Collaboration between Future Connections, Incognito and STL creates a game-changing converged access solution that wins TM Forum ‘Best new Catalyst in show’ at Digital Transformation Word ’22
5th October 2022 – Etten-Leur, Netherlands
The collaboration in the TM Forum ‘Converged access for ODA’ Catalyst project of three leading telecoms industry players – Future Connections, a telco solutions provider and integrator specialised in network performance assurance and optimisation, Incognito Software Systems Inc., an experienced leader in OSS and service orchestration and management capabilities for telco, and STL Sterlite Technologies Limited, an industry-leading integrator of digital networks – was recognised with the coveted ‘Best new Catalyst in show’ award at Digital Transformation World ’22 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The international team, supported by the operators e&, GCI Communications Corp., NBN Australia, Telstra, Verizon and VNPT Group, was awarded for sharing their expertise and working together to devise collaboratively an innovative solution that converges network access management and control across disparate access wireline and wireless technologies, advancing the industry as a whole.
The outcome of the fruitful teamwork is a game-changing reference model delivering a unified, coordinated, multi-access and multi-vendor converged network that brings to operators and end users multiple tangible benefits. The innovative model, created following ODA standards such as TMF, BBF, ONF and O-RAN, enables the convergence of multiple access technologies that are open, simplified and standardised. The solution helps telecom operators to overcome internal siloes, remove vendor lock-ins and ease integration and operational management, reducing their high costs of ownership and operational management as well as improving their business agility and time to market. End customers, on the other hand, benefit from an improved Quality of Experience (QoE), rewarding the operator with a higher retention rate.
The vendors involved in the Catalyst proof of concept welcome the TM Forum award and appreciate the contribution that their collective efforts has brought to the improvement of the operators’ environment and the advancement of the industry. “Operators across the world are struggling with multiple standards across many access technologies”, says Incognito COO Pete Koat. “With CSPs siloed B/OSS systems per access technology, operators face significant IT costs and delayed launches of new B2C, enterprise and B2B2C products. Incognito conquers these operator challenges using our Converged OSS Service Fulfillment Portfolio, improving SLA/SLO using our codeless approach to abstracting multi-domain multi-vendor network environments. We are proud to be winners of the TM Forum award category ‘Best new Catalyst in show’, alongside fellow software vendors STL and Future Connections, and are excited for operators to see how Incognito paves the way for closed-loop operations of fixed broadband services, over any access connectivity.”
Alejandro Medina, CTO at Future Connections, adds: “We are proud to be part of a team that developed collaboratively a truly award-winning solution. Future Connections shared its assurance engine and expertise to guarantee a smooth transition between access technologies and to assure the performance of the services delivered, ultimately making sure SLAs are honoured. In this way, end users are no longer expected to be technology-savvy when requesting a communication service and enjoy better quality of service. Operators, on the other hands, can deliver a much more flexible, user friendly and cost-effective access service.”
The operators supporting the ‘Converged access for ODA’ Catalyst project are quick to add their voices to the chorus in welcoming the TM Forum award, as it not only recognises the collaborative work of the vendors involved, but also acknowledges the positive impact that the solution presented at Digital Transformation World ‘22 will have. Indeed, they know first-hand how complex, time consuming, non-standard and recurringly expensive the management and integration of access networks is when working with many diverse and disparate access technologies without a sound reference model. Ray Owen, CTO, NBN Co Limited, Australia, explains: “NBN believes this catalyst has the potential to break down silos in access technology and introduces a common framework that cuts through systems into all access technology domains. We are excited to have contributed our user requirements into this TMF catalyst to assist in the development of the converged access model and bridge the gap in the standardisation of interfaces between EMS and OSS.”
“This convergence of access catalyst provides thought leadership”, says Mark Sanders, Chief Architect at Telstra. “We are excited to join this catalyst and take part in this new technical development, leading to streamlined access and reducing our architecture complexity”.
Dr. Dang Dinh Trang, Director of VNPT R&D center, VNPT Group, Vietnam, adds: “Converging VNPT’s access network infrastructure into an agile platform for acceleration in developing and providing new services to customers is our long-term strategy and participating in this catalyst program is an excellent step for us on the journey”.
