worked just fine, provided you never had to do anything more comp-licated than make a long-distance call. But the days of easy interconnection are over. Evolving technologies have streamed into the marketplace. Customers are demanding better and cheaper services, and regulators around the world continue to open the door for a steady stream of aggressive new service providers. Initially, doors were opened to the competitive interexchange carriers (IXC). Then came the competitive local exchange carriers (CLEC), the Internet service providers (ISP), the enhanced communications providers (ECP) and a veritable host of innovative niche service suppliers. Nowadays, tens of thousands of telecom competitors in North America

strive to provide their eagerly waiting customers with newer, better and cheaper services of all kinds. With this ever-expanding roster of carriers and services, the old issue of carrier-to-carrier interconnection is more important than ever before. In many cases, the success or failure of a carrier's business depends on the quality of interconnections they achieve and the integration they accomplish with their back-office operational support system (OSS). It all comes down to information. In today's marketplace, carriers are vitally dependent on each other and their customers, for the critical information they need to deliver services and collect revenues. Although they may compete with each other, carriers must also be customers and partners with other carriers to succeed. The sheer number of transactions needed to complete tasks is astounding. New local carriers need customer information, as well as facilities and services information from the incumbents; long-distance carriers need to purchase access from local service providers; and all carriers need to exchange information with each other to provision service requests, complete wholesale billing, network trouble diagnostics and referrals, and to manage customer accounts on an ongoing basis. This complex and continuous exchange of information is made possible through the use of gateways that bridge the gap between carriers' networks, OSSs and customer data. A gateway is, by definition, any combination of hardware and software that allows electronic information or data to flow from one place to another. But today's gateways must be much more than a simple conduit for information. In the current competitive environment where cost, customer care and speed of service are increasingly critical factors for business success, carriers need innovative gateway solutions to help them stay ahead of the pack and differentiate themselves. Innovative gateway solutions Carriers expect a lot from their gateways. They want one vendor to provide all the interconnection interfaces they require to all their trading partners. However, since most customers do not require all the interfaces at the same time, they are willing to partner with their vendors over time to get their mechanization in phases. Today's dynamic customers want their gateway vendors to support

Preordering Local service requests (LSR) Enhanced 911 (E911) Line information database (LIDB) updates to ILECs or equivalent carriers

Access service requests (ASR), interfaces to all the ILECs and major IXCs Local number portability (LNP) interfaces to the regional number portability administrative centers (NPAC) Trouble administration (TA) interfaces to the ILECs and major IXCs. Wholesale and carrier billing interfaces Service Management System 800 (SMS/800) database update interfaces Proprietary interfaces to some of their strategic partners and vendors

To allow for the seamless interexchange of information, effective OSS gateway solutions share the following best practice features: Full automation Automation allows carriers to manage requests, provision circuits and deliver services with an absolute minimum of time lost to manual processing. Reliability OSS solutions must guarantee the delivery of transactions. The best products in today's market offer fault-tolerant configurations for outbound requests to ensure the delivery of every message and transaction, in addition to high availability on the incoming side for rapid data reception in mission-critical environments. Bi-directional capability Bi-directional capabilities allow the new breed of telecommunications companies to offer and/or buy wholesale services to/from other carriers. Today's telecommuni-cations companies are very dynamic and can change a business strategy on a dime. The need for gateway solutions to offer the support for this change is becoming commonplace. Flexibility and configurability Gateway solutions must be connection independent to enable data transmission by the method of choice. They must understand and permit the conversion of multiple languages and protocols. And they must allow carriers to cope quickly and effectively with evolving services, changing interfaces, and new trading partners, whether they are major customers, ILECs, CLECs, IXCs or ECPs. A core platform A core platform provides common services for all the interconnection interfaces it supports. Common services include transaction processing and control, security and access control, transaction and performance logging and reporting, data recovery and persistence, and reliability independent of interface type. Vendors that build on top of a core gateway are able to share these common services across all their interfaces and therefore able to build new interface typesstandards based or proprietaryin shorter intervals.

