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Spotlight on BT products and services
Network interoperability drives new IP based business opportunities
New internet trends have torn down a number of barriers, allowing users to communicate more seamlessly and effectively both in business and in private life. In particular, mobile applications integrated with their fixed network counterparts have boosted usage of special apps that improve work efficiency and create widespread access to information in the form of content in context.
These applications drive the utilisation of the internet and the requirement for efficient use of available bandwidth to a new level. In the early days of the web, information was readily available, but access to it was fragmented. Text in your email, video in your TV set, business process information in your Siebel application, contacts on your mobile phone and calendar entries on your smart-pad - all had different sources and ran on separate applications and devices.
Today devices converge with the introduction of smartphones, netbooks, tablets and set-top boxes to host different applications. To enable this convergence, the application-carrying parts of the content and much of the context have to reach across the converging devices to offer the information when and where needed. No communications provider can offer its customers access for all the devices on all networks and in all geographies. There is only one way to facilitate seamless access to information for the user: The application has to reach across networks.
While the internet laid the cornerstone for pure infrastructure interconnectivity, it has not yet been able to generate a commercially viable approach to true interoperability. All current business models that aim to bridge the networks in the IP space are either disruptive or limited to a small number of networks and an even smaller number of partners. IP interoperability, with the IP eXchange at its heart, can provide a framework allowing communication providers and operators to build a sustainable business on their activities in the IP space. Moreover, it allows the creation of a broad range of value-added services by using a range of components and service building blocks.
Key components required to ensure interoperability
BT's framework already provides Connectivity, the core component of interoperability. Connectivity must comply with best practice and technical norms to attract network partnerships. Therefore BT aims to conform to IPIA and other industry standards.
A second major component handles Translation, Transcoding and Protocol Conversion for the various applications that run across the IP eXchange. It mediates between networks to allow connecting operators to transmit voice and other traffic with no need to worry about codecs or protocols that the receiving network will accept: Traffic can be virtually dropped into the IP eXchange.
As network mediation usually employs costly gateway elements in legacy infrastructure, this powerful translation capability is a major enabler for interoperability to drive down the cost of operations. Eliminating the need for elaborate compatibility exercises, the translation capability also addresses the increasing demand for improved speed to market and globalisation.
The Certification component adds the required security to the framework; it addresses one of the most difficult aspects of allowing application-driven content to travel across network borders. When operators on both ends can present their users with a seamless security layer for the transmission of sensitive business or private data, customers will have more confidence about entrusting their business processes or private dealings to the networks.
Certification also addresses current barriers and some regulatory requirements that prevent innovation in services where certain security and integrity levels cannot be assured. Starting with such obvious elements as AntiSpam, AntiSpit, AntiVirus and Anti-Intrusion, the security layer supported by BT can also offer connecting operators elements of the BT Counterpane security portfolio.
BT has a robust award-winning security services portfolio which ensures the traffic flowing between networks is fully secure.
Billing, Settlement and Transaction support forms the fourth key component, aimed at enabling operators to develop sustainable commercial and business models for cross-network and multi-provider services. This component helps operators create services which reach customer target groups even if the provider of the originating customer does not hold a direct billing relationship with the receiving end customer.
BT offers to manage transaction services via a federation model or closed user group if customers wish to limit access for example, because of legal rights restrictions. Or they can make full use of the access that BT Interoperability offers to a range of players including carriers, MNOs, application providers, ISPs, OTT players and IT companies.
A carrier can use BT Interoperability to enhance its portfolio with a wealth of third-party services or extend the reach of its own services into more markets and infrastructures, always assured of receiving fair payment for those services. In effect, enabling inter-working between different payment systems lowers the usage barrier because the end customer does not have to sign up with each and every payment service provider.
In short, BT makes use of the key components which provide connectivity between networks, allow interworking via translation of traffic flowing between networks, secure this traffic to enable end-to-end privacy and integrity, and enable the connected operators to bill all parties according to the desired commercial model.
Within the framework of the key components, BT offers a range of service building blocks which make it easy for communication providers who use its IP Interoperability platform to launch value-added services. The modular approach enables them to set up new services immediately after connecting to the IP eXchange.
