Telecom Service Broking
Telecom Service Broking is a way of composing telecom services by blending together a number of existing services. The building-block services remain unchanged and do not "know" they are cooperating in the Service Composition. The objective is to enable the creation of new services by the Telecom Operator without reverting to the vendor. Telecom Service Broking is also commonly called Service Capability Interaction Management (SCIM) in IMS.
To enable the creation of converged internet/telecom applications, Telecom Service Brokers need to support a wide range of communication protocols that span the internet, IP telecoms and legacy networks. In addition, two additional capabilities are required:
- The ability to create additional functionality and to add this into a new Service Composition using the Telecom Service Broker - for example, some application awareness of a family group or user preferences or user location might be added;
- The ability to add online charging behaviour into the Service Compositions - for example, rather than charging the Service Composition as a ‘standard call’, it might be included in a separate bundle or charged to a master family account, or at a premium rate.
Typical operator use cases for a Telecom Service Broker might be adding pre-paid to IN services such as VPNs or blending together a number of IN services such as Home Zone with VPNs. Common combinations include:
- VPN + Prepaid
- Home Zone + VPN + Prepaid
- Notify Me + Prepaid
- Double number + Prepaid
Most industry experts believe that the multi-protocol tapestry that delivers telecoms today will remain for many years to come. Consequently, another set of use cases for Service Broker arise where packet switched and circuit switched networks co-exist. Commonly the requirements are for:
- Eliminating inefficiencies with “tromboning” of calls between Packet-Switched and Circuit-Switched networks.
- Re-use of IN services for IMS terminals (protocol translation) IM-SSF
- Re-use of IMS services for CS terminals (protocol translation) Reverse-IM-SSF
- Blending “hosted PBX” with IN Prepaid (e.g. pre-pay enable an IP PBX package)
New blended services such as these are created by intercepting and controlling the interaction between a previously disparate set of services; the interaction taking place between the network and the service hosting layer.
Combinations or mash-ups of ‘smart’ next generation and traditional telecom services create enhanced services. With increased customer personalisation and the direct integration and interaction of speech, text, messaging and data services operators are able to add significant value to their customers.