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The importance of Integrated Network Management
and Telecom Service Through Time
Abstract—The current scenario of intensive use of
information and communication technologies, has
promoted a profusion of new services, provided through
networks of different vendors and technologies, each with
its particular characteristics of supply, administration and
operation. In this scenario of high complexity and
diversification, competitiveness, quality of services
provided to users shall be a differential factor in the
market for telecommunication service providers. The need
for quality and efficiency implies a necessity as vital as the
service itself: the management of these networks services.
The main objective of this work and provide a review, on
the importance of network management, developed in
recent years, highlighting the important advances in
analog and digital eras, as well as presenting an analysis of
future deployment for the management of networks.
Index Terms—Analogic and Digital Networks, Network
Management, Service Management, Telecommunication.
I. INTRODUCTION
In the beginning of phone communications, still with manual
traffic, meaning, through telephone´s operator, ATT
(American Telephone and Telegraph) would apply the first
NM (Network Management) concept, taking the time
difference between United States east and west coasts.
Depending on the time, the operators were oriented to use
alternative routes of idle circuits, in case of heavy traffic or
flaws in the normal circuits.
On a second phase, there has begun the automatic
commutation of phone calls, with electromechanical analogical
equipment. ATT was the first in installation of management
centralized systems in that period. Brazil, in 1978, was the
second, through EMBRATEL (Brazilian Telecommunications
Company), a state owned telecom company at that time. We
present more details of that system in section II.
We must remember that many companies, in several
countries, already had luminous alarms panels that would
indicate flaws in the equipment and abnormalities in the
networks. However, we cannot consider them as managing
intelligence systems, with computing resources.
As this period has passed, we got into the digital era, section
III, offering several telecom services, highlighting the data
transmission services. In this phase, many transformations in
NM structure happened, as the equipment to be monitored get
a higher degree of resources in hardware and software.
In section IV, we present a brief analysis of NM´s current
moment, highlighting the huge level of customers´ complaints
concerning telecom services.
With the coming of new network technologies, future brings
us new challenges in terms of offering good telecom services.
We talk about that future in section V.
II. NETWORK MANAGEMENT IN ANALOGIC ERA
Until the middle of the 70´s, maintenance and operation
actions were made at a local level. There were many
difficulties in having a general network vision. Each operation
team would only take care of the equipment under their
responsibility. The dominant culture was based on quality of
equipment, rather than quality services. The clients were also
less demanding, because talking on the phone through direct
dialing was something new in itself.
EMBRATEL, through the Commutation and Traffic Control
Supervision System – SSCTC (term in Portuguese), connected
the supervision points of every telephonic electromechanical
central to a local electronic terminal. At NOC (Network
Operation Center), there were two PDP-11/70 computers, from
DIGITAL Co, that received data from the terminals every five
Eng. Telmo C. Lustosa
Department of Communication of Faculty of
Electrical Engineering and Computing of the
Unicamp
Phone: 019 3521-0268
Campinas -SP - Brazil
telmoclustosa@gmail.com
Eng. Hermes J. Loschi
,Stu
dent Member, IEEE
Department of Communication of Faculty of
Electrical Engineering and Computing of the
Unicamp
Phone: 019 3521-0268
Campinas -SP - Brazil
eng.hermes.loschi@ieee.org
Prof. Yuzo Iano, PhD, Member, IEEE
Department of Communication of Faculty of
Electrical Engineering and Computing of the
Unicamp
Phone: 019 3521-3809
Campinas -SP - Brazil
yuzo@decom.fee.unicamp.br
MSc. Angelo Moretti
Department of Communication of Faculty of
Electrical Engineering and Computing of the
Unicamp
Phone: 019 3521-0268
Campinas -SP - Brazil
angelomoretti@gmail.com
171
minutes. Figure 1 show the operation room and the alarms
panel that used electric magnets, no more lamps. [1]
Fig. 1. SSCTC - Embratel 1978
III. NETWORK MANAGEMENT IN DIGITAL ERA
With the coming of digital era, NM was affected on its
foundations, because multi-services process on a same network
had begun. Before, as shown in Figure 2, each service had its
own network and NM structure.
Fig. 2. NGN (New Generation Network)
Another problem that affected the companies´ operational
structure was the fact that, due to lack of standards, each
equipment had its own NM system. Thereby, the more new
equipment was bought, the larger would become the number of
operation terminals in the supervision room. Moreover, there
was no integration of the systems, nor global vision of
networks and services.
In 1988, CCITT (International Telegraph and Telephone
Consultative Committee), today called ITU-T
(Telecommunication Standardization Sector of the
International Telecommunication Union), launches its first
recommendation, M30, worried about setting standards that
would attend this new reality. From there came TMN
(Telecommunication Management Network), as shown in
Figure 3. The many recommendations of series M3000
continued this standardization effort, besides many others
international corporations. [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]
Fig. 3. TMN (Telecommunication Management Network)
To have idea about importance, in the world, of the
standards efforts in NM, we cite, in sequence, the participation
of China, that 90´s had small participation.
With the approval of MII (Ministry of Information Industry)
and the Standardization Administration of China and
registration in the Civil Affairs Ministry, China
Communications Standards Association (CCSA) was founded
on December 18, 2002.
The Figure 4 shows the participation of CCSA in
international sectors.
Fig. 4. CCSA in International Standards Sectors
With the opening of the telecom market, from the 90´s in
most countries, another subject of worry for the companies
was the reduction of costs to face competition. With this, the
creation of NOC´s got a further motivation, making it easier
the reduction of technical staff involved with the O&M
(Operations & Maintenance) activities.
