SDP Asia, Mobile VAS, Smartphone Apps & OS, and Convergent Billing Conference. 27-30 March 2012 Singapore

The 6th SDP Asia Summit is being held in conjunction with 3 other conferences:
Smartphone Applications & Operating Systems (OS) Asia
3rd Mobile Value Added Services Asia
OSS/BSS & Convergent Billing Asia

The report “The Services Domain. Market Status, Case Studies, Analysis and Recommendations” report discusses the importance of the services domain to the future of the telecoms industry.  This conference brings together critical parts of the services domain, across the network, devices, services and billing.  Too often such conferences are siloed, separated, while here in Asia they are being brought together.  This is important as it is focusing on operators’ needs in bringing relevant service domain components together for a cross-domain discussion and sharing of experiences and ideas.  Through the conference and workshops I’ll be sharing some of the insights gathered in the Services Domain report.

At the conference I’m running a post-conference workshop entitled: The New Wave of IT and Telecom convergence: Using SOA for the Telecom Services Layer to drive Service Innovation

Workshop Background
IT (Information technology) continues its inevitable replacement of telecom specific solutions.  IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) could be the last telco-special software architecture.  IT-centric solutions market size is $4.3T, compare that to the $50B Telecom software industry, scale is with IT.

The network bias of the Telecoms industry meant the SDP (Service Delivery Platform) never garnered the standardization focus of IMS. SDP remains a loose concept often misused by vendors that requires something between a large expensive consulting and system integration project with the promise of business transformation that rarely delivers the results, to little more than a service silo running on an off-the-shelf application server from Oracle or IBM. None of which enable service innovation.

The time has finally arrived to take an IT-centric approach to delivering services in telecoms using the tried and tested concepts of re-usable services; business, service and technology architectures; enterprise bus; virtualization; etc.  That is, leverage an approach used across the web-services industry, financial services industry, in fact every other industry on the planet for innovation and delivering services to their customers; SOA (Service Oriented Architecture).

This workshop focuses upon breaking with the past, gone are the boxes and wires of ’90s telco-centric software architectures that require expensive integration into the BOSS (Business and Operational Support Systems) and create yet another silo; today the focus is the IT of the ’10s with clouds, grids, buses, virtualization, web services, distributed services, reusable services, APIs, SLAs, policies, business models, service models and technology models.

Workshop provide an understanding of:

  • SOA and the role SOA plays in enabling the SDP, as a technology component of the Services Domain
  • Where and why Telecom SOA deployments are working, examining the reality behind the hype
  • The variety of Service Domain business cases
  • How the Services Domain enables an operator to innovate in services and business models faster, to fail more often, and hence discover success to remain relevant to customers
  • Examines the shortcomings of SOA and the future importance of web services based architectures like Amazon.com
  • What an operator needs to do given their specific local market conditions


Workshop Structure

  • Services Layer Overview and Landscape.  A frank independent review of the services layer covering:
    • SDP, telecom application servers / platforms, JAIN SLEE, Telco API, service and business model innovation, and how they apply across mobile, fixed and broadband operators.
  • Mapping the range of solutions suppliers label as ‘SDP’.
    • Understanding where and how each type of ‘SDP’ is used across legacy voice, IPTV, mobile content, messaging, web content, advanced communication services, API exposure, business model innovation, and integrated NGBOSS (Next Generation Business and Operational Support System) solutions.
  • Definitions & Acronym Soup
    • Understanding the core components of an Services Layer, such as service creation, service execution, content delivery and network abstraction.
    • Understanding the many components associated with SDP, including REST, ODP, CDM, GSMA OneAPI, W3C widgets, WAC (JIL), AJAX, ANI, to name just a few acronyms.
  • SOA in Telecoms Review
    • SOA Overview
    • SOA Defined and Background
    • A Brief History of SOA in Telecoms
    • Operator Requirements
    • Network Equipment Providers’ SOA Status
  • Telco SOA Case Studies
    • Sunrise Case Study
    • Telecom Italia Case Study
    • Turkcell Case Study
    • Cell C Case Study
    • O2 iPhone Activation Case Study
    • O2 SOA Software Factory for Service Development Case Study
    • BT Case Study
    • Non-Telco Case Studies: Amazon.com, ITV, EDF, Banking
  • SOA Suppliers / Integrators
    • Oracle, IBM, Tibco
    • Network Equipment Providers and SOA
    • SOA and Unified Communications and Collaboration
  • Key Points
  • Multi-national, multi-layer Services Architecture
    • Introduction
    • Role of SOA
  • Case studies
    • Orange
    • Telefonica
    • America Movil
    • Mobilkom
    • BT Global Services
    • MTN
  • Operator Requirements
  • Example Business Cases
  • Conclusions and Recommendations

I’ll also be giving a presentation during the main conference on: Making Telecoms the Essential Spice of Every Business Ecosystem: The Slow, Painful Rise of APIs in Telecoms

  • Review the status of operator API programs such as: Verizon, AT&T, SingTel, Telecom Italia, Telstra, VHA, Rogers, Telus, Aircel, etc.
  • Provide independent context on the common boat operators find themselves in, with a growing albeit a little slower than expected business.
  • Understand the Landscape of operator API programs
  • Understand the reasons behind the slow take-up of APIs by third parties, e.g. operators continue to pay for the sins of the past, confusion on different operator approaches (developer pays, operator pays, operator store, any store), lack of an aggregated regional API from an operator, WAC confusion, OneAPI confusion / stagnation, dealing with customers who are not the operator’s customer, etc.
  • Review the steps necessary to accelerate the API business beyond the “knee of the hockey stick.”

The SDP Asia Summit continues to be an ideal venue for meeting new senior level executives solving the service innovation problem.  Mobile World Congress is good, but most of the meetings with operators have to be prearranged, hence its really for meeting people you already know. Some of the execs attending SDP Asia include:

  • Sissel-Henriette Larsen, VP, Head of Services Asia, Corporate Development, Telenor Group
  • Praveen Rajan, Head of Mobile Internet and Advanced Data Services, DiGi Telecommunications
  • Sunzay Passari, EVP – Telecom, VAS & Devices, Loop Telecom
  • Rajagopal Sunder, General Manager, PT Bakrie
  • Judi Achmadi, VP Service & Product Strategy, PT Telkom Indonesia
  • Mario Domingo, Head of Product Design and Creation, Globe Telecom
  • Chan Kin Hung, SVP, Starhub Senior Representative, Maxis
  • Naveed Khan Leghari, Enterprise Program Manager (Office of Strategy Management), Mobilink
  • Lamhot Simamora, Senior Researcher, Biz Strategy Research, PT Telekom R&D Center
  • Doug
    Newdick, Billing Solution Architect, Telecom New Zealand
  • Kang Aik Siang, Director (Consumer Products – Mobile), SingTel
  • Christian Daignealt, CTO, CSL
  • Anya Rumonda, Head of Product, PT Telkomsel
  • Dr. Ampai Pornprasertsakul, Deputy Director, Service Support Systems, True Internet (True Corporation Plc.)

The SDP Asia Summit remains a great event to discuss the practical implementation issues of services, and now its combined with Smartphone Applications, Mobile VAS and Convergent Billing; its become a must attend event in Asia.