www.comarch.

eu no 2/2009 (10)
Comarch Telecommunications Business Unit
Comarch Technology Review is a publication created
by Comarch experts and specialists. It aims at assist-
ing our customers and partners in obtaining in-depth
information about market trends and developments, and
the technological possibilities of addressing the most
important issues.

in focus

Mobile Technologies

>> Behind the Scene of Mobile Products – Smartphone Operating Systems

>> Loyalty Card Killer!
>> Location-Based Services: New Opportunities for Innovation
>> Smartphone – the Best Tool for Cutting Field Service Costs and Increasing
Productivity
Change the way you plan and operate your
network with Comarch Next Generation
Network Planning!
If you want to discover how to simplify network planning and optimization,
automate network operation and reduce OSS system complexity
visit ngnp.comarch.com!
 Preface < 3

In today’s times, we’re all aware that

the world is mobile. And
it’s not only because people carry mobile handsets and
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Proofreading: Martin Jones
Publisher: Comarch SA, Al. Jana Pawła II 39a,
laptops religiously, but mainly due to the outstanding
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environments, resources and communities when mobilized. e-mail: marketing@comarch.pl
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In this issue of Technology Review we present various Comarch SA
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aspects of mobility as it opens new markets and To receive your subscription to the electronic
Department: Telecommunications
opportunities emerging from already existing legacy Business Unit
version or see the previous issues, please
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which have vast potential for converging and evolving
and both of which are enriched by mobile access Since 1993, Comarch’s Telecommunications
channels. Starting from Smartphone technologies, through Business Unit has been specializing in
applications in LBS, Loyalty and Digital Homes, towards designing, implementing and integrating
solutions and services for telecommunication
the solutions in telecommunications providing a third
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dimension to Service Assurance and Networking, the Experience gained during this time, along with
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technology review [www.comarch.eu]


in focus
4. Behind the Scene of Mobile
Products – Smartphone
Operating Systems
Despite the global recession, Smartphone sales
surpassed 40 million units in the second quarter
of 2009, according to Gartner. It is a 27 per cent
increase from the same period last year, while over-
all mobile phone sales declined 6 per cent. What
kind of factors should you take into account when
planning a mobile product? Is the mobile devel-
opment process for mobiles the same as it is for
desktops? Is it really possible to write one appli-
cation that serves all, or at least the majority of all,
devices available on the market?
10. Loyalty Card Killer!
Nowadays, there are loyalty programs for almost
every business on the market: in retail, finance,
airline, and also telecommunications. But this final
example probably benefits from running loyalty
programs the least. Frequent Flyer Programs offer
tickets as a highly lucrative reward and retail com-
panies facilitate quicker points collection. Is today’s
technology able to change the situation, reap more
profits for mobile operators and grant them tools
which are also desired by loyalty programs in other
industries?
13. Location-Based Services: New
Opportunities for Innovation
Localization technologies are increasingly becom-
ing an integral part of our lives and help improve the
quality of services we use. It is claimed by some
that it is a technology powerful enough to become
a leading component of the information technol-
ogy world in the near future. According to Gartner,
the LBS market is set to grow from $41 million in
2008 to $95.7 million in 2009. This is likely to be
a slightly optimistic forecast, but nonetheless it is
quite apparent in today’s world that the number
of services using location-based technology will
increase. This article gives a broad outline of LBS
technology, present and possible future applica-
tions of it, and also discusses the innovation trends
in the area of LBS.
17. Smartphone – the Best Tool
for Cutting Field Service Costs
and Increasing Productivity
Does your field service use up more and more
money? Do your customers seem to be dissatis-
fied, and are the number of “Where is my tech?”
escalations refusing to decrease? There is a sim-
ple solution: buy gadgets, go with trends and be
green. Your company will not only save money but
will also be able to increase revenue.
Table of Contents < 5
22. Digital Home – a Dream or 35. Telco on Demand? Can
a Fact?
UPnP is the technology of tomorrow that started
a telecom provider
outsource everything
the day before yesterday. The main goal of UPnP
technology is to enable seamless connectivity of
besides the marketing
various devices, forming networks in home or cor- department?
porate environments and enabling Digital Home
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is a model of soft-
experience. By its design, adding new devices or
ware deployment whereby a provider licenses an
programs to the network should be as easy as
application to customers for use as a service on
plugging a piece of hardware into a PC. The devices
demand. The SaaS model has become one of the
and programs connected familiarize themselves
most popular trends in today’s IT environment.
with the current network setup thanks to service
Software vendors are starting to offer their soft-
discovery and advertisement, and configure them-
ware in the SaaS model for many industries. But
selves accordingly on the fly, with regard to devices
is SaaS already mainstream in telecommunica-
already connected. In short: UPnP is a framework
tions? How far can a telecom provider go into SaaS?
for building networked applications.
Are there any IT or network areas that cannot be
outsourced?
Operational Excellence
27. Towards Self-Organizing 40. Self Tuning OSS
An economic slowdown always pushes market play-
Networks ers to reduce costs and peruse new revenue sources.
Current mobile market landscape with dropping rev- A more effective strategy than a simple one off effort
enues per bit and increasing demand for diversified is to employ the tenet of efficiency improvements as
service portfolio forces operators to reduce OPEX a continuous cycle. The article describes the concept
while investing in new technologies and solutions. of the OSS system which should not only promise to
Constantly growing multi-technology and multi- add value to CSP but also contain self-assessment
vendor networks become more complex than ever and self-tuning mechanisms which can measure
before and significant network planning and man- the system performance in business oriented KPIs
agement effort is needed to ensure satisfactory end and improve its performance. See how the concept
user experience. This effort can be minimized with of a continuous improvement cycle implemented
implementation of Self-Organizing Networks (SON) in the Next Generation Service Management solu-
which will enable operators to simplify network tion can help CSPs to maintain profitability whilst
under pressure to reduce time-to-market for new
operation and extend their network in plug & play
manner. Comarch considers network management services. Find out about customer service compo-
automation as key requirement as well as a crucial sition optimization which aligns with the notion of
factor for investments in next-generation wireless Self-Organizing Networks.
technologies such as LTE and supports SON use
cases with its product portfolio.
32. Service Assurance: Bridging
the Gap between the
Traditional Management Silos
Each service provider has its own business model.
One may focus on being the technological leader deliv-
ering the highest possible quality to customers, while
others may find their niche in simple and inexpensive
services that are available for a flat rate. Yet all of them
face the same problem, the customer will leave if the
services do not work. Throughout the years they have
been mitigating this potential threat with a number
of different fault management tools which keep the
network in a good state of operation. Nowadays this
seems to be no longer possible as business mod-
els have changed. Today, even simple services have
become dependent on several different platforms,
which are often delivered by business partners. Ser-
vice providers must bridge the gap between old tools
and new models. They must shift their operations to
the next level: Service Assurance.
nr 2/2009 (10)
6 > In Focus

Behind the scene

of mobile products
Smartphone Operating Systems

technology review [www.comarch.eu]


Abstract
Despite the global recession, Smartphone sales sur-
passed 40 million units in the second quarter of 2009,
according to Gartner. It is a 27 per cent increase from
the same period last year, while overall mobile phone
sales declined 6 per cent. If you also take into account
the rapidly growing functionality of these devices (fast
CPU, GPS, accelerometer etc.), and the mobile applica-
tion stores boom it comes as no surprise that more
and more companies decide to build their products
for the market, or add mobile functionality to those
already existing. Because of the number of Operating
Systems that can be found in smartphones, the deci-
sion regarding which to choose can be crucial. What
kind of factors should you take into account when
planning a mobile product? Is the mobile development
process for mobiles the same as it is for desktops? Is
it really possible to write one application that serves
all, or at least the majority of all, devices available on
the market? These are questions that service provid-
ers new to the mobile world may not have answers for.
In this article we try to answer them and give a broad
outline of today’s mobile software landscape.
Key Players
Choosing a Smartphone Operating System is much more
difficult than choosing an OS for a PC (around 90 per
Figure 1. The market share in Q2, 2009 according to Gartner
Please note that these results are based on the number of units sold in Q2, and is not a true representation of
the number of smartphones currently operated by users (a larger share for Symbian OS and Windows Mobile
at the expense of iPhone and Android).
cent for one OS), or even choosing a web browser (two
main browsers with around a 90 per cent user share).
This is healthy as competition drives quality and inno-
vation, and you can select what best suits your needs.
On the other hand, however, you have to research every
possibility, and it is far more difficult to make your prod-
uct accessible to the majority of users.
Symbian
In 1998 Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola, and Psion founded
a company called Symbian Ltd. “to exploit the conver-
gence between PDAs and mobile phones”. Psion had
created the EPOC16 operating system for its pocket
computers, Psion Organisers, in the late 1980s. Partner-
ship between the leading phone manufacturers was
most likely to have been driven by fear of losing the
smartphone market to PDA companies. Psion’s EPOC32
operating system, developed since the mid 90s, was
primarily used in the Ericsson R380 (November 2000).
Later, EPOC32 was renamed Symbian OS, and was uti-
lized in the Nokia 9210 and Nokia 7650 (2001).
Symbian Ltd’s shareholders have changed over
time (e.g. Siemens, Samsung, Panasonic, Sony Eric-
sson), and the company also licensed the Symbian
OS to even more manufacturers (e.g. LG, Arima, Fujitsu,
Lenovo, BenQ, Sharp). On Symbian Ltd’s 10th anniver-
sary Nokia announced that they intended to acquire
and transform it into a non-profit foundation. The Sym-
Symbian 51%
RIM BlackBerry 19%
iPhoneOS 13%
Windows Mobile 9%
Linux 5%
Android 2%
Other 1%
In Focus < 7
bian Foundation was founded by Nokia, Sony Ericsson,
NTT DoCoMo, Texas Instruments, Vodafone, Samsung,
ST Ericsson and AT&T with the aim to “provide royalty-
free software and accelerate innovation”. Comarch also
contributes to the development of Symbian through
its membership of the Symbian Foundation, sharing
the vision of creating an open and compelling mobile
software platform.
The Symbian Foundation is going to publish the
Symbian platform under the open source Eclipse Pub-
lic License by 2010. This is a fantastic opportunity not
only for all developers interested in writing applica-
tions for Symbian, and looking to explore the source
code and uncover Symbian OS secrets, but also for
device manufacturers, who can now equip their own
devices with Symbian OS free of charge. The likely con-
sequence of this is that creating Symbian applications
will be easier, faster and more cost-effective.
Currently, Symbian is the leading smartphone
OS, and with the support of nearly 150 members of
the foundation, including mobile network operators,
semiconductor vendors, software companies, and
phone manufacturers it probably will be for some time
to come. Admittedly, its market share has recently
declined in favor of RIM, iPhone and Android, but its
position remains very strong.
Even though Symbian is the leading global smart-
phone OS, in North America it is a very different story,
this probably due to (smaller) Nokia’s market share.
When it comes to application development on the
Symbian platform it is important to note that it enables
developers to implement almost anything imaginable.
The only limitation originates from the capability model,
which restricts some APIs crucial for maintaining the
platform’s integrity. However, before you start imple-
menting your solution you should be aware that devel-
oping for Symbian is fairly time-consuming. Symbian’s
dialect of the C++ programming language is not par-
ticularly straightforward and you need experienced
developers in order to meet the deadlines and obtain
software of a good quality. Nevertheless, when com-
pleted the application is fast, smooth, user friendly and
satisfies even the most fastidious customers.
RIM BlackBerry
The BlackBerry Operating System is produced by
Research In Motion Limited. The first BlackBerry device
was released in 2002 and since then has gained pop-
ularity mainly in North America. From its very incep-
nr 2/2009 (10)
8 > In Focus
tion the key feature of BlackBerry was push email (the
possibility to receive email directly), which attracted
real interest from various companies.
Recently BlackBerry has increased its market share,
but what may bring a halt to this growth is the alliance
between Nokia and Microsoft announced in August.
The purpose of the agreement is to bring business
software to smartphones and (officially) pose height-
ened competition to the likes of BlackBerry. Nokia
smartphones containing both Microsoft Office and
email programs is likely to be the key development
born from this collaboration.
The usage of Java language makes development for
BlackBerry relatively easy, when compared to Symbian
for instance. It is also easier to find developers who
can start developing for the platform without problems
arising. The range of APIs available is another advan-
tage of the BlackBerry platform, though maybe it is not
as comprehensive when compared to the Symbian
case. However, with popularity limited to North America
this renders it suitable for only certain solutions.
iPhone OS
The first iPhone was released by Apple Inc. in June 2007.
Taking this into account, its popularity is huge, and it is
still dynamically growing. Even though there is contro-
versy regarding how great the contribution of market-
ing was to this success, the iPhone undoubtedly has
vast influence on all the other platforms.
Similar to BlackBerry, iPhone’s popularity is far
greater in North America than in other regions.
Currently, there are only 3 iPhone devices - Origi-
nal, 3G and 3GS – and this can be a potential problem
with regard to wider adoption of the OS.
Developing for iPhone is unfortunately not as
smooth as its usage. The language “Objective C” is
not widely known, and is generally limited to Apple-
related developers. The number of APIs available is
also underwhelming, and there are numerous features
which cannot be implemented by a third party. Appli-
cation distribution is also far from satisfactory – the
technology review [www.comarch.eu]
only methods for shipping are through Apple. However,
as the phone itself is in high demand in the United
States and is gaining in popularity in other parts of
the world it is wise to also provide an iPhone version
of your application, if possible of course.
Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile is the operating system from Micro-
soft for smartphones, PDA, and other devices. The first
version was released in 2000, and because of Micro-
soft’s dominant position on the market for operating
systems for PC, office suites and web browsers many
believed that the impending success of Windows
Mobile is just a matter of time. Indeed, the option to
easily exchange and use documents and emails with
a PC is still a major selling point of the OS.
The most probable reason for the less sizeable
success of the Mobile version in comparison to desk-
top Windows is most likely related to the unwilling-
ness of leading smartphone manufacturers to inte-
grate it into the majority of their devices – Windows
Mobile is present mainly in HTC phones. In 2009
Microsoft signed an agreement with LG Electronic to
license Windows Mobile, although with the attention
of HTC focused primarily on other platforms (mainly
Android) it may not halt the trend of a decreasing
market share.
Following a common theme, the Windows Mobile
market share is also more extensive in North America
in comparison to other regions.
Development for Windows Mobile-based devices
is similar to development for standard Windows. Third
party developers have several options available to
them when deploying a mobile application, includ-
ing writing a native code with Visual C++, which pro-
vides more comprehensive APIs, or writing a managed
code that works with the .NET Compact Framework,
which is actually a subset of the .NET Framework and
hence shares numerous components with software
development on desktop clients. The resemblance
to desktop Windows and the .NET Compact Frame-
work make Windows Mobile particularly suitable for
business application implementation, although other
applications can also be created.
Linux
No royalties or licensing fees and the ability to freely
change virtually anything were most probably the
main motives behind why many smartphone manu-
facturers decided to use Linux kernel as a base to its
own platforms. Platforms produced by Motorola and
DoCoMo gained the most popularity on the Asian mar-
ket. Nokia and Google also invested in Linux-based
platforms – Maemo and Android respectively.
With the variety of different vendors’ Linux-based
platforms, it highlights the fact that many sides are
interested in its growth, yet the lack of compatibil-
ity between them currently makes it impossible to
treat “Mobile Linux” as competition to the platforms
described above. Industry standards or de-facto stan-
dards can alter the situation. An additional opportunity
for Linux on smartphones is the scope for single plat-
form success. These days Android and Maemo look
the most promising. In fact, almost every six months
there is news in the media that “undisclosed Nokia
sources” reveal that the company will in fact abandon
Symbian in favor of Linux.
Android
Following the release of Apple’s iPhone in 2007, many
expected that internet giant Google would release its
own gPhone. Eventually, this turned out not to be the
case, but in November 2007 Google did announce the
early version of the smartphone operating system
‘Android’. The congregation of companies officially
interested in Androids’ success is the Open Handset
Alliance which consists of mobile operators, software
companies, semiconductor companies and handset
manufacturers (e.g. HTC, LG, Motorola, Samsung Elec-
tronics, Sony Ericsson). The OS is developed as open
source on the Apache License, and is based on the
Linux kernel on the GPL license.
The first Android phone hit the market in October
2008. It was made by HTC, and was sold as HTC Dream
but was also branded as T-Mobile G1, Era G1 and Rog-