Seamless integration Seamless integration with back-office OSSs allows total information flow-through and automation of a carrier's complex business processes. Integration with Back-office OSSs A myriad of gateway solutions currently exist in the market today. Some of these are able to stand alone without an OSS, while others provide relatively open environments to integrate with other OSSs. Other vendors provide complete solutions to their customers: an OSS integrated with a gateway to provide end-to-end functionality and flow-through with carriers. Several factors determine the level of integration that can be accomplished between an OSS and an interconnection gateway: the openness of the gateway, the functional capabilities of the gateway, and the functionality and openness of the OSS. Seamless integration with differentiating functionality can only be accomplished by vendors that provide both the OSS and gateway solution. Such integration allows for robust, featurerich end-to-end flow-through. The future of OSS and gateway integration relies on the following capabilities:

The transparent management of service numbers (such as, telephone numbers, calling cards, and IP addresses) to provide services and LNP between carriers and organizations, such as NPACs and Internet Network Information Center (InterNIC), via LSR, primary interexchange carrier/customer account record exchange (PIC/CARE), and LNP interconnection interfaces The transparent management of network inventory when facilities are purchased and/or leased between carriers via LSR and ASR interconnection interfaces The automatic referral and/or acceptance of trouble tickets between carriers that share and/or lease network equipment and facilities via TA interfaces Provisioning and billing functions to transparently reconcile wholesale and carrier access billing information with actual customer-provisioned services and usage via wholesale billing and carrier-access billing (CABS) interfaces

No matter how open a gateway solution is, the vendors who succeed in the marketplace will be those providing integrated solutions. Winning vendors will be able to come up with functional and feature-rich gateways that are fully integrated to handle transactions between trading partners. Gateways and E-commerce Past interconnection relationships between carriers were, in effect, business-to-business E-commerce transactions: one carrier acted as the customer and the other carrier acted as

the supplier. This relationship was not apparent, however, because carriers were restricted to ordering services from one supplier. The monopoly, however, is quickly eroding. Today's customers can order services from a choice of multiple carriers. This new business climate creates new requirements for interconnection gateways. They must connect with numerous carriers with a variety of interfaces. To meet this need, gateway vendors must find a universal language to speak to these numerous systems. XML, the E-commerce language in other industries, is gaining acceptance in the telecommunications industry. XML allows quick definition of an interface (for example, a purchase order), definition and validation of syntax and business rules, and exchange of information between carriers. These characteristics are well suited to the needs of the telecom business-to-business E-commerce industry. For this reason, more and more gateway vendors are adopting XML as their interface language-especially for the proprietary and strategic interfaces being used between carriers. As such, telecommunications industry standards organizations are beginning to consider adopting XML as the industry standard for gateways. The future of the interconnection marketplace Today's gateway vendors want their solutions to be modular and flexible to accommodate changechange in partners, protocols, interfaces, and joint interface agreements (JIA) with no downtime and no impact on the gateway's core design. These changes have been, and will be, mainly driven by the incumbent carriers who have gateways interfacing with them. The vendors who establish the best relationships with these incumbents will win market share. For the majority of vendors, such flexibility is not a problem. Most of the best new product developments of the last few years have been driven by specific customer needs, and vendors are generally more than willing to work closely with clients to define their requirements, implement their products and train their staff to stay ahead of the competition. This close relationship between vendors and carriers will likely create a stream of innovative solutions in the gateway market as carriers' requirements continue to evolve. The emergence of service bureaus in the gateway market is a case in point. Customers interested in service bureaus want to be able to go to one place for all their interconnection needs and to interface with all their trading partners. Three issues must be resolved before the service bureau concept can win wide-spread acceptance:

Vendors must increase the number of incumbent carriers with whom their service bureaus can interface. At the moment, vendors offering service bureaus are primarily focused on the LSR and preordering interfaces of a few incumbent carriers. Service bureaus must be able to fulfill more than LSR transactions. They must process other transactions, such as ASR, PIC/CARE, E911, LIDB and TA. The business and regulatory climate must change. For a real service bureau to work and meet the needs of today's customers, the incumbent carriers, vendors, and larger customers must cooperate. Unfortunately, this cooperation is not happening in today's business and regulatory climate.

In the future, a variety of options will serve the interconnection needs of carriers. Some customers will not require the robust and seamless integration used to link an OSS and a gateway. These customers will be best suited to a service bureau model. Some customers will require seamless integration between their OSS and gateway, and they will go to the few vendors that offer it. Some customers will require seamless integration of their OSS and gateway for some services and not for others. This group will most likely implement a hybrid solution involving a service bureau for some interface types, and a gateway with seamless integration to the OSS for other services. Gateways have come a long way in a short time. The increasing demands for new services that can be delivered more quickly and cheaply have made the need for seamless connection greater than ever before. Which technologies will be adopted and which technologies will fall by the wayside, remains to be seen. With so many possibilities, the end result is hard to predict. http://www.eftia.com/about_oss/interconnection.html

LSR pre-order

1.

