News
World's Largest Service Providers Join Forces To Push for Standards for Managing End-to-End Converged Services
MORRISTOWN, N.J.-(Business Wire)-March 14, 2007 - The TeleManagement Forum (TM Forum) announced today that the world's largest telecom, cable and entertainment service providers will form a group within the organization to help drive the availability and uptake of standards for end-to-end management of converged services. This move is necessitated by growing complexity of offering content-based services that involve numerous players to collaborate in order to deliver a seamless customer experience. Participating telecom operators include: AT&T, British Telecom, Telecom Italia, France Telecom/ Orange, Telecom South Africa, Telia Sonera, Telefonica, NTT and Vodafone. This group of telecom operators accounts for more than 50% of the global communications market.
The group will have a formal "Leadership Summit" on May 21 in Nice, France, in conjunction with the TM Forum's widely popular TeleManagement World trade show event.
"It's no secret that service providers need to transform the way they manage and operate their businesses in order to bring new services to new markets faster and at much lower operating costs," explained Keith Willetts, Chairman and CEO of TM Forum. "As more players are getting into the service delivery chain, as services embrace content and entertainment, they must agree on a common set of standards for managing end-to-end service fulfilment, assurance and billing. We are thrilled that the Forum can initiate such a landmark discussion among major telecom operators."
Using TM Forum's Prosspero Initiative as the Backbone for Standards Uptake
The key agenda for this group of telecom operators is to identify the necessary set of key standards required, and then work within the TM Forum to accelerate their development, as well as their adoption by system and software suppliers. They will be using and supporting the Forum's Prosspero program to drive this uptake.
Prosspero delivers a range of technical standards that aim to bring 'plug and play' capability to the software used by service providers to enable them to automate their business processes. These help service providers cut costs, increase flexibility, reduce time to market for deploying new services, and improve customer satisfaction responsive by standardising the way that service delivery, billing, and assurance systems from different suppliers interact.
For more information about the summit, please contact Vice Chair of the TM Forum, Jim Warner, at jwarner@tmforum.org.
About the TeleManagement Forum
The TeleManagement Forum (TM Forum) is a consortium of 570 members in 63 countries that provides leadership, strategic guidance and practical solutions to improve the management and operation of information and communications services. The Forum currently facilitates over 80 technical programs and provides extensive training, conferencing and information services to its members. Through the "Lean Operator" initiative for 21st century automated business processes, the Forum helps its members manage change and develop, procure and deploy operational and business support systems that will work seamlessly across various parts of the service delivery chain.
The TM Forum members include service providers, equipment suppliers, software solution suppliers and systems integrators. For further information regarding the TM Forum, related programs and TeleManagement World, please visit www.tmforum.org.