ers Dream. Android phones did not sell as rapidly when
compared to the iPhone’s release, but this may change
with the arrival of additional phones from alternative
manufacturers - Google expects 18 Android phones by
the end of the year from 8 manufacturers. Currently,
the main selling point of the OS is the possibility for
integration with Google services such as GMail and
GoogleMaps.
Google provides developers with Java API powerful
enough to satisfy most needs and implement various
types of solutions. Moreover, advanced developers
may implement the native C application and deploy
it within the phone, making it possible to use virtu-
ally all the telephone’s functions. The development for
Android is not very difficult and it shouldn’t be prob-
lematic finding developers. Although there aren’t many
devices on the market yet, the popularity of Android is
growing and you should certainly consider this plat-
form when planning a new product.
Maemo
Maemo is a Linux-based OS for mobile devices devel-
oped by Nokia. The first device – Nokia 770 – was
released in November 2005, and was classified as
an “Internet Tablet”. Due to the lack of GSM telephony
hardware and a fairly large touchscreen, it was far
more effective as a tool for web browsing compared
to the majority of alternative phone screens. Various
voices claimed that the device was not intended to
challenge Symbian OS Nokia devices. Finally, how-
ever, in August of this year Nokia announced the first
Maemo phone – N900, proceeded by rumors that
Maemo will be the chosen preference of Nokia for
their smartphones.
The major advantage of the Maemo platform is the
fact that development is similar to that on standard
Linuxes. This renders it fairly attractive to Linux geeks
who want to extend their product range to mobile devices,
and due to the enormous capability of the platform it is
hard to imagine an application which cannot be imple-
mented to Maemo. Currently, there is only one smart-
phone available on the market as the previous Maemo-
based devices released by Nokia were not equipped with
telephony features. However, the platform is extremely
powerful and it is likely that it will become more popular
in the future. Therefore, you should take it into account
when planning a long-term project.
Palm webOS
Another Linux-based platform that could become
a  major player in the future is the Palm webOS.
Palm Inc., a company with vast experience in the
PDA market, holds the aspiration to be the “iPhone
killer” and repeat its success. There were long queues
to the first stores selling the device with the OS (Palm
Pre), and favorable reviews in the press highlights its
potential, although only time will tell.
There is an SKD for WebOS and developers can
consider writing code for the device. However, due to
its current small market share this makes the device
less attractive as a target for mobile applications
unless you decide to ship the device to your custom-
ers together with the software.
Hardware
Smartphones commonly tend to utilize the most
advanced hardware currently available on the mobile
phone market, although they do often differ from one
another. Even within the genre of devices based on
a single operating system, significant differences in
hardware may still remain. As a result, the product
developer should know which hardware is essential
for the product, and which particular smartphones
have it.
For some products a key might be CPU speed (e.g.
for encryption), and others may require advanced ani-
mation effects and hardware graphics acceleration.
The majority of smartphones have a built in camera,
with differences in their resolution and the time the
device requires for saving a picture. Many smartphone
products use a camera to attain information from the
environment or for scanning barcodes.
Today, one can find smartphones with various types
of hardware which can be used to connect to other
devices. Thanks to this, smartphone can remotely con-
trol other devices and can also exchange data.
Wifi Internet connection enables access to fast,
cheap, and unlimited Internet, and facilitates the oper-
ation of more mobile web scenarios.
An accelerometer and magnetometer are used
to trace the actual motion of the phone, and allows
users to interact with the application in a far more
natural way.
In Focus < 9
GPS and information from the GSM network can be
used to retrieve information regarding where a phone
is and enables creating location-based products, such
as Google Latitude or Comarch Mobiloc.
In addition, user interface hardware varies with
different smartphones, although following recent
developments (since iPhone’s success) it appears
that touchscreen may now be the standard. For
some products miniature QWERTY keyboards may
be especially useful and for certain additional but-
tons wheels can be used to improve user interac-
tion with a product.
On the Asian market there are now smartphones
with rather unusual hardware that allows a phone to
change its smell or even check how drunk you are...
Another area where smartphones differ is the size
of their screens. It can vary from fairly small mono-
chromatic versions found in the older devices to those
which are (surprisingly) quite sizeable: 16 million col-
ors and even 800 x 480 pixels, such as on the Nokia
N900. Handling such a variety of screen resolutions is
not always an easy task from the programmer’s point
of view. What worsens the situation further is the ori-
entation, which in some models changes on the fly
depending on the physical position of the device or
the location of the keyboard slider, in combination with
the fact that some telephones, such as the Nokia E90
Communicator, have more than one display.
Restrictions
What is likely to be one of the biggest traps waiting for
those with a lack of experience in developing mobile
products is the various restrictions. Many think that
the smartphone OS will grant them access to every-
thing, similar to that of an OS on a regular PC.
Symbian includes the Symbian Signed program,
and a particular product must go through this in order
to attain access to certain phone capabilities. To pass
the program one has to guarantee that the product
passes some tests and must also pay for the sign-
ing process. There are also capabilities that require
the device manufacturer’s approval, which might be
both problematic and extremely time consuming to
achieve. The official reason for Symbian Signed’s exis-
tence is for prevention of malicious software being
installed on the phone.
In order to develop applications for the BlackBerry
device and use certain features termed as ‘sensitive’
you must pay 20$ for signing keys and register on the
RIM website. This process is used to track the usage
of these sensitive APIs, and does not require any test-
ing or RIM’s approval.
nr 2/2009 (10)
10 > In Focus
Development for the iPhone was originally
restricted to Apple Inc. and several other companies
they selected. Now, however, there is public SDK (Soft-
ware Development Kit), as well as the option to cre-
ate an application for the iPhone after purchasing
a Macintosh computer and paying for iPhone Devel-
opment Program membership (99$). It is worth noting
that even this public SDK lacks API for certain features
that are only available to Apple.
One of Android’s design bases is that “All Apps are
Created Equal”. The notion is that there should be no
difference in the possibilities available for applications
preinstalled on the phone by the manufacturer, and
all 3rd party applications.
Programming Languages
It is definitely worth knowing which programming lan-
guage is native to a particular platform, as this is the
key determinant of product development cost and
its maintenance. The more popular a language is the
easier one can find developers, the less complicated
it is the more optimum the speed at which the prod-
uct can be developed.
technology review [www.comarch.eu]
Symbian’s native development is carried out in C++.
This is a popular language. However, Symbian uses
its own dialect on top of C++ that must be under-
stood in order to write the most advanced and effi-
cient programs.
BlackBerry uses two versions of Java – Java Micro
Edition and its own Java API.
Apple decided to create a language entitled Objec-
tive C, and also took the decision to use it for the
iPhone. Generally speaking, this language is only pop-
ular within Apple’s own ecosystem, and there are few
developers with expertise in its field, although it is
worth noting that popularity grows with the iPhone’s
success.
Android development can be conducted using its
own version of Java language.
One to Rule them All
Excluding those that are native, some smartphone
OSs’ enable writing programs in alternative languages.
Such programming languages are less efficient, grant
more restricted phone access, but are more straight-
forward and if supported on more than one platform
enable users to write a single program (single code)
for more than one operating system. Typically, non-na-
tive language can be useful for relatively simple prod-
ucts that should work on as many types of devices
as possible.
The language designed to operate on all low
resource devices is Java Micro Edition (JME). In fact,
it works on most phones (not only smartphones).
However, the more recently created platforms (iPhone,
Android) lack its native support. What is more, there
are different bugs within different implementations
of JME on different phones, and the advantage of
writing one code for several platforms is lessened by
the requirement to deal with bugs specific to each
phone model.
Following Nokia’s acquisition of Trolltech (the com-
pany that developed Qt Framework) in 2008 work has
been ongoing in order to provide Qt on Symbian and
Maemo phones. When this is completed there should
be the option to use QT for writing a single code for
Symbian, Maemo, desktop Windows, Linux, and Mac.
The Internet is also a common environment for
all mobile operating systems. There is no access to
smartphone capabilities from a web browser, but for
certain products, for which most logic can be shifted

to the server side, mobile web is also a possibility. For
advanced products there are also web-related technol-
ogies such as Flash Lite and Mobile Web Widgets.
Application Development
When comparing to desktop, mobile applications are
far less portable and must usually be written for all
required platforms separately, as there is no univer-
sal programming language for all mobile devices. Java
Micro edition is sometimes viewed as a universal
language (although not supported on certain plat-
forms), but it usually turns out that using Java leads
to more problems than solutions. For most devices
it is not a native language, meaning that the appli-
cation almost never appears to be native. Moreover,
compared to native, usually lower level programming
language, Java applications offer inferior performance
and are less user friendly, which may result in cus-
tomer reluctance to use them. An additional disadvan-
tage of Java is the lack of APIs, which means that only
certain features can be implemented – inexperienced
developers may not even realize that a feature they
plan to acquire is not actually feasible in Java prior
to starting the development, which leads to bitter
disappointment and, what is more important, finan-
cial losses. However, it should be said that some, not
very complex applications can be successfully imple-
mented by means of Java ME.
Another issue one should be aware of when deal-
ing with mobile software is that there are also differ-
ences between devices based on the same platform.
Due to the binary breaks between different versions
of the same platform, APIs availability, screen reso-
lutions and hardware configurations, it is impossible
to write a one-for-all application even on a particular
platform, unless it is a fairly simplistic piece of soft-
ware. Going into specific details of such issues is
outside the scope of this article, and so if you come
across such problems and do not have people expe-
rienced enough to solve them it is advisable to use
the services of an experienced company to help you
complete your project.
The effort is not the same for all platforms, and
strongly depends upon the type of application you are
going to implement. Some features may also be impos-
sible to implement for certain devices as described
above. There is a general rule that states the lower the
level of programming language the longer the devel-
opment. Therefore, creating a native Symbian or Linux
Maemo application will usually be more time-consum-
ing than implementing one for Android, BlackBerry or
Windows, providing that you can use the .NET Compact
In Focus < 11
Framework. iPhone is a completely different story as
the platform is reasonably closed and the first ques-
tion should always be whether the functionality can
be implemented there. Following this, if you are cer-
tain of the feasibility and have experienced develop-
ers, the implementation should not take longer than
it does for Android or BlackBerry.
Summary
Without a doubt choosing a mobile operating system
is case specific – there is no single platform ideal for
every product, and you can make the most informed
decision simply by choosing a platform that best fits Piotr Janas
your particular situation. Comarch SA
Usually, the most important factor is popularity of Position: Senior Software Developer
the platform – the larger the number of devices, the Department: Telecommunications
Business Unit
larger the market for the product. It is important to take
Info: Piotr has been developing for Mobile
into account the fact that popularity varies by region platforms (mostly Symbian) for 4 years.
(especially North America), and can change drasti- Currently located in Helsinki, he supports
cally over the product development period (such as one of Comarch’s key clients, and closely
in the recent case of iPhone). Rarely can one ignore follows changes in the mobile world from
an expert perspective.
popularity if the product can work on devices bought
especially to run it.
Most products have hardware without which they
simply cannot function, and some can operate sig-
nificantly better using specific types of these. Access
to a phone’s hardware is enabled for programmers
in programming languages that have a major impact
on the cost of product development and its mainte-
nance. It is also important to remember that there are
restrictions that can make some products impossible,
or even unprofitable to create for a particular oper-
ating system.
Finally, creating a comprehensive mobile applica-
tion is not an easy task and some might think they
should try to avoid it. The mobile market, however,
grows rapidly and it is unwise to ignore this fact. There-
fore, if you lack experience you should find a company
who can help you to represent yourself in the mobile
world with your products, smoothly. It is important to
note that creating a multiplatform mobile service of
a high quality is not impossible and there are people Grzegorz Wąchocki
who can do it for you. <<<
Comarch SA
Position: Senior Software Analyst /
R&D Manager
Department: Telecommunications
Professional Services
Info: Grzegorz leads the R&D unit, which
has the main aim of exploring new
mobile-related technologies in addition
to searching for new opportunities on the
mobile market.
nr 2/2009 (10)
12 > In Focus

Loyalty Card Killer!

technology review [www.comarch.eu]


Nowadays there are
loyalty
programs for almost every business on the market:
in retail, finance, airline, and also telecommunica-
tions. But this final example probably benefits from
running loyalty programs the least. Frequent Flyer
Programs offer tickets as a highly lucrative reward
and retail companies facilitate quicker points collec-
tion. Is today’s technology able to change the situa-
tion, reap more profits for mobile operators and grant
them tools which are also desired by loyalty programs
in other industries?
Evolving Analytics
One of major benefits experienced by retailers from
loyalty program operations is the possibility for track-
ing customer purchases, something otherwise almost
impossible to achieve. Without the loyalty program,
knowledge about customer behavior is very limited.
In the telecommunications arena this problem doesn’t
exists, as every customer is identified by his SIM card
and all his data is open for analysis. What’s more, a loy-
alty card could be easily lost or forgotten, while most
people usually keep their mobile phone in their pocket.
Usage of the mobile phone as a loyalty identifier there-
fore seems to be the perfect solution, the only prob-
lem that needs to be resolved relates to recognition
of the phone by the retailers POS system. To accom-
plish such a feature, NFC (Near Field Communication)
technology can be employed. Based on well-known
RFID technology, it can be used for activities includ-
ing payments, ticketing, loyalty program operations,
lotteries, entertainment and marketing.
The use of mobile phones as a program member
identifier as well as payment device could flip the
situation with customer recognition completely on its
head. Every transaction made using an NFC-equipped
mobile will contain the customer ID in the form of an
NFC tag, so theoretically there won’t even be a need
for the loyalty program as a means for analyzing cus-
tomer behavior. Because the NFC tag will be homoge-
nous for all customer transactions regardless of where
they are conducted, the companies will be able to
exchange this data. The legal regulations as they cur-
rently stand are most likely to be irrelevant to this type
of situation: transferred data does not have to contain
personal information. Companies will be able to iden-
tify a customer by his tag, analyze his activities, and
direct a fully customized offer to him during his next
visit and ensuing use of his mobile phone. No personal
data collection is required here for any of the coali-
tion partners. NFC and mobile phone payments can
influence promotions as well as offer selection; com-
panies with heightened knowledge of a customer’s
In Focus < 13
spending power, habits, hobbies, as well as periodic
and one-off activities, will be more comprehensively
equipped to target their promotions, select better sell-
ing products and will have the capacity to more pre-
cisely adjust their discounts and prices.
Even though in this example customer identifica-
tion is possible without loyalty program membership,
there are two main factors guaranteeing that loyalty
programs will be prominent on the market for a while
to come. The first is the use of the NFC device itself.
Not every transaction will be paid using a mobile, as
in today’s world not every customer uses his credit
card. The percentage of people willing to use such
new solutions varies between different countries as
it depends on numerous circumstances, some of
which can even be cultural. The second factor is the
appeal of the loyalty program to customers’ and its
impact on sales. For companies operating on very
competitive markets it is paramount that they search
and utilize every option for gaining customer atten-
tion that is available.
Evolving CRM Activities
Customized offer presentation directed at the cus-
tomer itself could also evolve with NFC use. Commonly
used channels such as emails, direct mailing and SMS
don’t provide the required flexibility, meaning the offer
could be presented and forgotten. NFC allows for more
sophisticated activities – uploaded during a visit at
the point of sale, the offer could reveal its content at
a certain point in time, or could even offer a reminder
for a certain promotion periodically. Transferred data
can contain virtual coupons, lists of the promoted
products with points and discounts, or links to media
content. Calendar entries can automatically inform of
company events, commencement of any promotions,
or offer notifications of any points/coupons expiry
dates. NFC can be also used for collecting customer
feedback. Uploaded questionnaires can be completed
by the customers at a time most convenient for them,
and promoted with additional points or discounts.
Coupon promotions are particularly popular on
certain more fully developed markets, but generally
speaking, companies are using coupons in paper for-
mat and utilize channels such as newspaper or direct
mailing for coupons spread among consumers. This
limits the efficiency of such promotions as custom-
ers often lose their coupons or simply forget about
them. NFC can also improve such activities with the
usage of coupons being easier than ever before. The
coupon tag will be automatically loaded during the
transaction to the phone and the appropriate loyalty
application will take over displaying the coupon offer
to the customer. To use the coupon you only need to
nr 2/2009 (10)
14 > In Focus
fulfill the coupon conditions, and optionally select the
coupon from the phone menu prior to the transaction.
Following NFC customer identification, all coupon-re-
lated operations can be performed automatically by
the POS, and loyalty systems, discounts or additional
points can be granted. For a fully interactive solution
additional customer-facing displays of the POS sys-
tems can also be used, and these are able to present
all coupons and offers that the customer is entitled to.
The coupons will also be transferable between phones;
for the seller it’s not so important who will use the
coupon the important thing is that some additional
profit will be generated.
But of course NFC also has some limitations. With
the bandwidth limited to 424 kbit/s it’s impossible to
send large volumes of marketing information over a
short connection period. NFC should then be used as
the first point of offer presentation, with customers
receiving more detailed information and audio-video
content via an Internet connection.
Evolving Market
The revolution could also take place in our wallets, as
mobile phones containing built-in NFC technology can
be recognized by numerous different loyalty programs.
This should eliminate loyalty cards from the market,
with their only remaining presence being on the opera-
tor’s company logo on the phone display background.
Joining a new loyalty program will also be a very simple
process, requiring only minimal application installa-
tion, which can also be sent by a NFC device or down-
loaded from the Internet. The installed application will
primarily collect registration data and then take care
of appropriate presentation of the marketing offer as
well as coupon management.
Like any other type of technology NFC can also
be used for entertainment, and that which generates
profit. An example of this potential usage is the POS
lotteries. During the transaction, the loyalty system
is able to select a prize for the customer. This could
be a gift, additional points or even a discount. If the
customer wins, the relevant notification is displayed
on his phone. This lottery concept is already present
in some loyalty systems (a good example would be
Comarch Loyalty Management - CLM), but there are
technology review [www.comarch.eu]
numerous cases where the necessary device at the Dictionary
POS (which would inform the customer of the lottery
and the win) are lacking. Here, a mobile phone can NFC Near Field Communication: a short-range
act as an additional marketing canvas. high frequency wireless communication
There are also various potential benefits for telco technology which enables the exchange
companies. The first of these is not even a direct advan- of data between devices over a very short
tage, but is based on human nature. With the increasing distance.
role of mobile phones and the number of services they
provide, people are less eager to switch the phone and RFID Radio-frequency identification: the use of an
the operator. This could have an impact on the loyalty object (typically referred to as an RFID tag)
aspect of mobile companies, without even having to applied to or incorporated into a product,
operate a single loyalty program. But there are numer- animal, or person for the purpose of identi-
ous other possibilities. One of them is usage of NFC- fication and tracking using radio waves.
enabled phones as top up collectors. During cash trans-
actions there could be an option for taking mobile top
up in exchange for relinquishing the change. * from the “NFC Mobile Payments & Marketing Opportuni-
ties: Forecasts & Analysis 2009 – 2014” report by Juniper
Research
Summary
As it appears, Near Field Communication technology
can evolve into a highly potent marketing tool for loy-
alty program operators. With the use of NFC, compa-
nies could reap double the rewards. Directing expertly
targeted offers to the relevant customers will increase
sales, and will also bring about a reduction in costs
due to the now extinct requirement for producing
advertising and promotional materials in paper format.
In addition, customers can appreciate additional ser-
vices, faster payments and simplified usage. Further-
more, telecommunication companies can still claim
their share, even if their loyalty programs do not benefit
directly from NFC solutions. Besides, they own a tool
which would most likely bring about a radical change
in loyalty operations in other industries.
An obstacle to the common use of this solution is
the currently limited number of NFC-ready phones, and
the even smaller availability of NFC receivers at the
POS. But the situation is changing, and the prices of
the devices are decreasing successively. According to
a report produced by the UK-based company Juniper
Research, NFC mobile payments will exceed $30 bil-
lion in 2012, whilst the forecast for 2009 is currently at
$8 billion*. Also, the first loyalty programs utilizing NFC
technology are already on the market. A good example
is Italian fashion house Miroglio, which commenced
operations this year. <<<
Tomasz Dudek
Comarch SA
Position: Product Manager
Department: Business Development Center
Info: Tomasz is responsible for selection,
development and promotion of applications
from the CRM and customer loyalty domain.