Hawaiian Telcom allows the following LSR pre-order transactions through the NeuStar ordering gateway interface:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Address Validation (AV) Loop Qualification (LQ) Collocation Facility Assignment (CFA) Inquiry Customer Service Record (CSR) Telephone Number Assignment (TN) Feature/Service Availability (FS) Appointment Scheduling (App) Fiber Availability

Hawaiian Telcom responds to the inquiries through the same gateway interface. 2. The pre-order process allows the bypass of business rules; however, formatting rules and required fields must be populated and correct. Hawaiian Telcom recommends that CLECs do not bypass edits for business rules as using these edits may help minimize order errors. CLECs have the ability to clone an order in the pre-order process. This feature eliminates the need to recreate an order for multiple requests on the same telephone number/account. Address Validation gives the CLEC the ability to validate the address provided by an end user. This inquiry is used prior to submitting an LSR for service at a new location, prior to making changes to an existing location and prior to moving service to a new location. Hawaiian Telcoms response will indicate an address match, address alternatives or address error. Information relative to Hawaiian Telcom end office providing dial tone to the end user is also provided. A valid post office address is required for validation. The most common information provided includes Service Address Number (SANO), Street Name (SASN), State, and Zip Code. Loop Qualification provides a CLEC with the physical make-up of the facilities at a selected location. This inquiry is used to determine if facilities exist for loop technology dependent products prior to placing a firm order. Address validation must be completed with an exact match prior to performing Loop Qualification. CLECs can use a service address or working telephone number for submitting the inquiry. Collocation Facility Assignment (CFA) Inquiry provides a CLEC with the collocation assignment information. The CLEC must provide the required fields which are the Local Service Termination (LST), Shelf, and Slot. An address validation inquiry needs to be completed with an exact match on the address prior to a Collocation Facility Assignment Inquiry being submitted. Hawaiian Telcom advises the CLEC whether or not that assignment is available. When a collocation facility assignment is required, the CFA inquiry is used prior to submitting a LSR for service at a new location, prior to making changes to existing service and prior to moving service to a new location. This process is used for UNE-loop orders and others as required. Customer Service Record (CSR) inquiry allows the CLEC to query Hawaiian Telcom for information relative to the existing products/services provisioned to an end user. Examples of the type of information are service address, features, other working telephone numbers and the type of facility serving the end user- copper or fiber. The CLEC request for information can be made based in Account Telephone Number, Working Telephone Number, Special Billing Number or listed Telephone Number. Telephone Number Assignment inquiry allows CLECs to reserve an end user telephone number(s). This feature is used when a CLEC requires a telephone number from Hawaiian Telcom prior to issuing a LSR for new or resold service. An Address Validation inquiry needs to be completed with an exact match on the address prior to a Telephone Number Assignment inquiry being submitted. As an alternative to re-typing Address Information, the address information can be imported from a successful Address Validation Response to the Reserve TN Flow by using the Import button in NeuStar. CLECs can request any available number or specify a specific number. If the specific number is available, it will be reserved. If it is not available, the CLEC will be advised. Hawaiian Telcoms response will include the reserved telephone numbers. These telephone numbers will be reserved for 30 days. Each transaction can be issued for maximum of 12 telephone numbers. If more than 12 telephone numbers are needed, the CLEC should contact the Wholesale Markets Call Center (WMCC). If less than the requested telephone numbers is needed, the CLEC should use the Cancel Reservation pre-order

3. 4.

5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

15.

16. 17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

to release the telephone numbers that are not needed. 24. Feature Service Availability inquiry provides information about the availability of Hawaiian Telcoms products and services in a specific central office switch that can be offered to the CLECs end users served by that switch. 25. An Address Validation inquiry needs to be completed with an exact match on the address prior to a Feature Availability inquiry is submitted. 26. The inquiry can be requested by address, NPA/NXX or by working telephone number. 27. Appointment Scheduling inquiry is used to check installation dates for orders requiring dispatch. 28. An Address Validation inquiry needs to be completed with an exact match prior to submitting an Appointment Scheduling inquiry. 29. Hawaiian Telcom will respond with a RESID (Reserve ID), the reserved due date and appointment time (if requested). 30. LSRs must be submitted within 2 hours of the Appointment Inquiry Response to honor the due date given on the response. 31. The RESID included in Hawaiian Telcoms response must be submitted with the LSR. 32. The reserved due date will be held up to 30 days. 33. Fiber Availability inquiry provides a CLEC with the facility environment serving the end user and enables the CLEC to check the fiber to the prem (FTTP) availability. The Fiber Availability inquiry may be used prior to submitting a LSR for service at a new location, prior to making changes to existing service, and prior to moving service to a new location in cases where the CLEC wishes to determine if there is fiber available at the customers location. 34. An Address Validation inquiry needs to be completed with an exact match on the address prior to submitting a Fiber Availability inquiry. 35. Hawaiian Telcoms response will identify the type of facility serving the end user.