By Pablo Stalteri, Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Most operators offering Cable and Wireless services have been implementing their Operations Support System (OSS) platforms using a silo approach, where different access technologies and business units resulted in the deployment of dedicated systems. Thus, to support wireline, broadband, cable TV, IPTV or wireless services, for residential or enterprise customers, multiple Billing, CRM, subscriber and identity management systems are being deployed. Furthermore, technology evolution and tactical execution methodologies when launching new services have contributed to produce different subscriber identification flows for the authentication and authorization required to access each service, as well as a plethora of subscriber data bases and data sources focused on solving the associated entitlement problem. Then the Cable and Wireless operator end up managing and maintaining multiple systems performing similar functions, with increased OPEX, offering different experience to the end customer depending on the service to be used.
In the next paragraphs we will describe the Subscriber Management Convergence solution that has been implemented in North American Triple and Quad Play operators, offering a virtualized consolidated 360-degree view of the subscriber profile for any type of access technology, type of device or type of service offered, encompassing both enterprise and residential customers, making use of legacy data sources to avoid the need of costly migrations.