Location-Based Services
New Opportunities for Innovation
Localization
technologies are increasingly becoming an integral
part of our lives and help improve the quality of ser-
vices we use. It is claimed by some that it is a tech-
nology powerful enough to become a leading com-
ponent of the information technology world in the
near future. According to Gartner, the LBS market is
set to grow from $41 million in 2008 to $95.7 million
in 2009 [2]. This is likely to be a slightly optimistic
forecast, but nonetheless it is quite apparent in to-
day’s world that the number of services using loca-
tion-based technology will increase. However, it is
tricky to say what form future LBS applications will
take and what directions should be followed in or-
der to create a user-friendly, fully localize-enabled
and comprehensive functionality. This article gives
a broad outline of LBS technology, present and pos-
sible future applications of it, and also discusses the
innovation trends in the area of LBS.
In Focus < 15
What is a Location-Based
Service?
The Global Positioning System consists of satellites
orbiting the Earth, control and monitoring stations
positioned on Earth itself, and GPS receivers owned
by users. GPS satellites broadcast signals from space
that are used by GPS receivers to provide a three-di-
mensional location.
nr 2/2009 (10)
16 > In Focus
A location-based service (LBS) is defined by the
Open Geospatial Consortium as a service which deliv-
ers information about location to people who are using
wireless, position-aware devices such as cell phones
and PDAs [8]. The LBS can also utilize alternative infor-
mation related to users and their devices such as
account context information, user location history or
even their personal preferences in order to improve the
quality of the application and user experience.
Location-based services have a long history. Since
the 1970s, the U.S. Department of Defense has been
operating the global positioning system (GPS), a sat-
ellite-based infrastructure which is used to determine
the position of any object on Earth. Initially, GPS was
intended to be used for military purposes but in the
1980s the government decided to make it freely avail-
able to other industries on a worldwide basis. Many
applications have since been using location data in
order to enhance their products and services. However,
the boost of LBS in the 1990s was not driven by GPS
technology but by another type of location technol-
ogy coming to prominence around this time. Mobile
network operators started using their radio stations
infrastructure to obtain a device’s location. This tech-
nology played an essential role in creating the market
for location-based services.
Today there are even more ways of obtaining loca-
tion data (Table 1) using a mobile device. All of these
have pros and cons, and are suitable for different
types of applications.
In cellular networks, location is carried out by means
of proximity sensing, where the position of a device
is determined using the coordinates of the base sta-
tions. Generally speaking, the mobile network pos-
sesses the area number - called a cell - in which the
Table 1. Mobile network platforms for identification [3]
Type Methodology
Cell Identifier (Cell ID) Base station uses radio
frequency signals to
track mobile device
Global Positioning System 24-satellite network
(GPS)
Assisted Global Position- Enhancement over GPS.
ing System (AGPS) Perpetually locates
device and coordinates
data flow, unlike GPS.
WLAN-based Location Depends on signal
Services strength utilization
technology review [www.comarch.eu]
device is located. The accuracy of the location may
then be improved by combining the cell-id with a tim-
ing advance value, which is an estimation of the RTT
(Round-trip delay time) between base stations and the
terminal. The estimation is then used to determine the
distance between both parties. GPS on the other hand,
is a satellite-based system, with 24 satellites broadcast-
ing location data. A GPS receiver processes the signals
received from several satellites and calculates its loca-
tion basing on the time differences between those sig-
nals. The main disadvantages of GPS location are the
extended time to first fix (TTFF) and poor indoor cover-
age. Thus, in order to improve the efficiency of the sys-
tem a new technology entitled “Assisted GPS” was intro-
duced. This approach combines GPS technology with
various methods of determining position using cellular
network information. In addition to the mentioned out-
door positioning systems, there are also indoor types.
The main difference between them is the target area.
The indoor positioning systems focus on closed areas.
Such systems are mostly based on monitoring the sig-
nal strengths characteristics.
Current Applications
Nowadays, LBS products are employed within numer-
ous domains, ranging from mass-market consumers,
customers in specialties applications, business clients
as well as being used in industrial and corporate envi-
ronments, where a vast number of objects and inven-
tory must be identified and tracked on the map.
The most of all LBS-related demands originates
from mass-market consumers. The majority of their
requests are related to location and navigation que-
Pros Cons
Relatively widespread Hard to pin down user’s
infrastructure exact location to within a few
meters
Outdoor precision within Expensive.
five-meter range User device must be in direct
line of sight.
Device needs special embed-
ded chips.
No “cold starts” Expensive.
Faster fix on location User device must be in direct
sight.
Device needs special embed-
ded chips.
No additional hardware Suitable mainly for indoor
infrastructure is needed positioning
ries, including yellow pages listings and business
descriptions in a given geographical area. All types
of activities where location is of importance are also
popular e.g. detailed maps and directions, traffic con-
dition alerts and information regarding services such
as gas or food. Sports-related applications, such as
running distance or calorie counters by means of
which one can track the path traveled or calculate
overall distance, speed etc, are also popular among
mass-market consumers. Another group is IM appli-
cations for mobile phones that enable locating and
chatting with friends who are nearby. Today, count-
less standard IM systems add this feature to their offer.
Location-based games in which players must visit
different parts of the city in order to retrieve informa-
tion about other users or further game directions are
also a good example.
Certain multimedia data can also improve location-
aware services. A user prefers listening to audio direc-
tions than to reading static maps with his current posi-
tion marked, although not only data-related directions
alone may be of interest here. Let us imagine that some-
one is riding a bicycle and using a navigation application.
Not only does he appreciate the directions, but he may
also like to listen to the sounds of his surrounding envi-
ronment, such as the trickle of rushing water when he
approaches a mountain stream. There is also the possibil-
ity for adding three dimensional data, such as models of
buildings to the flat map, or including touch user interface
support in order to increase user experience [1].
Niche consumer applications are targeted at lim-
ited areas of the market. These generally tend to be
slightly more sophisticated services and devices tai-
lored for the most financially able people e.g. golf cars
equipped with computers providing information such
Industry application
Wireless network providers, police force,
banking government, security, welfare
Military applications, commercial applications
such as real estate security, police force (not
as successful in consumer settings)
Military applications, commercial applications
such as real estate security, police force (not
as successful in consumer settings)
Indoor commercial applications

Table 2. Business opportunities in LBS [3]
Demand Level
Consumer Demand Location and Navigation Person-
alized Content
Niche Consumer and Business
Industrial/Corporate
as golf course maps or playing tips, or fishing boats
equipped with shoal finders.
Another category is alert services, which are
used during natural disasters or accidents. During
the SARS outbreak in 2003, for instance, Hong Kong
mobile phone operator Sunday launched a service
that warned subscribers via SMS (Short Message Ser-
vice) messages about buildings where SARS cases
where suspected or confirmed. Such messages were
sent to all people who were within approximately a one
kilometer radius of the case location.
Business and corporate customers may also ben-
efit from LBS concepts, for example, using it to track
goods, people or even entire projects. There are sev-
eral technologies that facilitate enhancing such activi-
ties; devices that are designed to monitor and control
the supply chain, the amount of materials and their
positions. Another example is the concept of ambient
intelligence or pervasive computing, whereby almost
all materials and devices contain sensors and form a
large network of intelligent, location-aware devices.
Innovation
Be different – to be successful you must invent a service
which is distinctive, and which can be recognized by
users amongst the millions of other similar products.
Innovation is a colossal word but just what exactly
is innovation in the LBS-related segment of the market?
The natural method of creating new products is to incor-
porate new technologies into existing software as new
features complementing their previous functionality, as
opposed to creating completely new products. This is
a common and simplistic approach to introducing new
technologies onto the market in addition to stimulating
growth of current services simultaneously as they are
enhanced with increasing new functionality in line with
technological development. This is also a fairly safe way
of conducting business since customers are already
accustomed to the service and do not require being
taught how to use the new services or even informed
of why they actually need them.
Typical Services
Maps, driving directions, yellow pages
Maps, shopping locator service, coupon discounts,
alerting services
Supply chain management, inventory management,
customer relationship management, intelligent
transportations and system infrastructure
When it comes to LBS the situation is quite dif-
ferent. Introducing new features to existing solutions
is not always possible, and what‘s more it generally
tends to fail to utilize the intrinsic nature of location.
As a result, we are offered certain sophisticated loca-
tion-based features which are added to a recognized
application or service and sometimes we may end
up wondering “what on earth do I need it for”. Have
you ever set an alarm notifying you of when a friend
is within 100 meters using your Instant Messenger
(IM) client? Companies try to convince us that loca-
tion within your IM contact list is a crucial component,
but not everyone sees such a need.
The appearance of location capability within mobile
phones, unlike many other features, such as multime-
dia support, local connectivity, etc. not only adds some
extra features to the device and makes it more attrac-
tive but also, and most importantly, opens up new and
so far unknown areas of applications. What kind of ser-
vices can be implemented basing on location is a hard
question to answer. But it is of paramount importance
that these novel services are not to be viewed solely
as an answer to the customers’ needs. They are used
to create new markets, revealing to people services
that are as of yet unknown to them and giving them a
chance to see that these products may come in handy.
GPS navigation is a good example. No one expected to
have a small box saying “turn left in approximately 50
meters” stuck to the windscreen of their car a dozen
or so years ago. There was no voiced need for it in the
market as people were not even aware that such a
contraption could be created. Location-based services
should be viewed in the same light, which when first
seen, make us think “how could I have lived without it”.
This is real innovation.
Here and now – the need is always context specific,
the user wants something at that very moment and at
that very location. We should be able to forecast this
and supply him with it. The user and his need takes
precedence, everything else is irrelevant.
So, in order to create an innovative location-based
service it is crucial to stop thinking about how to improve
our current products with geographical coordinates. It
In Focus < 17
Typical Business Models
Subscription-based services, pay-per-view, syndi-
cation, micropayments
Subscription-based services, advertising, revenue-
sharing, micropayments
Application service provider, consultation services,
infrastructure provider
is essential to give up looking for an application that
may benefit from knowing our friends’ or our own loca-
tion. We should rather start thinking about what sort of
services users may need at their location at that very
moment. It is “here and now” that really matters. Unfor-
tunately, at the same time such services are somewhat
risky investments. It is impossible to predict whether it
will succeed or end up in utter failure until we present
it to the customers. Sometimes, such as in the case of
the WWW (World Wide Web), it is vital that people be
taught how and what the service can be used for. Only
then does it start to generate revenue.
Another area that still requires some progress being
made is in middle-layer support for LBS solutions within
the mobile platform. As it stands, there is no recognized,
platform-independent and commonly acceptable stan-
dard or API. Moreover, a particular platform does not even
tend to have generic middle-layer LBS support. There are
APIs by means of which GPS coordination or cell-id may
be accessed, but if one wants to use a more sophisti-
cated method for finding the device’s coordinates, using
all possible data sources such us GPS, cell-id, IP (Inter-
net Protocol) address, etc., to always obtain at least
rough coordinates and guarantee they are of the high-
est accuracy given the circumstances, one must usu-
ally implement these calculations by himself. There are
countless techniques for calculating the coordinates of
a mobile device, yet it is fairly difficult to find a ready-
made tool which can combine different location data
sources and provide final values and also guarantee
their accuracy. Nor is there a consistent specification
of what sort of data is to be provided to developers – it
is not only position that matters here, also properties
such as speed or direction of movement may come in
useful e.g. a petrol station advert on a highway should
only be displayed to those drivers who are able to pull
over – i.e. move in the specific direction. The ideal situa-
tion would be to provide developers with reliable APIs for
accessing location data, to specify what type of data it
should be and possibly a uniform way for handling dif-
ferent location data sources on different platforms and
programming languages in order to facilitate the imple-
mentation and migration of LBS applications.
nr 2/2009 (10)
18 > In Focus
Making Money
New revenue streams – services are great when they
are making money. But can you predict the earning
potential of these same services in 10 years time?
Maybe advertising doesn’t answers this question.
Taking profitability into consideration, there are numer-
ous ways of making money on a mobile service. How-
ever, since users do not want to pay directly for the ser-
vices they use, it seems that advertising is starting to
take the lead. The key to success in the field of mobile
advertising is rendering the advert truly context depen-
dent and, even better, not explicitly visible to the user. An
advertising model based on texts and banner ads used
by popular web browsers may serve as a good example
here – users are not given adverts but additional links
to sites they are in fact searching for. Mobile advertising
should and really can be heightened so that it contains
similar features. The point is that it is vital that mobile
applications and services are highly context dependent.
What does this mean? The system must be able to pre-
dict what kind of services the user might need at that
very moment and the device should be ready to offer
those services to the user. How to predict what a user
wants and when technology is capable of doing it is not
an easy question. However, we can be sure that the loca-
tion of the device will play a crucial role in the process of
rendering the application context-aware. This is because
we believe the location to be the most important and
powerful context-related factor imaginable.
Today, users are fed up with the amount of services,
applications, information and adverts presented to them
in the virtual world and look for some selectivity. No one
wants to hear about a new tariff promotion when sitting
in a restaurant, and the software should be able to pre-
dict this. Numerous things can be inferred from knowl-
edge of the device position, speed, direction, average
movement or the area where he spends the majority of
working hours. When at work, users are likely to be more
interested in services such as a new option for dinner or a
new parking service. Whereas, during a first visit to a city
a person may like to be made aware of the three most
important historical monuments to see during a single
day trip. Then, a few days later a shopping center avail-
able nearby serves as a new point of interest.
Apart from advertising, there are not many effec-
tive ways (we are aware of), of making money out of
a service’s popularity. And so here the question arises
relating to the domination of adverts over alternate
methods for creating income out of LBS in the future;
Are there any other possibilities? What will constitute
the main source of funds for LBS creators in 10 years
time? We do not know the answer, but what we are
currently certain of is that everybody expects the
mobile services being provided to be free. The free-
of-charge model fosters interest in the application
technology review [www.comarch.eu]
References
1 Magnusson, C., Tollmar, K., Brewster, S., Sarjakoski, T., Sarjakoski, T., and Roselier, S. 2009. Exploring
future challenges for haptic, audio and visual interfaces for mobile maps and location based services.
In Proceedings of the 2nd international Workshop on Location and the Web (Boston, Massachusetts,
April 04 – 04, 2009). LOCWEB ‘09, vol. 370. ACM, New York, NY, 1-4.
2 Dataquest Insight: Consumer Location-Based Services, Subscribers and Revenue Forecast, 2007-2013,
http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?ref=g_search&id=1035015&subref=simplesearch
3 Rao, B. and Minakakis, L. 2003. Evolution of mobile location-based services. Commun. ACM 46, 12 (Dec.
2003), 61-65.
among customers and, therefore, the LBS applications Conclusions
should also be free in order to generate popularity
and guarantee that their designers achieve success Localization-based services combine vast numbers
in the market. To date, however, no one has been able of, formerly separated, technologies into one location-
to provide a truly free, comprehensive Location-Based aware platform. LBS have been treated as an addition
Service, which in addition has not been decorated to what is already available within the device, but we
with ads – why? The answer may be as simple as believe it is powerful enough to evolve into the heart
this – we do not know how to generate a profit from of mobile platforms and mobility itself in the future. It
a service without either retailing the service itself to is highly likely that future mobile applications and ser-
the customers or selling advertising space. Thus, we vices will be driven by knowledge of where the device
believe the monetizing of mobile services is a good currently is and what is the most desperately required
place for innovation. If one can come up with a novel, service at that moment. It is the handset that should
efficient way of making money from a service, which deduce what may be needed “here and now” and it
is free for its user and which does not involve display- should in turn make it available to the user. This con-
ing adverts which customers are already tiring from, stitutes the road to providing a reliable service, fulfilling
it would be a groundbreaking invention. customers’ needs and guaranteeing revenues. <<<
Grzegorz Wąchocki Marek Konieczny
Comarch SA Comarch SA
Position: Senior Software Analyst / Position: Team Leader
R&D Manager Department: Mobile Software R&D
Department: Telecommunications Info: Marek is currently responsible for
Professional Services leading and coordinating test teams in Pro-
Info: Grzegorz leads the R&D unit, which duct Testing projects for portable devices..
has the main aim of exploring new
mobile-related technologies in addition
to searching for new opportunities on the
mobile market.
Smartphone
– the best tool for cutting field
service costs and
increasing productivity