In Figure 5, we show an example of China Mobile,
presented on SNO 2008 (Service and Network Operation),
NM congress of ITU-T.
172
Fig. 5. Request of Enterprise Operation to Network O&M. China Mobile –
CMCC (China Mobile Communications Corporation), Jiangsu Ltd
From the 90´s decade, companies started their new NOC´s,
into the new digital era reality. Figures 6 and 7 show two
examples.
Fig. 6. EMBRATEL, National Operation Center, Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
Fig. 7. TELEFONICA, National Operation Center, São Paulo - Brazil
IV. NETWORK MANAGEMENT ´S CURRENTMOMENT
A challenge given to the managers who are responsible for
NM in the telecom companies is the high level of customer
complaints. The Call Centers offer very low quality services,
while the NOC's offer qualified technical staff. There is no
operational relation between the Call Centers and the NOC's
and, because of that, customers from the telecom services are
not being granted by NM's technological advances.
Publicity of those services should be educational, not
bringing up wrong expectations. It must be clear that a wireless
service has limitations that affect the signal, while the fixed
one doesn't suffer that limitation. A service with access of a
low cost probabilistic network doesn't have the same
availability of the dedicated access. Those and other points are
not clear at the moment of the services' selling and, after the
complaints, companies try to clear up, raising the high level of
dissatisfaction we observe nowadays.
The Table I and Figure 8 below, show data about those
observations:
TABLE I
REGISTERED COMPLAINTS AT ANATEL (THOUSANDS)
2012
2013
Growth
Mobile Telephony
1139.5
1360.2
19.37%
Fixed Telephony
700.3
988.8
41.21%
Broadband
299.6
445.9
48.83%
Paid TV
182.8
268.2
46.72%
Others
52.4
50.1
-4.36%
Total
2374.5
3113.2
31.11%
Fig. 8. Complaints per service in 2014 (January to September) - Anatel.
It's important to observe that the complaints only get to
Anatel (National Telecommunications Agency – Brazil) after
the customer had complaint with the telecom company and was
not attended. The customer must present to Anatel the
company's protocol. This statistics don't show the number of
complaints resolved by the companies.
V. THE FUTURE OFNETWORKMANAGEMENT
With the multiple services inside a NGN (New Generation
Network) or IP (Internet Protocol) network, NM, even more,
must be treated in layers as shown in Figure 9.
Fig. 9. TMN´s layers
173
In the Brazilian case, there is a proposal on the Broad Band
Internet, prepared by several entities and presented to the
Brazil´s Ministry of Communications on April 11, 2013,
proposing a network breaking up in relation to the services
attended by internet. Figure 10 shows this proposal and site
http://www.campanhabandalarga.com.br/ .
Fig. 10 Internet Broadband in layers
Many countries have already adopted this solution. We
highlight the plan approved by the Australian Government,
creating the state based company NBN Co Limited - National
Broadband Network, responsible for network implementation
and operation. TELSTRA, once the main company in the
Australian market, today is services provider, beside other
competitors. Figure 11 shows this Australian solution.
Fig. 11. NBN Co Limited - Australia
In Brazil, this solution would make it easier the regulation of
many internet services and it would turn the network into a
public benefit, with no restricted access, imposed today by the
private companies. In the case of NM, there would be a better
understanding on the eventual needs of traffic restrictions,
independent of services and respecting networks neutrality.
Following, we present, in Figure 12, CPqD (Centro de
Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento em Telecomunicações –
Campinas/Brazil) proposal, in which the Smart Cities projects
are also treated in layers.
Fig. 12. Proposal of CPqD – Smart Cities
Other great challenges are waited, along with the new
network technologies: 5G, SDN, Cloud, Smart Cities, IoT, etc.
[8, 9, 10, 11].
However, these new network technologies won't cause any
good to be implemented, if we don't know how to operate them
with security and quality to our customers. That is a vast theme
that will take place at the universities in the next few years.
RFFERENCES
[1] III Seminário de Tráfego Telefônico das Empresas do Sistema
TELEBRÁS (Telecomunicações Brasileiras S.A.), published in
1983.
[2] ITU-T, Telecommunication Standardization Sector of ITU.
Recommendation M.3010: Principles for a Telecommunication
Management Network. Genebra, Mar 1995.
[3] ITU-T Telecommunication Standardization Sector of ITU.
Recommendation M.3020: TMN Interface Specification
Methodology. Genebra, Jul 1995.
[4] ITU-T Telecommunication Standardization Sector of ITU
Recommendation M.3200: TMN Management Services
Overview. Genebra, Mar 1995.
[5] ITU-T Telecommunication Standardization Sector of ITU.
Recommendation M.3400: TMN Management Functions, -
Genebra, Nov 1994.
[6] ITU-T, Telecommunication Standardization Sector of ITU.
Recommendation Q.812: Principles for a Telecommunication
Management Network, Genebra, JUN 1997.
[7] BRISA - Sociedade Brasileira para Interconexão de Sistemas
Abertos. Networks Management: Description of Open Systems,
Brasília: Makron Books, 1993.
[8] CRC handbook of modern telecommunications Second Edition –
2010. Editors: Patricia A. Morreale, Kornel Terplan.
[9] Cognitive Resource Management for Heterogeneous Cellular
Networks, Yongkang Liu, Xuemin (Sherman) Shen Springer
Edition –2014
174
[10] Resource Management for Heterogeneous Networks in LTE
Systems, Rose Qingyang Hu, Yi Qian Springer Edition –
2014
[11] 4G Americas’ Recommendations on 5 G Requirements and
Solutions - October 2014
175