.gif)
IPTV OPERATIONAL STRATEGY - Into the real world
IPTV technology is moving out of the laboratories, and into the commercial world. Successful IPTV deployment, however, remain elusive say Rajeev Tankha and Dr Graham Carey
As network technologies and related integration techniques mature and improve, leading communications companies are now increasingly focusing on the operational aspects of IPTV services as key factors in an effective commercial launch and operational differentiation. Over the last two to three decades telecommunication service providers have built a customer expectation of service excellence, reliability and “carrier grade” service availability. The challenge is to meet these entrenched consumer expectations while containing IPTV-related operating expenses. Let us look more closely at the challenges for IPTV service deployment and service provisioning.
Consumer expectations: IPTV consumers are intolerant of service glitches; services must be launched with consumer friendly operations that consistently deliver the desired level of service to the customer.
Extensive operational changes: IPTV deployment requires pervasive changes to the tools, structures, staffing, training, measurement and reward systems used to manage telephony and HSI services.
Risk of “trial and error” approaches: Developing IPTV operations from a blank piece of paper can incur unacceptable delays, risk and costs through trial and error testing and iteration. These methods usually fall short of required operational performance, severely limiting scalability, delaying commercial launch, and creating excessive operating expenses. Most significantly there is, potentially, a major risk of affecting the service provider's brand with the launch of a poor quality service.
To date technology factors have masked operational issues: IPTV operational challenges are often entwined with – and masked by – better known networking challenges. Many service providers experience unexpected difficulties with service provisioning, consumer complaints about service quality and reliability, with an overwhelming associated help desk and repair cost.
The affected processes include:
• Service provisioning (order to installation)
• Service assurance (preventive and corrective)
• Network assurance and network change management
• Video head end management and content management.
Service provisioning challenges
The service provisioning process must manage four interdependent streams of activity:
• Change-out of telephony feature set and pricing
• Loop re-arrangements and conditioning
• Removal and re-build of broadband service and provisioning
• Activation and installation of home network and IPTV applications
Further, this must be accomplished without unacceptable disruption to any of the consumer's existing telephony or broadband services.
The end-to-end process will most likely span a number of different business units whose procedures must be adapted to accommodate IPTV and Triple Play operations. These assets will not usually have been integrated into a reliable end-to-end IPTV service provisioning process. Sadly with limited visibility of the end-to-end process, process failure is often not detected until downstream activities are visibly impacted and often the consumer is aware that the process has failed in some way.
In the absence of effective operational practices, studies to date have shown that order fallout rates can exceed 50 per cent; up to 30 per cent of installations may require a physical attendance of an engineer to complete the installation. Even when the installation appears to be completed, the service provider may receive a higher volume of help desk calls within the first thirty days after the installation.
IPTV service provisioning
In order to minimise the provisioning challenges of deploying an IPTV service, telecommunications service providers need a strategy that encompasses the full range of methodologies, templates and tools specifically tailored to the consumer and business needs of IPTV services.
This strategy must therefore integrate several key elements:
• Clear understanding of requirements – IPTV service providers need a clear definition of the operational targets for IPTV in order to organise and execute development activities toward those targets.
• Well defined processes – IPTV Service Provisioning process flows, error checks and related process measures should be assembled into a centralised workflow management tool.
• Operational Trial and test frameworks – Once processes are developed, coordinated testing of the operational process including multiple error conditions will enable the operator to assess readiness for market trial and launch.
Operational elements
In addition to the common issues involved in network convergence, we have identified five unique and important areas in IPTV service fulfilment that are critical to successful IPTV deployment:
• Service Provisioning & Verification –Creation of detailed process modelling to enable the effective management of key IPTV processes including:
– Successful collection of all required customer information
• Order creation, configuration and provisioning of the customer IPTV service
– Customer site survey, service verification, and troubleshooting techniques
• Customer Trouble Resolution – Management of the collection of detailed trouble information for the categorisation and disposition of all customer trouble ticket preparation, to:
– Reduce call holding time
– Decrease trouble ticket resolution times
– Reduce repeat dispatch of technicians
– Reduce repeat customer trouble calls
• Content Management – Managing content for IPTV services including:
– Reconciling and integrating IPTV video service billings and content charges from content providers
– Video monitoring to ensure billable content availability
– Managing content provider contracts
– Managing all intellectual property issues associated with the content such as royalty payments
– Producing partner settlement invoices across the new IPTV value chain including advertising, sponsorships and promotion deals
– Plus many other functions new to communications providers
• Head End Management – Encompassing the design and management of these and other IPTV processes:
– Channel line-up correlation and frequent additions/changes
– Simultaneous substitution
– Closed captioning
– Daylight savings time change
• Change Management – Enabling IPTV-specific functionality to manage multiple changes in:
– Underlying infrastructure (e.g. Video Middleware, DSLAMS to IPTV DSLAMS, Modems, Gateways, central office wiring, head-end components, servers and databases)
– Video and audio content (channel changes, program reception and encoder configurations)
– Service pricing, service packaging and portfolio service up and cross sell
– WEB content and upgrades, and much more
A strategic, planned approach to IPTV deployment can enable IPTV service providers to implement efficient IPTV service provisioning while reducing the risks, costs and delays of developing “from scratch.”
A strategic process provides a foundation for continued operations design, and optimisation will further reduce design cost and time. This helps ensure the key evolving IPTV provisioning requirements are captured, and increases the success rate on installations.
This strategy also helps create a consumer friendly IPTV service provisioning process that can be tuned and augmented as volumes grow without throw-away investment. The use of a repeatable, controlled process improves order completion, while reducing order fallout and re-work and generating positive customer experiences. With all the above the start-up costs may be contained, and scalability enhancements can be phased in as required over time with service growth.
Of all the factors affecting the success of a new service, maintaining customer satisfaction and service quality is perhaps the most important of all.
Rajeev Tankha is Director of Product Marketing, and Dr Graham Carey is Director, Industry Solutions, Oracle Communications
Share this article with others
Post to del.icio.us
Printed from http://www.eurocomms.com/features/111682/IPTV_OPERATIONAL_STRATEGY_-_Into_the_real_world.html
Comment on this article
Skip to comments
We encourage users to analyse, comment on and even challenge European Communications's articles, including the one above - 'IPTV OPERATIONAL STRATEGY - Into the real world'
User reviews and comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site.
Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. We will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site.