Does your field service use up more and more money? Do your customers seem to be dissatisfied, and are the
number of “Where is my tech?” escalations refusing to decrease? There is a simple solution: buy gadgets, go
with trends and be green. Your company will not only save money but will also be able to increase revenue.

nr 2/2009 (10)
20 > In Focus

An attractive offering, high quality of prod-

ucts and satisfied customers constitute
factors that may contribute to a telecom operator’s
success on the market. Two of them are surely related
to the work of field staff. First of all, field employees
are responsible for the high quality of services, as
they maintain the operator’s network infrastructure to
ensure access to all services adhering to contracted
service level agreements (SLA). For customers, field
forces are also company representatives. If a com-
pany uses self service solutions, they may even be
the only representatives who are in contact with the
customers. It proves that the well performed work of
field service staff is the key element for an opera-
tor’s success.
In current times of economic slowdown prices of
telecom services become the main focal point for
providers. Obviously, operator’s business costs have
great impact on product prices. Telecoms have used
methods of improving productivity and rationalizing
customer field service costs for a long time. Because of
that, field service management (FSM) and optimization
systems should be planned by the majority of service
providers. Not only do FSM systems allow automated
scheduling and effective resource management, but
they can also support work orders dispatching and
fulfillment of field work orders. This brings real bene-
fits to of the network maintenance and customer ser-
vice departments. But you can still ask yourself – can
operators do more?
To give a positive answer to this question, vendors of
FSM systems extend their product portfolio with solutions
based on mobile technologies. Mobile software and hard-
ware available on the market nowadays ensure:
> Possibility of building ergonomic and high-usability-
focused mobile systems
> Hardware parameters enabling advanced, elaborate
mobile application functionalities
> Moderate costs
The elements of operator strategy that can be sup-
ported by mobile technologies include high quality of
field service, higher level of field staff control, as well as
simplified fulfillment of work orders. This article will con-
sider how mobile technology support in the field ser-
vice management domain enables rationalizing costs
and productivity. Is investment in mobile software
and hardware cost-effective? If the answer is yes, as
advocated by research conducted by Aberdeen Group
for instance, then what functionalities and features
of mobiles can help in reducing costs and increasing
productivity in field service departments?
Optimization in Practice
Due to the fact that customer service and network
maintenance are usually the main components of
a service provider’s operational costs, methods and
technologies responsible for their improvement and
optimization have been used for many years. They
allow optimizing staff and equipment use, dispatch-
ing cost and efficiency, as well as all additional costs
related to services, such as phone calls, drive costs,
paper usage etc. The most popular methods of field
workforce optimization are:
> Scheduling with intelligent mechanisms of optimi-
zation
> Dedicated task lists for field employees
> Dispatching based on a wide range of criteria, taking
into consideration: availability of employees, loca-
tions and competences
These mechanisms, which in theory bring many oppor-
tunities for productivity increase and rationalization
of service costs, are blocked or limited because of
general organizational problems, namely:
> Minimal possibility for real-time dispatching
> Schedules based only on estimation of task dura-
tion without determination of actual task duration
> Limited possibilities for rapid task reassigning
(employees often spend their mornings on mak-
ing to-do lists)
> Limited possibilities for real-time task completion
reporting, and updating of business processes (usu-
ally task reports are filled in after all daily field tasks
are completed)
> Absence of exact knowledge regarding current pend-
ing works in field and no possibilities for assigning
the best resources to urgent tasks

Cost Drivers Increase Focus On Mobility Average Performance Improvements | From Mobile Field Service

Increasing service-related costs

(workforce, fuel,parts,fleet, vehi-
61% Performance Category Average 
Improvement
cles, etc.)
Mean time to repair - 21%
Customer demand for faster and
improved service issue resolution
44%
Overtime costs - 13%
Need for improved data capture
and information form management
40%
insight Service profitability + 17%

Shrinking product margins placing

20%
more pressure on service revenue
contribution
Workforce productivity + 22%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

% Of All Respondents

Source: Aberdeen Group, 2008 Source: Aberdeen Group, 2008

Figure 1. The main cost drivers in field service and average improvements from mobile support.

technology review [www.comarch.eu]


Comarch FSM Mobile, all information regarding field work on the handset screen.
In a nutshell, the problem can be summarized as the
lack of current knowledge and shortage of tools for
rapid operational activities.
Mobile technologies may in fact help, as they allow
putting the right strategy (for example optimization) on
the front line of field service. Thanks to mobile features,
front line staff are drawn closer to the dispatcher/
scheduler. Mobile solution functionalities which resolve
this basic problem of optimization include:
> Current statuses of planned work – employees don’t
have to complete a report at the end of the day,
instead they fill in task completion reports online,
straight after having finished it. Optimization mecha-
nisms are able to update schedules in real-time and
better fit plans for real field staff work. Another ben-
efit is that business processes related to field staff
work may be updated automatically in real-time. For
example, installation of new services can be reported
as finished on-line, and service time of activation is
shortened so customer satisfaction grows.
> Real locations – GPS tracking is a common element
of mobile equipment nowadays. It sends location
data from the field and allows planning next steps
of the field service department by a dispatcher. For
example, in urgent cases (emergency orders), it
allows sending out the employee who is able to
reach the location in the shortest time.
> Real-time schedule changes – this is done automati-
cally by sending information to the field employee
handset, without the necessity of looking for the
employee telephone number in the database and
without the need for calling the employee back to the
office for new printouts with the updated task list.
> Fast and accurate documentation – smartphones
come with multimedia tools such as camera and
dictaphone as standard. It allows for quick and full
document intervention and for adding file attach-
ments in real-time. This is of paramount importance
in emergencies and is useful for sequence tasks on
the same site where complete documentation is
immediately accessible for consecutive activities.
Mobile applications in the hands of field staff become
a tool similar to a remote control in real-time, leading
to increased productivity and efficiency of any optimi-
zation mechanisms. It shows synergy between field
service management modules (mobility and optimi-
zation) which really pays off.
There are numerous areas that can be optimized
using mobile technologies, and in this paper we will
focus on several of them:
> Fuel and drive time
> Papers, calls and resulting mistakes
> First-time fix rate
> Optimizing usage of up-sell opportunities
In Focus < 21
Fuel and Drive Time
When discussing cutting costs and increasing pro-
ductivity, what should be taken into account is the
cost of a particular field intervention and the average
time of intervention. Fuel consumption and vehicle uti-
lization are easy to calculate and important for every
intervention cost. Both of them are simple functions
of driving distance. In this area mobile technologies
and applications can support the service provider in
several ways.
One of them is the aforementioned synergy between
optimization mechanisms and mobile solutions. The
field work optimization system, which is responsible
for calculating the shortest and easiest route between
work order locations, is able to send this optimal work
orders list in the right order to the right technician in
field, provided they use a mobile application. Follow-
ing this, the field technician knows exactly how the
work should be organized in order to optimize driving
time and distance.
Distance-effective field service management may
be achieved by integration with mobile navigation
systems. Customers and network elements may be
placed in various locations. Being on time and using
the easiest and shortest route is certainly very impor-
tant. Field service management systems with mobile
applications support field staff by sending locations of
nr 2/2009 (10)
22 > In Focus

Figure 2. Field order fulfillment – both with and without mobile application support

Technician calls
dispatcher to change
Field order fulfillment (without

order status Technician

advanced mobile support)

Technician takes goes back to Back office

Technician the office to
printouts with list Technician copies data
drives to order leave protocols,
of tasks from his fulfills an order from paper to
site paper
office electronic forms
agreements
Technician calls
Dispatcher for order
details
optimization
Costs for

Technician time, Fuel, Vehicle Phone calls, Back office

Technician 
time
Printing costs utilization Dispatcher time employees time
Field order fulfillment
(mobile support)

Technician drives Technician

to order site fulfills an order
Field order fulfillment
(mobile support)

Real time schedule, On-line access to order data,

Optimal route On-line completion reports,
Navigation e-documents and e-signatures

work orders to navigation systems, as a ‘Point of Inter-
est’ on the planned route. This way the field employee
is not only relaxed and does not waste time and fuel
because his route is optimal, but additionally he knows
exactly where to go and he goes there directly.
Another important aspect that should be consid-
ered when talking about cutting driving costs is imme-
diate handling of emergency orders. This type of order,
thanks to real-time monitoring of employee locations
(GPS data from mobile devices), may be fulfilled by
employees who are in the nearest physical proxim-
ity. As a result, not only is the intervention as fast as
possible, but it also enhances cost cutting, due to
reduced distance.
Time is money – this common saying proves to be
very true when it comes to field service. Faster order
fulfillment lowers costs of order execution and can
help increase the number of completed work orders
per day. Using mobile applications by technicians,
effective route planning and mobile navigation all lead
to the aforementioned cost-effectiveness. Due to the
usage mobile applications it is also possible to save
more time. One of the many possibilities is that an
employee doesn’t have to go to the office to print all
of his daily tasks. Because he has a detailed task list
on his mobile, he may go to complete the first order
in the field directly from his house. If he has to print
something, he can do it with his smartphone. The
employee may not only start his work at his house
but also finish it at the same place. Field staff aren’t
required to go to the office to complete reports about
executed tasks; it may be done online using the tech-
nicians’ handsets.
Papers, Calls and Mistakes
The evolution of IT technology has created more pos-
sibilities for performing various activities on a com-
puter screen - reading books, contacting other peo-
ple, watching movies, drawing pictures etc. With the
evolution of mobile technology and devices, more and
more people tend to use IT technology functionalities
wherever they are. Similarly, people are using mobile
technology for business purposes more and more fre-
quently. Another significant benefit of electronic tech-
nologies is that knowledge, documents, agreements
and pictures do not have to be printed on paper. It not
only saves money (costs of paper) but most impor-
tantly it helps to protect the environment. With mobile
technologies it is possible to have your entire office
on a single handset and truly ‘be green’.
Paper printouts in field service management unsup-
ported by mobile technologies are used as basic doc-
uments with information regarding schedules, task
details and execution reports. All of this data may be
accessible via a mobile application, and the company
doesn’t have to invest in and waste tons of paper to
perform field service department tasks. At the same
time back office employees don’t have to waste their
time copying data from paper to electronic forms
because all important information is instantly placed
in the right database.
The situation is quite similar when it comes to
phone calls. In field service departments without
any support of mobile technology, the dispatch-

technology review [www.comarch.eu]