The Presence and Location service building block aims to consolidate network and location-based information from different sources to offer it to the application layers as an inter-workable package. Users are already accustomed to exploiting GPS information on smart mobile phones to access applications that employ co-ordinates in a user-specified context. Finding the nearest post box or generating a travel plan by calculating how much time it takes to reach the nearest train station are only two examples.
Presence and Location goes beyond them: it can show the network a user’s accessibility to certain services (such as fixed-line or broadband connectivity) or end devices and decide how to deliver the content of an application across the appropriate networks to the proper destination.
The need for seamless synchronisation of business information and data is one of the most important drivers for interoperability. As companies issue their users more devices and services to enhance productivity, access to data gets more fragmented; confused users need it to be unified again. As more and more services will be delivered out of one cloud and into another cloud - representing a user who has multiple devices, multiple access and a set of interacting applications running across all of them - interoperability will be the unifier.
Number Management is often associated with traditional voice services. But numbers also play an important role on the internet, with each destination for content represented by a numbered IP address. So managing numbers - and on top of that the enhanced routing capabilities - is key to a successful and interoperable value-added service. BT's Number Management building block will provide a full set of service elements based on enhanced ENUM routing capabilities to enable providers to add value for their customers - in whatever domains they roam. For example, knowing in which network a person and the respective number are located or roamed in at the moment will shorten call set-up times and increase call quality. It will also reduce cost as the transport, taking into account the specifics of the end-user's infrastructure, can be more direct and effective.
The Authentication service building block, by enabling the network to verify end-user identity, facilitates secure services that add value to the customer's communication. Delivery of personalised content to a dedicated user can be the basis for offering a range of value-rich services with a high business potential for corporations and end users. Global authentication across network boundaries can unlock innovation by removing a major security concern from both sides.
A look at potential value-added services
BT's Interoperability framework enables the set-up of services that add value by virtue of migrating them from isolated or limited network scope to enhanced reach, or by simplifying the underlying service infrastructure to eliminate costly elements. Interoperability increases the attractiveness of services to the customer while driving up margins. Examples of core telecom value-added services include SIP trunking, virtual PBX services, directory services for multiple carriers and enhanced reach of VoIP elements in operator networks to save costs or reach new target groups.
Beyond telecommunications, a number of IT-related value-added services can benefit from IP interoperability. It can enhance the usability of unified communications by enabling services in the cloud, for instance, Infrastructure as a Service, Platforms as a Service and Software as a Service.
Media and content distribution are examples of value-added content services that gain traction from the added security and integrity that interoperability affords; they also benefit from the ability to cascade payments and authenticate users. The latter capabilities also drive commerce-oriented value-added services, including easy money transfer, connected payment systems and payment system gateway functions. These are among the secure ecommerce elements that support all IPX-based value-added service examples, not just the ones listed above.
Interoperability dictates open platforms as preferred implementation model
BT aims to provide its IP interoperability framework-based on its IP eXchange capabilities, components and service building blocks - as an open platform to attract partnerships that will drive mutual benefit.
This open platform will ensure that BT's IP eXchange can function in a potential federation of networks, and also that participants can launch competitive value-added services into their markets.
Its recent acquisition of Ribbit means that BT can also offer an innovative and effective software development kit (SDK) for its Interoperability framework. While using the framework does not require the use of the Ribbit platform, it is nevertheless an easy and effective route to develop new services. Because it is a Platform as a Service (PaaS) connected to BT's IP eXchange, Ribbit can give a head start to all value added service providers who leverage the eXchange.
For learn more about BT's Ribbit capabilities, you may read the article "Taking wholesale voice services to the next level" in this issue of Global Telecom News.
In summary, IP interoperability will not only drive enhanced connectivity of operators and a seamless user experience for today's communication services. It will also enable communication providers to create a wealth of value-added services, opening new opportunities, providing easy market entry and driving sustainable business models in the IP world.
This article originally appeared in Global Telecoms Business.
For further information about BT Interoperability, contact your account manager and/or see the other articles in this issue of Global Telecom News.
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