er’s job is mainly to talk on the phone. He not only
notifies field employees about schedule changes
over the phone, but also uses it to report task com-
pletion or status changes and enquire about task
details. Costs of calls and the dispatcher’s work
are quite apparent, but there is also an additional
cost – mistakes and their consequences. Mistakes
are caused mainly by providing imprecise informa-
tion over the phone. Mobile solutions - an applica-
tion for field staff – enable access to detailed data
concerning tasks and current schedules in real-time,
without making any phone calls. They make it possi-
ble to fill the task completion data online with memo-
rized facts, without any misunderstandings or prob-
lems. What’s very important is that it also decreases
the dispatcher’s workload, enabling him to perform
more orders and cooperate with more technicians.
Because the range of dispatchers’ responsibilities
will be lower, people working in this position wouldn’t
be expected to have such extensive qualifications,
further lowering HR costs.
First-time Fix Rate
First-time fix rate serves as an indicator and its
increase is always a key for the telecommunication
operator. The higher its value the higher the produc-
tivity and the greater the customer satisfaction (there
is nothing worse for a customer than not having his
problem solved at the first attempt). This indicator is
also important in the context of cost-effective manage-
ment. Every field intervention creates costs. If there are
more field interventions associated with a given work
order, its cost becomes much higher. There are also
other expenses related to multi-intervention orders,
for instance those related to lower indicators of task
realization per day.
There are a lot of possibilities for improvement of
field work in this area, such as increasing field staff
competences, assigning tasks to accurate, skilled
employees etc. Mobile access to field service manage-
ment tools for workforces is a solution that may help
to obtain a higher first-time fix rate. The main elements
available as mobile tools that are used to improve the
quality of field service as well as to decrease unsuc-
cessful interventions are:
> Access to important data related to the task and to
the Trouble Tickets’ knowledge database
> Access to network elements/inventory data
> Possibility of conducting additional activities related
to work order, such as printing completion protocols,
capturing customer signature, etc.
If a technician has online access from his mobile
device to all tools required for the given task, he can
In Focus < 23
easily finish his work without having to go back to the Summary
office, because he forgot something or lacks some
important information regarding the task. Field work In the competitive telecommunications market any
is supported by the mobile application which, accord- activities carried out by a telecommunication company
ing to particular purposes, stores and presents the within the area of cost cutting and improvements in
field employee with data about the customer, work employee productivity are extremely important. Mobile
order, tasks, required activities and equipment. It pro- technology, by supporting field service work effec-
vides access to network data and enables its update. tively, meets the challenges and opportunities of the
What’s more, it also serves for printing documents telecom market. Operators should start looking for ven-
and capturing customers’ signatures. A technician’s dors who are able to offer vast support in this domain,
smartphone can present a very wide scope of data have experience on the market and provide elaborate
and have numerous supporting tools. In field work, the solutions, which in turn will help revolutionized field
more information about the task is provided to the filed services grant highly valuable benefits that are very
staff, the more probable it is that the intervention will hard to achieve by other means. What’s important is
bring a positive resolution. to take into consideration vendors who are experi-
enced not only in the field service management area,
but also in mobile technology. Mobile solutions have
Technician as a Salesman different features when compared to those of other
IT systems. Mobile equipment for large field service
Mobile handset as a solution which improves first time departments creates significant cost (each technician
fix rate is a fascinating concept, but is there the pos- must be equipped with a smartphone which in many
sibility to make this indicator exceed 100%? cases is highly professional and fitted precisely to the
If a service provider equips a technician with accu- technician’s needs). If the service provider deploys
rate data and tools, he may become a kind of a sales- a safe, easily adoptable and stable solution that has
man himself. An appointment with a customer is a  ood an additional range of functionality, he is sure to see
opportunity to increase the value of the contract and changes in monthly reports regarding costs, produc-
convince that person to buy other products or services tivity and revenues. <<<
from the operator. Customers don’t usually appreciate
telemarketing, but they may be more willing to listen to
the technician, who has just activated some services
or quickly solved some technical problem. To play that
role, the technician must have tools which will “sell
the products for him”. If a telecom operator wants
to benefit from this appointment opportunity, they
should provide the technician with mobile tools that
will work as an extension of the ones he already uses.
Applications supporting order fulfillment can have an
additional module for up-selling. Immediately after the
technician has finished his task, he would report that
he has the opportunity to present the customer with
the company’s offer or fulfill the customer’s request
for additional services. This information would be pre-
sented on his handset screen. If a customer is inter-
ested in a service or better yet - he wants it now, the
technician would have all the tools needed to prepare
a contract, capture a signature on the touch screen
and install additional services. All this may occur dur-
ing just one field intervention.
Effective changes in technical service department
Szymon Uczciwek
organization and mobile tools which would guide tech- Comarch SA
nicians through selling, may not only bring productivity Position: Telco Consultant
Department: Telecommunications
increases and decrease general costs of the company,
Business Unit
but may also have a highly positive impact on sales. It
Info: Szymon is currently responsible for
is an idea worth considering as it may lead to opening the Comarch Field Service Management
an extra sales channel and ultimately – improving the solution for telecom service providers.
business performance.
nr 2/2009 (10)
24 > In Focus

Digital Home
a Dream or a Fact?
UPnP is the technology of tomorrow that started the day before yesterday. This year the UPnP Forum initia-
tive is going to celebrate its 10th anniversary, incorporating almost 900 international leading companies
in computing, printing, networking, consumer electronics, home appliances, automation, control, secu-
rity and mobile products. The main goal of UPnP technology is to enable seamless connectivity of vari-
ous devices, forming networks in home or corporate environments and enabling Digital Home experience.
By its design, adding new devices or programs to the network should be as easy as plugging a piece of
hardware into a PC. The devices and programs connected familiarize themselves with the current network
setup thanks to service discovery and advertisement, and configure themselves accordingly on the fly,
with regard to devices already connected. In short: UPnP is a framework for building networked applications.

technology review [www.comarch.eu]


The Dark Side of Living Digitally
At the beginning there were only zeros and ones. All
could use it, but soon it was discovered that each
carried it out it in their own unique way. Many wanted
to be the first to establish a standardized method of
playing with bits. As a consequence, the darkness of
misunderstanding fell, and people could no longer
communicate with each other.
Electronic devices have generally tended to only
be compatible with the same manufacturer’s devices,
with the absence of a common language that would
enable communication with numerous complemen-
tary machines from other vendors. To extend a home
entertainment system for instance, one has been lim-
ited to the vendor of the appliances they had already
purchased. But the real troubles were still to come…
Let’s think about a very simple, everyday case.
Imagine you want to share your pictures taken dur-
ing your last summer vacation, showing you standing
proudly by the erupting Strokkur geyser in Iceland. Your
friends have just popped in, the pictures (zeros and
ones, just to remind) are still sitting snuggly in your
pocket - recorded by your mobile phone’s high reso-
lution digital camera, and your brand new panoramic
HD plasma is ready and waiting in the living room. At
your disposal is the perfect medium to commence
the show and make your friends truly jealous of what
a fantastic holiday you had. All you need to do now is
transfer the pictures from your mobile to a laptop via
the USB cable (by the way, do you happen to have one
to hand?), burn the picture onto a DVD (of course, you
have a spare disk ready, right?), insert the disk (still
hot) into your DVD player and press the ‘play’ button.
Here you are; the zeros and ones are now being trans-
ferred from the DVD player straight to your plasma set.
Two questions arise: don’t you have the feeling that
the focus of your attention having been on trying to
manage “zeros and ones” rather than actually enjoy-
ing the pictures was fundamentally flawed? And sec-
ondly, are your friends still there in the room, waiting
patiently to see the final result following a painstak-
ingly slow ten minutes battling with raw data?
Trouble-free Solution
Universal Plug and Play saw the light in the late nine-
ties, just as networks were growing in popularity. Sev-
eral vendors were coming up with solutions to make
networks and networked applications easier to man-
age. One of the earliest attempts was Sun’s ‘Jini’ offer,
with its innovative lookup service concept (continued
to this day within Apache Foundation’s River project),
In Focus < 25
which was rapidly responded to with Microsoft’s UPnP
model. In October 1999 the UPnP Forum was formed as
an industry initiative designed to enable simple and
robust connectivity among consumer electronics, intel-
ligent appliances and mobile devices from different
vendors. UPnP technology is a key standard required
for an interoperable network in a digital home, but it
does not specify all aspects of interactions between
devices, defining rather the frame protocol of com-
munication.
As in today’s world consumers are acquiring a huge
amount and variety of digital content on their devices,
at the same time they want to be able to easily and
conveniently manage, use and enjoy this content,
wherever they are and whatever devices they have
at hand. In order to address this need, the Digital Liv-
ing Network Alliance (DLNA) was established in 2003,
with the aim of creating a generic, interoperable net-
work of compatible devices from various vendors.
DLNA guidelines were created and published to pro-
vide manufacturers with the opportunity to innovate
and differentiate their products, and to simultaneously
satisfy the consumers’ desire for trouble free access
and management of their content.
Nowadays, a vast number of Home Network, Mobile
Handheld and Home Infrastructure Devices are DLNA
certified, including media servers, renderers, players,
printers, up- and downloaders and controllers from
approximately two hundred vendors, including Alcatel-
Lucent, Canon, Dell, AMD, Hitachi, Lenovo, NEC, Nokia,
BMW or Sony Ericsson.
The Future
Once all the devices on the market are DLNA/UPnP
certified, configuration of the home network will be
as easy and secure like never before. “One click of
the button” or “Touch and click” slogans will eventu-
ally come into full force and will cease to be merely
promises. With no additional configuration, nor instal-
lation of drivers, you will be able to interoperate with
all home devices in your network, such as TVs, media
storage devices, laptops, mobile phones, digital cam-
eras and printers. But more is coming, if you dare to
imagine…
Think about sharing your favorite pictures from your
private home collection with your friends while drink-
ing a beer in a downtown pub. Even if your computer
is shut down, you can wake it up remotely from your
mobile phone and access the content you want.
How about streaming your local team’s hockey
game while in a hotel on another continent? It’s highly
likely that you don’t want to miss it, but it’s no prob-
nr 2/2009 (10)
26 > In Focus
lem: you can watch it hundreds miles away, streamed
right to your room thanks to remote access to your
home network. Or perhaps you are not particularly
interested in hockey, but would like to check on how
your young daughter is doing in her room using an IP
camera rendering the video image directly to the TV
set in your hotel suite?
Or perhaps once you have driven into the garage,
you would like your car’s entertainment system to
automatically download a couple of MP3 files that
your wife has just downloaded to your PC from mys-
pace.com the previous night?
With DLNA and UPnP, the above cases of tomorrow
are already happening today. <<<
Piotr Madej
Comarch SA
Position: Mobile R&D Department Director
Department: Telecommunications
Business Unit
Info: Piotr is responsible for mobile SW
development for Symbian, mobile Linux,
Android, iPhone and Blackberry.
technology review [www.comarch.eu]
Comarch Competences
Comarch has been engaged in Digital Home tech-
nologies since 2004. With the extensive knowledge
of basic DH standards such as TCP/IP, UDP, HTTP,
XML, SOAP, UPnP and DLNA, the Professional Ser-
vices Business Unit highlighted the strength of
its competences within the field. Important mile-
stones include:
> Joining the UPnP Forum as a member
> Contributing several successfully completed proj-
ects, including:
> Extending the UPnP Certification Test Tool
implementation for the UPnP Implementer
Committee. The tool is used for verifying the
conformance of Control Points with UPnP
standards
> Implementation of UPnP/DLNA compatible
stack for Symbian OS-based devices. The com-
ponent is now used in several Nokia smart
phones, including N95, N81, N78, N96 and
N97
> Engagement in commercial projects involv-
ing UPnP: Linux-based tablets, Internet Radio
devices and UPnP Certification Test Tool
Upgrade
> Participating in DLNA Plugfests and interoper-
ability testing UPnP workshops internationally
(2005 – Lihue, Hawaii, USA, 2006 – Sapporo,
Japan, 2006 – Taipei, Taiwan, 2007 – San Diego,
CA, USA, 2007 – Sanya, China, 2007 – Portland,
OR, USA, 2008 – Kobe, Japan, 2008 – Durham, NH,
USA, 2008 – Seoul, Korea)
> Presenting the Digital Home Demo Booth for the
Symbian Smartphone Show 2008.
 Operational Excellence < 27

Towards Self-Organizing
Networks

Current mobile market

landscape with
dropping revenues per bit and increasing demand
for diversified service portfolio forces operators to
reduce OPEX while investing in new technologies
and solutions. Constantly growing multi-technology
and multi-vendor networks become more complex
than ever before and significant network planning
and management effort is needed to ensure satis-
factory end user experience. This effort can be mini-
mized with implementation of Self-Organizing Net-
works (SON) which will enable operators to simplify
network operation and extend their network in plug
& play manner. Comarch considers network man-
agement automation as key requirement as well as
a crucial factor for investments in next-generation
wireless technologies such as LTE and supports SON
use cases with its product portfolio.

nr 2/2009 (10)
28 > Operational Excellence

Ideas in brief > QoS related parameter optimization

> load balancing
> Increasing complexity of networks and OPEX reduction pressures cause that operators are forced to > RACH load optimization
change the way how they operate their networks > optimization of home base stations
> Self-Organizing Networks (SON) promise to reduce manual effort needed for network operation by mak-
ing networks capable to self-organize and manage its resources
> Comarch product portfolio supports SON use cases via automated process management and integration Self-Configuration
of planning and optimization, configuration management and network provisioning capabilities Understood as the plug & play behavior of new net-
work elements. The key areas is automated deploy-
The ideas related to network automation and intro- Self-Planning ment of new base stations, which covers following
duction of self-organized mechanisms have been Achieved via self-configuration of initial parameters activities:
always on operators’ wish list. According to Yankee and re-computation of parameters during continuous > automatic configuration of initial radio/transport
Group OPEX related to network operation constitute as self-optimization. The amount of manual pre-planning parameters
much as 20% in the cost structure and tend to grow activities should be reduced to minimum and cover > automatic data alignment for neighbour nodes (real-
as networks mature. As the number of technologies, basic coverage and capacity planning. As a result, ized for LTE via standardized Automatic Neighbour
vendors and base stations in a network increases, so planning tool will deliver only few parameters such as Relation (ANR) management)
is the effort of network planning and management. location, number of sectors and other basic cell param- > automatic connectivity establishment
Time-consuming manual work is still required in many eters while the rest will be derived automatically. > self-test
workflows such as parameter planning, optimization > automatic inventory
and handling of site failures. On the other hand the > automatic authentication and SW download
technology and market dynamics put a pressure on Self-Optimization
faster rollouts and network upgrades to stay ahead The aim of self-optimization is to fine-tune initial param-
of competition. New technologies such as LTE will eters and dynamically re-calculate these parameters Self-Healing
increase the network complexity and parallel opera- in case of network and traffic changes. Optimization of Fault management should be simplified and automated
tion of 2G/3G/HSPA and LTE networks will be a must network shall be based on live measurement data. Self- via information correlation mechanisms. Operators will be
for some years ahead. Moreover, potential deploy- optimization is an important improvement area due to responsible for definition of correlation rules and correc-
ments of femto-cells on mass scale will significantly the fact that current automatic optimization tools focus tive actions to specific faults but the fault correction itself
increase the number of base stations and will require on small number of radio parameters and a lot of manual will be autonomous. Self-healing covers use cases such
a self-organized approach for integration of new cells effort is required for optimization activities. The aim is to as cell outage detection and compensation via auto-
with macro layer. make following optimization activities automatic: mated root cause analysis and such corrective actions as
All above described factors indicate that we need > neighbour cell list optimization routing traffic to nearby cells. Another example is migra-
to change the way how we operate networks. The > interference control tion of unit outage based on automatic mechanisms for
required manual work needs to be significantly > handover parameter optimization adaptation and reconfiguration of hardware.
reduced and the network itself should be capable
to self-configure and continuously self-optimize in
response to network and traffic changes. Operators
will define workflows and policies through which they
will control the network but the hard work will be done
by the network itself.

Principles of Self-Organizing
Networks self- self-
configuration optimization
Self-Organizing Networks are defined as a set of use
cases covering all aspects of network operation from
network planning to maintenance activities. These use
cases express high-level requirements for future net-
works and are based on the paradigm that network self-healing
should self-organize and manage its resources so that
optimal network quality and performance is achieved.
SON use cases can be grouped into functional domains
which are described in following paragraphs.

Figure 1. Self-x capabilities of Self-Organizing Networks

technology review [www.comarch.eu]


Figure 2. SON architectures
centralized SON
SON
network
management
O&M
network
The key to understanding SON is that only part
of SON use cases can be adopted while other
remain manual. This enables gradual introduction of
SON mechanisms and does not enforce ‘big bang’
approach.
In order to address inter-operability in multi-vendor
scenarios SON solutions shall be based on standard-
ized interfaces but the detailed implementation of SON
functions is vendor specific. Depending on where SON
algorithms will reside, different SON architectures can
be distinguished:
> distributed – SON algorithm(s) will reside in one or
more network elements
> centralized – SON algorithm(s) will reside in existing
NMS or in an additional SON server
> hybrid – SON algorithm(s) will reside is partly in network
elements and partly in the management system
Distributed and centralized SON architectures have
been presented on Figure 2.
Current Status of SON Activities
Concept of SON has been introduced in 3GPP Release 8
specification due to flattening architecture of E-UTRAN
and resulting growth in number of nodes in the net-
work. Main SON uses cases such as self-establish-
ment of a new eNodeB and Automatic Neighbour Rela-
tion (ANR) management have been identified and
described. Moreover, Release 8 standardizes impor-
tant interfaces from SON point of view:
> X2 interface between eNodeBs
> S1 interface between eNodeBs and EPC
SON
Strong motivation to increase operational efficiency
caused that SON concepts are one of the key areas
addressed by operators’ lobby through Next Genera-
tion Mobile Networks (NGMN) initiative, which comple-
ments the work on future mobile broadband networks
within standardization bodies.
There are many projects addressing self-organiza-
tion issues. As an example, Socrates project concen-
trates on development of self-organization methods
for wireless access networks, in particular related to
LTE air interface. Gandalf project was defining solu-
tions for self-diagnosis, self-testing and self-tuning
in multi-system environment.
Vendors are also active in the field of SON. Recently
Motorola has announced advanced SON solution which
is a part of its LTE offering. Other vendors such as NSN,
Ericsson and Huawei are also working intensively on
their SON solutions.
Our View on Self-Organizing
Networks
As majority of operators and vendors we agree that
network management automation is a key technol-
ogy requirement and a crucial factor for investments
in next-generation wireless technologies such as LTE.
Therefore, we designed our products to support pro-
cess management and task automation and we con-
tinuously seek for algorithms and solutions enabling
self-organization.
When it comes to adoption of self-organization
concepts in operational networks, we envision that
this process will be gradual. Beside technical chal-
Operational Excellence < 29
network
management
SON
SON
distributed SON
lenges related to algorithm implementation such as
coping with ping-pong effects and algorithm conver-
gence issues there is also a human factor which can-
not be underestimated. For years networks have been
operated in manual way and there is time needed for
building trust in automatic network operation. Initially
planners may want to view the results of self-x algo-
rithms in order to be sure that network quality and
performance will not be affected.
Our Approach for Supporting SON
Use Cases
High level definition of SON use cases enables to
employ various implementation strategies ranging
from centralized support of SON functions to fully
decentralized solutions. Selection of implementation
strategy shall depend on the problem to be solved.
Centralized approach is suitable for SON use cases
related to larger amount of cells such as coverage and
capacity optimization. Decentralized solutions are bet-
ter for solving localized problems such as neighbour
list management and enable faster reaction times
than centralized solutions.
We propose a universal approach to address particu-
lar SON use cases for various wireless access technolo-
gies rather than concentrating purely on such technolo-
gies as LTE. Although our portfolio enables centralized
and hybrid approach depending on SON use cases to
be supported, most of our efforts are concentrated on
hybrid solutions in which SON logic is devided between
network management system and network elements.
Distributed part of use cases needs to be tackled by
nr 2/2009 (10)
30 > Operational Excellence
planning/
optimization module
auto-discovery &
KPIs
hardware vendors having a possibility to implement par-
ticular algorithms directly in the network elements.
The heart of our solution is a Process Driven Inven-
tory with flexible Process Management and Automation
Engine. With Auto-discovery & Reconciliation, Fault Man-
agement as well as advanced planning and optimization
algorithms combined with powerful Network Provision-
ing module our product portfolio enables automation
and self-organization of network operation activities.
Process Management
Process Management engine allows fully managed
and controlled execution of all operational processes.
It can act as a SON coordinator and orchestrate vari-
ous SON workflows and processes. Freedom of pro-
cess definition is ensured via Process Designer, which
provides GUI for process composition.
Auto-discovery & Reconciliation
Advanced tools such as Auto-discovery and Reconcili-
ation applied together enable to get information about
current network status as well as SON functions con-
figuration and act upon needs. Auto-discovery allows
to collect data from network elements directly or via
systems managing these elements. Reconciliation
technology review [www.comarch.eu]
Figure 3. SON use cases with Comarch product portfolio
SON policies
automation
engine
process
management
network
reconciliation provisioning
network network
information configuration
SON functions SON functions
information configuration
enables to import data from external systems having
information about network configuration.
Fault Management
Fault management is a complete solution to ongoing fault
issues inside operators’ networks. It monitors all impor-
tant elements of the network, receives, displays and
tracks alarms, allowing to manage potentially dangerous
network problems. It provides root cause analysis based
on correlation engine and combined with Process Man-
agement enables to automate fault corrections.
Automation Engine
Enables to automate most of manual activities related
to network operation. Flows of automated operations
can be run by users, be part of processes controlled
by Process Management module or can be provided
as web service and triggered via external system.
Planning & Optimization Modules
Beside vey few parameters calculated in external
planning tool, remaining parameters are calculated
in self-organized manner by planning & optimization
modules, which are pluggable pieces of logic utilizing
fault
management
alarms
prediction and OSS based data. External algorithms
can be integrated with the solution to address opera-
tor specific needs.
Network Provisioning
Network Provisioning is an Inventory-driven provision-
ing system capable to configure all network elements,
while simultaneously reflecting all the changes in the
inventory database. Comarch bi-directional OSS Media-
tion is used to easily integrate the Network Provision-
ing system with many network devices in the multi-
vendor environment.
Figure 3 demonstrates how SON use cases can
be achieved with our product portfolio. Operators will
define SON policies and map them to corresponding
processes which will be automated via Automation
Engine. Execution of certain processes will be trig-
gered dynamically based on information from the
network (i.e. configuration changes, alarms, KPIs) or
external events (i.e. request of site rollouts, customer
complaints). Processes will orchestrate interaction
of various modules such as Fault Management and
Algorithm modules and as a result provide config-
uration changes or new settings for SON functions
implemented in network elements via Network Pro-
visioning module.

Example Use Case: Self-Planning
of Radio Parameters for a New
Base Station
Installation of new base station requires definition of
initial set of radio parameters such as power settings,
frequencies, handover parameters and neighbour
lists. This process should be as automated as pos-
sible and best practice rather than optimal param-
eters should be aimed for. Self-planning of initial
radio parameters with Comarch modules has been
depicted on Figure 4.
Parameter planning process is initiated with event,
i.e. indicating request for integration of new base sta-
tion. This event triggers reconciliation task which
updates information about current network configu-
ration. After that set of planning algorithms is launched
in batch mode to calculate basic radio parameters
for new cells. Depending on radio access technol-
ogy appropriate algorithms are triggered and intra-/
inter- layer parameter dependencies are resolved.
Resulting basic parameter set is enriched based on
predefined templates by configuration management
logic and provided to network via Network Provisioning
Module. In case of availability of ANR function neigh-
bour planning can be realized at eNodeBs, otherwise
planning modules will be responsible for neighbour
list generation.
Figure 4. Self-planning of initial radio parameters
event, i.e. request
for integration
1 2
process management & automation engine
get current
network info
auto-discovery &
reconciliation
Operational Excellence < 31
References
1 TS 32.500-800 – Self-Organizing Networks (SON); Concepts and requirements, 3GPP
2 TS 32.501-800 – Self Configuration of Network Elements; Concepts and requirements, 3GPP
3 TS 32.511-810 – Automatic Neighbour Relation (ANR) management; Concepts and requirements, 3GPP
4 TR 32.816-800 – Study on management of Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN)
and Evolved Packet Core (EPC), 3GPP
5 Next Generation Mobile Networks Beyond HSPA & EVDO, NGMN Alliance White Paper
6 NGMN Informative List of SON Use Cases, NGMN Alliance Annex Deliverable
7 NGMN Recommendation on SON and O&M Requirements, NGMN Alliance Requirement Specification
8 NGMN Use Cases related to Self Organising Network, Overall Description, NGMN Alliance Deliverable
9 “SOCRATES: Self-Optimisation and self-ConfiguRATion in wirelESs networks”, J.L. van den Berg, R. Litjens,
A. Eisenblätter, M. Amirijoo, O. Linnell, C. Blondia, T. Kürner, N. Scully, J. Oszmianski & L.C. Schmelz, COST
2100 TD(08)422, Wroclaw, Poland, February 6-8, 2008.
10 Gandalf Project (www.celtic-gandalf.org)
11 Yankee Group research (www.yankeegroup.com)
Summary to support automated process management and we
continuously design algorithms and solutions enabling
As complexity of networks and OPEX reduction pres- self-organization. With our clients we develop hybrid SON
sures grow, concepts related to Self-Organizing Net- solutions and concentrate on integration of planning and
works are regarded by operators as the key technology optimization, configuration management and network
requirement. The manual work associated with network provisioning capabilities. This allows our customers to
operation needs to be significantly reduced and the quickly integrate new network elements and implement
network itself should be capable to self-configure and configuration changes to the network. By means of task
continuously self-optimize in response to network and automation many manual activities can be avioded and
traffic changes. In Comarch we designed our products operational efficiency can be increased. <<<
planning/
optimization module
auto-calculate
parameters
3 4
Krzysztof Marcisz
Comarch SA
Position: OSS Product Manager
Department: Telecommunications
generate conf files &
Business Unit
provide them to network
Info: Krzysztof is currently responsible for
network conceptualization of new OSS solutions in
provisioning the area of network planning and optimiza-
tion as well as sales and marketing support
of Comarch OSS systems.
nr 2/2009 (10)
32 > Operational Excellence
Service Assurance:
Bridging the Gap between
the Traditional Management Silos
Each service provider has its own busi-
ness model. One may focus on
being the technological leader delivering the highest
possible quality to customers, while others may find
their niche in simple and inexpensive services that are
available for a flat rate. Yet all of them face the same
problem, the customer will leave if the services do
not work. Throughout the years they have been miti-
gating this potential threat with a number of differ-
ent fault management tools which keep the network
in a good state of operation. Nowadays this seems
to be no longer possible as business models have
changed. Today, even simple services have become
dependent on several different platforms, which are
often delivered by business partners. Service provid-
ers must bridge the gap between old tools and new
technology review [www.comarch.eu]
models. They must shift their operations to the next
level: Service Assurance.
The Picture Today
Many service providers still use different management
tools for different types of networks. The typical model
is that with the introduction of the vendor in the network
a new management system is introduced. It covers only
one vendor, one type of network, with no link to the sur-
roundings. Even if service providers have an umbrella
type of fault management the required details can still
be found in the management silos. Service information
is scattered between different systems such as perfor-
mance management, CRM and monitoring tools.
Strategy for Moving Forward
More and more of service providers begin different
projects focused on service management. They issue
RFIs looking for different solutions for bringing all ser-
vice related information into one place. We can observe
that there are two main ways for introducing service
assurance in operation departments.
The first approach is to start with service models. Ser-
vice provides start documenting services within models
recording cross-service dependencies, IT assets and net-
work resources required for service availability. They then
focus on changes in the existing fault management solu-
tions to allow them to monitor services based on these
models. Constant improvements of the models trigger
constant change requests in the monitoring solution,
 Operational Excellence < 33

Figure 1. Vertical silos architecture vs horizontal architecture

Horizontal – Layered Arch Horizontal – Layered Arch

OSS OSS OSS NGOSS

IP Access Data IP IP Access Voice Data TV Content

Network Network Network Network

which increases their operational costs and lengthen time, which apart from increasing effectiveness, also as they deliver both correlation engines and process
the time-to-market for new services. provides an additional benefit by shortening the ser- automation engines. This additionally allows for solving
The second approach is to start with dedicated tools vice unavailability time. Many of the corrective actions the potential service incident without the end customer
for service assurance. Then based on functionalities can be automated in the service assurance solution, even noticing it.
a number of different sources of information are inte-
grated with the service assurance solution, with the
hopes that all the available information will be enough to
monitor the service. Each time a new source of informa- Assurance:
tion is identified the service models are updated. > S&R Incident and Problem
Both methods have their advantages but the gold
S ! CfS Management
approach is in the middle. Investing in a solution, which > Service impact calculation
has core capabilities for service assurance, is a must. No
SI&P: service RfS S
definition S ! RfS
single service provider wants to be a sponsor of a unique,
non-COTS solution for service monitoring. Solutions, which R
are already available on the market, have required mod- R R !
ules, functionalities and algorithms for not only service
assurance but also incident management, root cause
analysis or customer impact analysis. In addition, sound
S CfS
service documentation, recording all the information per-
taining to IT assets, network resources and use cases
RfS S
of the service is also a must for service assurance. The S RfS
important thing is remembering that the service models R
will change. Therefore, it is strongly recommended not R R
only to have a project for documenting the service, but
also such reorganization of the service lifecycle, which
enables the operations department in service Change S CfS
Management processes.
Fulfillment:
The new approach leads to an increase in the effec- RfS S
tiveness of the service provider’s operations. Existing > Service assembly
S RfS
management silos are either no longer needed, or are OS&R: service model & delivery
R
incorporated in the service assurance platforms, allow- storage & sharing > Resource allocation
R R
ing the technicians to use just one solution for investi-
gating service malfunctions, finding the root cause and
fixing the solution. Automation in answering the ques-
tion of why the service is not working saves the most Figure 2. Service models reusage in different departments

nr 2/2009 (10)
34 > Operational Excellence
Figure 3. Interface between systems handling service information
RfS
> Incidents resulting from
network problems
> Planned service incidents
(approval)
RfS S
It’s always about Interfaces
Even if a service provider begins implementation of
the best service assurance solution on the market,
a certain degree of its legacy solution will require main-
taining for some time afterwards. There is a possibility
which excludes the need for the big bang approach:
immediate replacement of all IT landscapes. The solu-
tion is reliant upon the definition of an interface, based
on certain standards, in order to handle the legacy sys-
tem as a Resource Facing Service – a component of
the new service model. It is vital that such an interface
provides at a minimum functionality which forwards
incidents from the legacy system, passes on provi-
sioning requests and enables controlling the service
management process. Nowadays, there is no single
standard on the market that can be applied. Therefore,
it is good practice to implement several APIs into the
legacy solution, or alternatively an API at a unified level
should be adopted. Although this may entail a signifi-
cant cost for integration of the legacy system, in many
cases it is still an worthwhile investment. Solutions
such as those of COTS Service Assurance or Service
Management, and some legacy integration continue
to preserve benefits such as increases in the effec-
tiveness of service management, minimized time-to-
market for new services, and most importantly – thor-
ough and precise service state monitoring.
technology review [www.comarch.eu]
S a different price. Tailored offers can even be introduced
> Incidents resulting from
customer problems
> Provisioning/activation
requests
> Process control during the
whole lifecycle
S CfS
S RfS
What about the Service Quality?
Together with service assurance solutions, investing
in Service Quality Management completes the service
picture. In particular, when a service is dependent on a
number of different and constantly changing network
resources, SQM facilitates measuring the impact of net-
work degradation and its propagation to the service
models. Additionally, it integrates the numbers of exist-
ing performance management silos into one source of
information regarding state and quality of the service.
Even if at this current moment in time SQM is not a part
of the service assurance projects, it is definitely on the
road map for all major service providers.
What Happens Next?
Ongoing projects for delivering service assurance will
allow service providers to see the big picture in terms
of the service in order to measure its state. Once this
information is acquired new opportunities open up
and new business models and service offerings can
come into existence.
Typical network operation was oriented to solving
incidents and problems. Using service assurance, pro-
viders can focus on proactive network management.
It’s possible to plan the changes and investments in the
network and optimize them from the service availability
and quality perspective. They can offer to the mass mar-
ket the same services but of a higher standard and at
for the most important customers, whilst delivering and
assuring heightened quality in selected areas or for cho-
sen services.
If service providers integrate service assurance with
CRM or SLA management systems they can enable cus-
tomer monitoring as well as network and IT resources
prioritization based on customer impact. In case of prob-
lems arising technicians are able to view the real busi-
ness value of all resources and have the capability to
plan workarounds and add a protection mechanism for
the most essential resources.
Existing service providers are no longer autonomic in
service delivery. They have started to share the network
and depend on the partners delivering service compo-
nents. It is of even greater important to have a compre-
hensive service assurance solution which will support not
only the service provider itself, but also its partners, with
clear information about service state and the division of
responsibility regarding service maintenance.
Currently, the telecommunications world is a keen
advocate of measuring customer experience. Service
assurance, in addition to bringing about a unification of
operations and bridging gaps between management
systems, is the first and most crucial step in this pro-
cess. Moreover, automation not only optimizes operations
costs but also enables new business models. <<<
Jakub Zaluski-Kapusta
Comarch SA
Position: OSS Product Manager
Department: Telecommunications
Business Unit
Info: Jakub is currently responsible for sales
support of Comarch OSS systems.
 Operational Excellence < 35

Telco on Demand?
Can a telecom provider outsource everything besides the marketing department?

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is a model of software deployment whereby a provider licenses an appli-

cation to customers for use as a service on demand. The SaaS model has become one of the most
popular trends in today’s IT environment. Software vendors are starting to offer their software in the
SaaS model for many industries. But is SaaS already mainstream in telecommunications? How far can
a telecom provider go into SaaS? Are there any IT or network areas that cannot be outsourced?

nr 2/2009 (10)
36 > Operational Excellence

Figure 1. Differences between On-premise, ASP and SaaS software delivery models

Company A Company B Company C

Data Center Data Center Data Center

On-premise

employees employees employees

A’s customers, B’s customers C’s customers

partners partners partners

Company A Company B Company C

employees employees employees

ASP

Data Center

APP A APP B APP C

A’s customers, B’s customers C’s customers

partners partners partners

Company A Company B Company C

employees employees employees

SaaS

Data Center

APP A, B, C

A’s customers, B’s customers C’s customers

partners partners partners

technology review [www.comarch.eu]


Business Drivers for SaaS
The basic concept of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
appeared in the late 90’s. Now SaaS, sometimes
termed as “on-demand software”, superseding the
“ASP model” or “hosted software”, has become one
of the main trends for delivering software in mod-
ern IT. The basic goal of the SaaS model is reducing
investment costs in software licenses and hard-
ware by sharing one instance of software hosted
on an application provider’s infrastructure and on-
demand accessed by many customers, at the same
time, remotely.
SaaS applications are developed to leverage web
technologies such as a web-browser for user-inter-
face and Web Services for integration purposes. The
data architecture is based on the multi-tenant concept
with a single instance that enables multiple users to
access a shared data model with the separated data
of each customer.
The following business advantages are the key driv-
ers for the popularization of the SaaS model:
> Low cost of initial investments (CAPEX),
> Responsibility for data, operations and maintenance
shifted to the SaaS provider,
> Pay-for-use model (OPEX cost-effectiveness),
> IT staff responsibility limited to integrating (if required)
and extending SaaS platform, both of which are rela-
tively easy,
> Short setup time.
A low entry cost means reducing the risk associated
with investments in software deployment. A very impor-
tant benefit of SaaS is that a customer can fully test and
verify the functionality of a real instance of the appli-
cation, before taking the decision of whether to buy it.
Also, the customer does not invest directly in software
and hardware upgrades as they pay only for the use of
the software on demand by paying a monthly subscrip-
tion fee for access to the system, providing specified
parameters. All these parameters must be specified
before signing an agreement with the vendor.
In simple applications the setup period on the ven-
dor’s side usually takes minutes or hours. In more
advanced cases, the setup may also require some
additional integration tasks on the customer side.
These tasks may include integration of local systems
with a remote service through an API, integration tests
etc. SaaS vendors usually provide easy-to-use and
well-documented API with working examples attached,
therefore the integration process takes less time than
it would when deploying a local instance of the system.
In addition, SaaS makes the Quality Assurance process
more simplistic than in a typical deployment.
A customer usually accesses the application
through the Internet, but it is also possible to set up
a VPN or leased-line between a customer and the ven-
dor. Dedicated network connections may be required
for real-time operations when network link Quality-of-
Service influences the stability of company operations
or revenue-related processes.
SaaS providers generally charge per-user – system
core, additional features, extra bandwidth or storage. As
the revenue stream to the SaaS vendor is usually more
stable than to a typical software vendor, this often results
in new features that are directly requested by users and
releases of new features are significantly more frequent
since the entire group of customers can benefit from the
new functionality. The new features are often developed
according to best practices of each industry, because
the vendor has constant input from customers, based
on their everyday experience.
From a technical point of view, SaaS model imple-
mentations are characterized by:
> Multi-tenant architecture,
> Centralized upgrades transparent to the customer,
> Shared data model,
> Application scalability,
> Configuration & extensibility,
> Web-based access to applications,
> Security of data,
> Business continuity assurance, often with geograph-
ically separated disaster recovery center.
All these features translate directly into business ben-
efits – TCO optimization, flexibility and security.
A Bright or Dim Future for SaaS?
There have been a lot of rumors lately related to the
validity of the SaaS delivery model and the business
models around it. These have been stirred up by SaaS
providers struggling to achieve profitability and the
critical mass required. Certainly the large numbers of
SaaS start-ups are not helping the situation. However,
a tough and uncompromising economy has paradoxi-
cally brought SaaS into the spotlight, as businesses
are looking for ways to improve the bottom line. There
are some indisputable facts indicating that the future
will be more favorable for SaaS initiatives:
> People and companies alike are less inclined to
purchase licenses, hardware and other products
(copiers, cars, office space, etc.), turning instead to
service providers that rent them out; this leads to
subscription-based models that are increasingly bet-
ter understood by customers and widely accepted
> Globalization of social networks and businesses
requires tools that are available at anytime, any-
where, and this therefore means “on the Net”; while
improving internet connection availability and speed
helps on the consumer side
Operational Excellence < 37
> Availability of utility computing eases the way for
new ideas to evolve into productive innovations; this
leads to faster time-to-market, greater interest from
VC and revitalization of the whole SaaS sector
> Narrowly focused SaaS startups begin to combine and
form partnerships, creating the whole value chains
for their customers, as well as up-sell and cross-sell
channels for themselves (as they cannot afford tra-
ditional types); this leads to mashups that can func-
tionally match the best-of-breed software suits
> Even the market leaders can no longer turn their
back on SaaS. As an example, SAP, initially directing
their SaaS initiative solely towards the SMB market
(fearing cannibalization of their license and main-
tenance revenues), announced recently that they
intend to promote their on-demand offering to their
entire installed customer base.
The analysts’ predictions are also favorable. The SaaS
market is forecasted to grow at least twice as fast as
the general software market, reaching $13B in 2009,
and more than $20B in 2011. Some regions, such as
India or China, may see a compound annual growth
rate of up to 76% thru 2011. The market is also divided
into functional areas. While it began in CRM and HCM
(Human Capital Management), it’s since spread into
web conferencing, collaboration, IT Services Manage-
ment and security.
One of the consequences of the SaaS boom has
been the growing demand for tools that would sup-
port billing processes for all those subscription-based
services; naturally, SaaS tools. This has proven to be
relatively easy, and such applications are already
available. But if a telco startup tried to use them, they
would clearly see that those tools are well-suited for
newspaper subscriptions or private wallet manage-
ment services. To bill a telco operator’s customers you
need something much more advanced, especially
if you have prepaid customers and want to charge
them in real time. That’s when you turn to a telco bill-
ing specialist.
Comarch Billing on Demand
Comarch has been involved in the on-demand mar-
ket since 2001 with our ERP package. Recently we’ve
expanded our SaaS offer by providing the Comarch
Billing SaaS service - a telecom-grade compact billing
system available in the SaaS model. The service sup-
ports typical business processes, including customer
management, product management, rating, invoic-
ing, dispatching, partner management processes
and customer self-care. Special care has been taken
to ensure user acceptance, with video trainings and
extensive documentation.
nr 2/2009 (10)
38 > Operational Excellence
Comarch’s solution supports billing processes ded-
icated to small/medium sized service and network
operators, with up to one hundred thousand subscrib-
ers activated in post-paid or pre-paid mode, in particu-
lar: ISPs, VOIP, IPTV and WIMAX operators.
Comarch provides a billing solution in the Software-
as-a-Service (SaaS) model, hosted at farms of our
own servers located at Comarch Data Center (CDC).
The service can be accessed online through Internet,
a VPN or a leased line.
The service provides the following functionality
to an operator:
> Offline Charging of the services that a customer
would like to pay after the service has been deliv-
ered (in postpaid mode). For post-paid mode the
system charges sessions and provides rated CDRs
to the built-in invoicing module.
> Online Charging of the services that a customer
would like to pay in advance (prepaid mode). For
pre-paid mode the system controls the customer
balance in real-time.
> Billing/Invoicing of the services in postpaid mode.
The system provides the following functionality: dis-
counts and promotions, invoice creation, payment
collection functionality, dunning scenarios (report-
ing and actions such as account blocking).
> Reporting and Analysis Tool for analyzing business
data directly within edited documents. Users who are
not familiar with database technologies should be
able to use the analysis tool to conduct advanced
data analysis and present the results in the form of
a professional, presentation-ready report.
> Customer Care – a CRM tool that supports processes
necessary in everyday customer management –
customer management, order management, trou-
ble ticketing – regardless of whether the actual CC
user interface is used in the call center, front office
or back office.
The service can also be delivered with the following
additional modules:
> Top-Up and Voucher Management that can be
configured to deliver various methods of recharg-
ing and payments. It generates and validates PIN
codes that can be, after some integration, used by
the users via IVR, scratch cards, web pages, ATM,
etc.
> Self Care – telco consumer web-based interface for
self-management of accounts, contracted services
and personal data.
The broad competences of Comarch, active in various
sectors of the economy, allow us to bring even more
value to our customers. Comarch Billing SaaS is not
technology review [www.comarch.com]
the only on-demand initiative, and soon we will be able
to offer additional services, preintegrated into a single
Telco as a Service platform, enabling our customers to
outsource practically all their IT requirements:
> ERP – online application for all ERP needs, chrono-
logically the first Comarch on-demand offering
> IP PABX – phone switch to provide all internal and
external phone communication, conferencing and
other advanced services
> Call Center – Call Center as a Service (called C2aS)
allows operators to distribute their Customer Ser-
vice Representatives, who use a supplied IP phone
with embedded VPN software to connect to the Call
Center application
> IP VPN – makes it easy to use distributed IP-enabled
devices in one virtual office network
> VoIP operator – with the addition of interconnection
to wholesale telco providers the platform can run the
VoIP provider operations
> Campaigns – from simple mailing to advanced loy-
alty programme, we can support every initiative of
the Marketing Department, or even be one for our
customers
> Online Backup – provides a secure vault for docu-
ments and other files for the operator’s peace of
mind and regulatory compliance
> IPTV VoD – enables smaller IP operators to provide
their customers with a high-end VoD service.
This way, service providers will be able to outsource
to Comarch everything besides product management,
marketing communication and customer support,
Figure 2. Comarch Billing SaaS – GUI
focusing on core competences that will allow them to
differentiate their offering from their competition.
Conclusion
Making the decision of whether to use SaaS should be
preceded by a thorough analysis of service functional-
ity, specification of customer requirements and poten-
tial risks of using on-demand software in the customer
business. However, for many medium-sized operators
the answer is already known, as Software as a Service
is already ‘mainstream’. The benefits of using SaaS are
not only reducing CAPEX and OPEX costs, but sometimes
even shifting the full responsibility of a specified busi-
ness process to the service provider. Since, depending
on the application type, a potential failure on the vendor
side or network interruption can result in propagation
to the customer and its core business operations, the
customer should carefully verify how stable the service
provider is, not only from the technical, but principally
from the business point of view.
We are positive that Comarch is the right choice as
the billing SaaS provider, due to its global reach, solid
business foundations and extensive on-premise and
on-demand experience. Thanks to basing the service
on our stable products, we can guarantee business
continuity, both short and long-term, with practically
no limits in functionality or capacity. Ultimately, when
an operator’s business comes out of the nascent
phase, migrating the data and processes to their own
on-premise deployment is very easy. <<<
 Operational Excellence < 39

Figure 3. Comarch Billing SaaS - Deployment

Clearing-houses,
other billers etc.

Network operator Comarch

Billing SaaS

Network EDRs Billing System

Access to
Admin Customer Care Customer Care Invoices

Access to Self Care

Self Care (white-label
product)
Involces

End user

Comarch Billing on Demand

The solution is offered in the Software-as-a-Service

model, allowing an operator to use this fully func-
tional, powerful and modern billing system without
the need for purchasing any licenses. An operator
can start their business without initial investment
in on-premise software and hardware. In the SaaS
model the operator only pays for setup and use of
the service. Our solution minimizes risk of invest-
ment (CAPEX) and maintenance costs (OPEX).

Top features:

> Provides a telco-grade billing solution from

a leading BSS vendor, in the SaaS model
> Supplies post-paid and pre-paid billing capabili-
ties
> Enables easy integration with open API
> Reduces investment (CAPEX) and operating costs
(OPEX)
Grzegorz Kot Lukasz Luzar
> Offers Pay Per Use & Subscription pricing models Comarch SA Comarch SA
> Provides white-labeling capabilities of Customer Position: Senior Consultant Position: Product Manager
Department: Telecommunications Department: Telecommunications
Self Care
Business Unit Business Unit
> Facilitates easy migration to “on-premise”
Info: Grzegorz is currently responsible for Info: Lukasz is currently responsible for
model presales consulting in the areas of sales Billing in SaaS area, Comarch NGTV and CDS
> Guarantees constant innovation by reusing expe- channels’ support, outsourcing/SaaS and in VAS area..
rience from Comarch on-premise deployments the VAS Comarch offering.

nr 2/2009 (10)
40 > Operational Excellence

Self-tuning Operations
Support System
Continuous business efficiency improvements within your operations

An economic slowdown always pushes market players to reduce costs and peruse new revenue sources.
A more effective strategy than a simple one off effort is to employ the tenet of efficiency improvements as
a continuous cycle. The article describes the concept of the OSS system which should not only promise to
add value to CSP but also contain self-assessment and self-tuning mechanisms which can measure the sys-
tem performance in business oriented KPIs and improve its performance. See how the concept of a continu-
ous improvement cycle implemented in the Next Generation Service Management solution can help CSPs
to maintain profitability whilst under pressure to reduce time-to-market for new services. Find out about
customer service composition optimization which aligns with the notion of Self-Organizing Networks.

technology review [www.comarch.eu]


A period of economic slowdown
or even recession has
always been a time in which all market players try to
improve the efficiency of their business. All are seek-
ing the possibilities to reduce costs of operation and
to maximize revenue. Tough times simply force every
player to fight for better efficiency. It is a game of
survival. It seems that improving business should be
a constant driver. The reality is that we need a pain-
ful incentive to make the effort. Some thinkers even
consider a slowdown or even a recession as a neces-
sary therapy which is painful but heals the economy.
It  probably derives from our human nature, that during
the period of prosperity when the revenue stream is
wide, we don’t pay attention to small enhancements
which do not cause double digit revenue growth. We
forget that small enhancements carried out system-
atically and methodically can bring a significant busi-
ness improvement. On a global scale, a continuous
fight for efficiency even during a period of prosperity
might help prevent a recession or at least lessen the
impact of a slowdown. This conclusion seems quite
reasonable so we can ask why we don’t do it. The
answer is probably not only our human nature but the
fact that efficiency improvements cost money. This is
especially true for businesses which rely on complex
systems like telecommunication infrastructure. The
answer to this problem could be applying the IT tech-
nology which can not only support the operations but
also contains self-tuning mechanisms.
The traditional approach to business optimiza-
tion is to apply business intelligence (BI) technology.
In a nutshell, this technology works in the following
way. Firstly, it gathers data from as many existing
operations support systems as possible and places
it in a corporate data warehouse. The purpose of the
data warehouse is to give the data business mean-
ing, which involves OLAP (Online Analytical Process-
ing) techniques. The business meaning is expressed
through KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) which is
the language understood by business executives. KPIs
measure how the business is running. Business mea-
suring is a prerequisite for any methodical optimization
and the term KPI-driven business captures that idea.
The KPIs which fall below expectations highlight the
inefficiency and the space for optimization.
The problem with the described business opti-
mization is that this process is rather slow. This is
because corporate BI systems are disjointed from
operations systems. It derives from the nature of the
corporate data warehouse whose main goal is to shift
from raw technical data gathered from OSS systems
to the black box business view. It means that there
is no automatic loop back mechanism. Once ineffi-
ciency is detected by examining KPIs, the corrective
actions need to go though the man made decision
Operational Excellence < 41
flow process rather than an automatic loop back to
the underlying OSS systems. This means that the opti-
mization cycle is slow.
The answer to this problem is applying a self-tuning
Operations Support System. The idea of a self tuning
system is that the system can self-assess its added
value and close the loop by supporting the correc-
tive actions in the case of discovered inefficiency.
The system self-assessment is expressed through
KPIs which measure the business performance of
the process supported by the system. The corrective
action support includes identification of the system
configuration which needs enhancing to improve busi-
ness performance.
The need for self-tuning Operations Support sys-
tems becomes critical in times where Communica-
tion Service Providers strive to shorten time-to-market
for new service introduction. The problem is that fast
often means inefficient. The self-tuning platforms can
answer this problem by introducing optimization into
the service lifecycle.
Reducing Time-to-Market
and Maintaining Profitability
After the Internet and mobile revolution Communication
Service Providers (CSP) are forced to quickly provide
composite services which combine fixed, mobile net-
work access with content based services. The winner
in this highly competitive environment is the one who
can fastest provide compelling services to custom-
ers. However, the fight for new customers should be
balanced with profitability concerns. This problem is
highlighted in the recent industry report [1] published
by TMF Business Benchmarking. The report warns that
exciting new services can bring a Pandora’s Box of
additional complexity that can eat up profit.
The answer to this potential problem is leveraging
an OSS system with self-tuning mechanisms. The prob-
lem of fast new service introduction into the market is
address by hyped Service Delivery Platforms (SDP). The
main promise of this type of OSS system is reducing
time and costs of new service introduction by lever-
aging reusable service components. This concept is
detailed in a separate white paper [2]. From the prof-
itability assurance point of view, it is important that
this kind of system contains the self-tuning mecha-
nism. Firstly, it means that these systems should self-
assess their business effectiveness. Business effec-
tiveness should be measured by KPIs. The KPIs are
expected to enable business executives to validate
the promise of SDP which is reduced time and cost of
new service introduction. The self-tuning mechanism
means that after identifying KPIs which do not meet
business goals, it is possible to track down the con-
nr 2/2009 (10)
42 > Operational Excellence

Figure 1. Continuous improvement lifecycle
innately an iterative process. From a practical view-
point, efficiency cannot be achieved as a one off task
which resembles rocket since. Instead, it should be
done step by step, with each optimization cycle end-
ing by assessing the improvement of KPI’s. This con-
cept is depicted below.
If the result is still not satisfactory, a further opti-
mization cycle can be started. The iterative approach
is cheaper and can lead to better results. The first
statement is true because it allows CSP to start with
optimization which is easiest to implement. Prior to
further investment in optimization, the results of the
previous enhancement cycle can be measured. If the
KPI’s improvements are satisfactory, further improve-
ments can be delayed until new business goals are
set. The better results of the iterative improvements
derive from the “measure first” strategy which means
that the iteration is preceded by KPI assessment which
leads to fine tuning.

Self-assessment: a Way to Keep

the Promise

All OSS systems claim to add value to the CSP environ-

ment ether by reducing costs of operation or extending
CSP capabilities. But do they really do that? How can

Improvement it be checked? A good answer to this problem can be

lifecycle
figuration of the system which needs to be corrected.
The examples include: the ability to identify which ser-
vice components bundling, although deliverable, are
not profitable; the ability to identify which technology
based service bundling is most profitable.
Efficiency Improvement as
a Continuous Cycle
The introduction of a new Operations Support System
into a communication service provider (CSP) environ-
ment has always been driven by the hope of improv-
ing the efficiency of operations and thus improving
business results. Before any OSS product which is
delivered as COTS can start adding value, it must be
integrated with the CSP environment. This process
involves tuning the OSS product according to CSP
requirements. Traditionally, it was the only time dur-
ing which the OSS product was optimized to deliver
the best possible outcome. The assumption was
that once the OSS product was configured, it should
just do its work without a need for its further tuning.
Even throughout the period in which the competi-
tive environment did not force rapid innovation rates,
this approach lead to inefficiency, as improvement is
found in the self-assessment mechanism which OSS
products should provide. The self-assessment mecha-
nism is a materialization of the “measure first” concept
introduced in the previous chapter entitled ‘Efficiency
improvement as a continuous cycle’. The provision of
such mechanisms by OSS products is envisioned to
be beneficial for both sides: OSS vendors and CSPs.
For an OSS vendor, the self-assessment mechanism
can be the perfect way to highlight the benefits of the
solution. It may be an effective way to convince a CSP
to spend its hard earned money on a product which
really brings value to it. For a CSP, the self-assessment
mechanism provides a tool for validating promises of
the OSS vendor. Checking KPIs provides a method for
comparing the OSS vendors marketing materials with
the real performance of the product. The ideal situation
from a CSP point of view is the possibility to organize
a “Proof of Concept” stage where vendors demon-
strate their products. Ability to compare the products
using hard metrics should make the decision regard-
ing which product to choose much easier.
The self-assessment mechanism of an OSS product
is not only a way for a CSP to validate vendor prom-
ises, but also is expected to facilitate the business
decisions process. Having OSS product performance
expressed in KPIs with business meaning should
enable the less technically oriented business execu-
tives to make more rational decisions. OSS KPIs are

technology review [www.comarch.eu]


expected to bridge the gap between the technical
characteristics of an OSS system and the business
impact of the system.
Service Fulfillment KPIs
As the key benefit, hyped Service Delivery Platforms
reduce time-to-market for new customer services.
Once a new service is ready to be delivered to the
customer, the SDP should also reduce the time and
costs of service orders fulfillment. What is important is
that this rapid service introduction should not result in
poor customer experience. To be able to verify whether
an SDP keeps its promises the appropriate KPIs must
be defined.
Time-to-market is one of the basic KPIs which can
be used to verify the performance of any SDP prod-
uct. One way of measuring this KPI is registering the
time between introducing a new service into the ser-
vice catalog and the time the first customer order
can be fulfilled.
The ‘average time to fulfill the service order’ KPI is
a metric that can be easily traced assuming that the
SDP exploits the order management solution.
The ‘average cost of fulfilling a service order’ KPI is
harder to measure using the OSS system unless the
cost metrics are defined per order fulfillment process
step. As an alternative, the KPIs which measure the
automation rate of the fulfillment can be used. This is
easier to measure in the OSS system and has a more
direct relationship with the self-tuning mechanism.
As an example, the KPIs which express the number
of manual steps vs. automatic steps of service man-
agement can be used.
The quality of the fulfillment process can be mea-
sured using the percentage of service orders which
resulted in service incidents.
A useful insight can be gained by combining the
above listed KPIs with the network technology which
was used for implementing customer facing ser-
vices.
The ability to measure the performance of the SDP
is useful but the ability to tune the system to improve
the performance is even more desirable. As the tun-
ing mechanism is related to the mechanism employed
within the solution, the self-tuning capabilities are
described in the subsequent chapter regarding the
Comarch Next Generation Service Delivery Platform.
Service Assurance KPIs
Employing an OSS system in Service Assurance prom-
ises to reduce the time and costs needed to resolve
service incidents. The equally important benefit of
this solution should also be early service problem
detection, which means proactive capabilities. Net-
work related problems which impact services can
start to be resolved before a customer experiences
the problem.
The examples of KPIs which can be used to mea-
sure the OSS performance in relation to fulfilling the
described benefits are: Average Incident Resolution
Time (AIRT), Average Incident Resolution Costs (AIRC)
and percentage of problems by cause type. The pro-
active capability can be measured using the number
of network faults which effected customer service
but had been resolved prior to a customer issuing
a complaint.
The AIRT is the easiest to measure, assuming that
OSS employs a BPM platform for managing incident
resolution processes.
The AIRC is more difficult to measure using the
OSS system unless there are costs metrics defined
per incident resolution step. However, a good alter-
native is introducing KPIs which measure the auto-
mation ratio. These KPIs are easier to measure using
the OSS system and have a more direct relationship
with the self-tuning mechanism. Good examples of
such KPIs are: number of service incidents reported
by a customer which required manual root cause
analysis, number of network faults detected by the
network which resulted in manual correlation with
other network faults.
The KPI percentage of ‘problem by cause type’ can
be even further detailed to identify which network tech-
nologies used to implement customer facing services
are the most fault prone.
The ability to measure service assurance KPIs is
half the story. The other half is the ability to tune the
solution to improve KPIs. The self-tuning capabilities
heavily depend on mechanisms employed within the
solution and this is why they are described in the sub-
sequent chapter regarding Comarch Next Generation
Service Assurance.
Service Fulfillment Tuning in
NGSDP
Service Fulfillment is implemented in the Comarch
solution using the Next Generation Service Delivery
Platform (NGSDP). The main premise of this solution
is fast and cost effective introduction of new cus-
tomer services to the market. New service introduction
refers to the ability to deliver the services to custom-
ers. NGSDP also promises to reduce time and costs
of service order fulfillment.
The NGSDP provides a self-assessment mecha-
nism which can be used to verify how the solution
keeps its promises. The self-assessment mechanism
Operational Excellence < 43
is based on KPIs provided by the NGSDP which are
described in the previous chapter ‘Service Fulfillment
KPIs’. To describe tuning capabilities, some details on
the NGSDP must be provided.
The main concept is based on the premise that
customer services are not monolithic services but on
the contrary are composed of service components.
The service composition is based on the SID model
which assumes that Customer Facing Services can
be composed of Resource Facing Services.
The benefit of reducing time-to-market is realized
by leveraging the concept in which new Customer
Facing Services (CFS) can be built up from reusable
service components represented by Resource Fac-
ing Services. Once the new CFS is defined in the ser-
vice catalog its decomposition to RFS is interpreted
by the service assembly process as a skeleton for
the delivery process. The whole idea is depicted in
the dedicated NGSDP whitepaper [2]. From the tuning
mechanism perspective it is interesting to analyze
the RFS interpretation. A Resource Facing Service is
also understood as a technical service which encap-
sulates the technology used to implement services.
This may lead to tuning which aims to identify the
most effective technology for customer facing ser-
vices implementation. For example, the Broadband
IP CFS can be leverage for the second mile techni-
cal service and the Ethernet Aggregation RFS. As an
alternative technology, the ATM Aggregation may
exist. The NGSDP provides KPIs defined per RFS. These
statistics enable the discovery of which technology
is better. For example, if the Average Time to Ful-
fill a Service Order is higher for services based on
the ATM Aggregation RFS than those based on the
Ethernet Aggregation RFS, this may give a hint that
the Ethernet Aggregation is the more time effective
option. The higher the fulfillment orders failures, KPIs
for the Ethernet Aggregation may indicate that this
technology is more fault prone. These interesting
analyses can also be conducted using the Service
Assurance KPI per RFS. These analyses can indicate
which technology is optimal for Customer Facing Ser-
vices from the assurance point of view. The details
regarding assurance based KPIs tuning are provided
in the subsequent chapter.
The notion of discovering the best technology for
implementing Customer Facing Services means cus-
tomer service composition optimization is controlled
from the service catalog. The service composition
optimization and self-tuning capabilities align with
the ideas of Next Generation Networks (NGN) and with
Self-Organizing and Optimizing Networks (SON) in par-
ticular. The SON idea can be perceived as optimiza-
tion within technical service components (RFSs), with
NGSM providing the service composition optimization.
The service composition optimization is envisioned
nr 2/2009 (10)
44 > Operational Excellence

Figure 2. Service catalog’s CFS-RFS model as a skeleton for service composition

NGSDP

User
Service Layer

CFS Program TV

CFS CFS CFS IP TV

IP TV TV Channel

RFS
RFS Content
RFS TV
IP

Other business unit Third Party

Component
Service Layer

CFS CFS
IP IP

RFS
RFS IP
FFTH

as a way to bring the value of network optimization
to customers via Customer Facing Service composi-
tion optimization.
Service Assurance Tuning
in NGSA
Service Assurance is implemented into the Comarch
solution using the Next Generation Service Assurance
(NGSA) model. The main premise of the product is time
and cost reductions for customer service assurance.
Additionally, the product aims to provide a proactive
solution which enables the resolving of issues prior to
a customer experiencing a problem with the service.
NGSA not only promises to bring benefits but also pro-
vides self-assessment and self-tuning mechanisms.
The self-assessment functionality enables you to mea-
sure the performance of the solution and express it
using KPIs, allowing you to validate the business value
of the solution.
To describe the self-tuning mechanism, some
details of the NGSA must be provided. In a nutshell,
NGSA provides a service meaning to the network
related alarms collected from the network. This “bot-
tom-up” process is accompanied by the “top-down”
method which is realized for providing the service
incidents resolution support when a customer reports
a complaint. The bottom-up process means that net-
work related alarms are translated into the customer
service impact. The top-down process enables you
to trace the customer complaint down to root cause
network resources. The idea of providing the service
assurance meaning to the network related data is
depicted below.

technology review [www.comarch.eu]

 Operational Excellence < 45

Figure 3. Providing the customer service meaning to network alarms

t
Customer Facing Services BB Instance

BB Prosumer BB for Business

Intermediate Services
BB Mechanism Customer BB Transport

Resource Facing Services ...

Specific BB Generic BB UTRAN GERAN

Mechanism Mechanism

BSC

Network Resources

BlackBerry RIM Auth Server

Platform BTS BTS BTS BTS BTS

The mechanism of providing the customer ser-
vice meaning to network related data is leveraged in
the process layer realized by the ITIL based library of
processes. The ITIL library implemented in NGSA pro-
vides service incident and problem management pro-
cesses which are the core assurance processes. The
ITIL processes operate using knowledge which gives
service meaning to network related data and ensures
efficient utilization of this knowledge. The self-tuning
mechanism is based on identifying the gaps in this
knowledge. The knowledge is organized along the ser-
vice catalog TMF SID model which decomposes Cus-
tomer Facing Services (CFS) through Resource Fac-
ing Services (RFS) down to Resources (R). The basic
SID CFS-RFS-R model is augmented with assurance
management data. The most essential extension to the
SID CFS-RFS-R model is the alarm propagation model
which captures the knowledge regarding translating
resource related events up to the customer facing
service impact. More details about the NGSA can be
found in the dedicated white paper [3].
The self-tuning mechanism is based on the most
detailed KPIs which measure the automation ratio.
The KPI: the number of service incidents reported by
a customer that required manual root cause analysis
has a direct relationship with the tuning mechanism.
The high value of this KPI may indicate that knowledge
defined along the CFS-RFS-R model is incomplete. In
a nutshell, this is what the tuning process looks like:
Firstly, a customer facing service (for which there are
numerous customer complaints whose root cause
analyses involves manual steps) must be identified.
Secondly, the resource type which was most fre-
quently manually indicated as the cause of the ser-
vice incident can be identified. Once it is determined,
the knowledge defined along the SID CFS-RFS-R model
should be updated. For example, it may be discov-
ered that the BlackBerry CFS is not mapped on the
Authentication Service whose outage impacts the
customer service. This tuning is intended to improve
the automation rate, so it has an impact on more busi-
ness related KPIs like Average Incident Resolution Time
(AIRT) and Average Incident Resolution Costs (AIRC).
This tuning also improves proactivity levels. Ability to
better translate network related faults into service
impacts means early service issues detection. This
means that service issues can start to be resolved
even before a customer experiences a problem. This
impact can be assessed by analyzing improvements
in KPIs describing total number of customer com-
plaints. Early service issues detection and proactive-
ness should result in a decrease in the total number
of customer complaints.

nr 2/2009 (10)
46 > Operational Excellence
Conclusions
Comarch Next Generation Service Management not
only promises to reduce time and costs of introducing
new services to market, but also contains a mecha-
nism which allows CSPs to validate these benefits and
implement efficiency improvement as a continuous
cycle. NGSM can measure its performance by means
of business related KPIs which allow a CSP to attain
an insight into its operational efficiency. NGSM realizes
the measure first tenet, which is leveraged to imple-
ment efficiency improvements as a continuous cycle.
This feature appears extremely important as CSPs are
forced to shorten service innovation cycles. Fast ser-
vice introduction may lead to inefficiency which may
eat up profits. Optimization organized in cycles aligned
with new service introduction cycles is expected to
Lukasz Mendyk
Comarch SA
Position: OSS Product Manager
Department: Telecommunications
Business Unit
Info: Lukasz is currently responsible for
the Next Generation Service Management
solution, specializing in the service fulfill-
ment area.
technology review [www.comarch.eu]
resolve this problem. NGSM covers both the areas of
service fulfillment and service assurance, guaran-
teeing that fast service introduction is not achieved
at the cost of degraded customer experience. NGSM
provides interesting optimization capabilities which
enable us to analyze which network technology is
most effective for customer service implementation.
These analyses enable us to optimize the service
catalog built according to the SID CFS-RFS-R model.
The CSP can discover which technology represented
by the Resource Facing Service (RFS) is better suited
for Customer Facing Service implementation. NGSM
leverages the CFS-RFS-R model as the customer ser-
vice composition mechanism which is a skeleton for
service fulfillment and service assurance processes.
Optimizing the service composition enables rapid
improvement of CSP operations. <<<
Further reading
1 “Next Generation Service Delivery Platform.
Integrated Service Fulfillment”, Comarch white
paper.
2 “How to move Service Assurance to the Next
Level”, Comarch white paper.
References
1 “Winning in a Shrinking World: Points to Con-
sider”, TMF Business Benchmarking, industry
update report.
2 “Next Generation Service Delivery Platform.
Integrated Service Fulfillment”, Comarch white
paper.
3 “How to move Service Assurance to the Next
Level”, Comarch white paper.
Comarch Next Generation
Service Management
Fulfilling the promise of component-based service creation
Boost the value of your network through an open service composer

Learn more at:

ngsm.comarch.com