Introduction

Sending a message from one place to another (telecommunication) has been a revolution since it’s inception. It helped people to save lives, win wars, make peace and many other things. After thousands of attempts, Alexander Graham Bell made it possible to send a message over a wire and that opened the door for the eventual over the air communication and finally we are in the age of satellite based communication (thanks to Sir. Arthur C. Clarke) which made it possible to connect people in far corners of the world within a whisker. Telecommunication (specifically mobile) technology has gone through several iterations (e.g. 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G) and the main focus point of that was to improve how information is exchanged across the network. As any other technology, telecommunication has gone beyond the need of message exchanges to data communications to video conferencing to shopping to financing and many more. You can absolutely do anything with the device (mobile phone) which was used to send messages in the past using your finger tips. The organizations who bring this technology to the end user are called the Mobile Network Operator (MNO)s. Even though they deal with these technical advancements continously, there main focus point is their customer base which they refer as subscribers. It is their responsibility to provide value to their subscribers on top of the telecommunication capability which they offer through technology. The main focus of this whitepaper is around how MNOs can collectively offer better experience to their subscribers while increasing their profit margins using digital transformation.

Understading the stake holders in telecommunication eco system

Mobile Network Operator (MNO)s are the main players of the telecommunication game with respect to bringing telecommunication capability to the end users. They use the complex technological advancements and equipments and build networks which interconnects people in a given region (it can be a village, city, province, country or the entire world). Let’s identify the stakeholders who are engaged with the telecom eco system.

Telecommunications stakeholders

Figure 1: Telecommunication industry stake holders

Understanding the technology landscape of telecommunication eco system

In the telecommunication industry, technology plays a major role. It is essential to understand the technology landscape before coming up with any reference model. We can divide the telecommunication technology architecture to 2 main sections.

Networking architecture

This is the core of any telecommunication system which provides the connectivity of subscribers. It requires a special technical capability in the field of telecommunication engineering to design, build and maintain the network. It is out of the scope of this article to discuss about the networking architecture. Following diagram is added for the sake of completeness.

Telecommunication network architecture

Figure 2: Telecommunication network architecture

Information technology architecture

In telecommunication industry, both network and subscribers are equally important to the MNO business. The idea of the information technology architecture is to define the systems and their interactions where subsciber related information resides. It can be billing, charging, value added services, subscriber information, service subscriptions, etc. These type of information resides on different systems which are built in house or bought from outside (COTS or SaaS applications). The interaction of these systems and how they are presented to the subscribers makes the differentiation across multiple MNOs operating in the same region since most of these MNOs owned the same type of network and technological capabilities. Due to this fact, it is essential for a MNO to focus on this part of the architecure and innovate. Typical information technology architecure within a MNO is depicted in the below figure.

Telecommunications Information technology architecture

Figure 3: Telecommunications Information technology architecture (basic)

As depicted in the above figure, in a typical information technology (IT) system within a telecommunication operator (MNO), we can find the below mentioned systems.

Adding value to your subscriber base

Mobile telecommunication technology has grown to every corner of the earth. Whether you are a farmer living in a rural village in Uganda or an eskimo living in Greenland or a yankee living in New York, everyone is connected within sub second through this technology. The real potential of telecommunications lies on top of the standard voice, data or messaging services. That is where the innovation comes into picture. This technology has enabled a platform which spans beyond any cultural or geographical boundaries. To grasp this vast potential, network architecture as well as information technology architecture needs to be upgraded. In order to upgrade the IT architecture within telecom eco system to add value to their subscriber base, first we need to identify the capabilities which are required.

The above mentioned capabilities can be added to your IT system with the usage of API management, data analytics, partner on boarding portal and developer portal. The improved architecture of the IT system can be depicted as in the below figure.

Telecommunications Information Technology reference architecture

Figure 4: Telecommunications Information Technology reference architecture (advanced)

In the above figure, there are few additions on top of the basic IT architecture diagram depicted in figure 3. Those additional components are

Realizing the modern Information Technology architecture

The next most important step of modernizing the IT architecture within MNO is to identify the products which are available to cater these requirements. WSO2 offers products which are specially built for these requirements. The below figure showcases the products which are well suited for this architecture.

Telecommunications Information Technology reference architecture

Figure 5: Telecommunications Information Technology reference architecture (WSO2 mapped)

In the above figure 5, it depicts how the WSO2 products can be mapped to different components within the reference architecture for telecommunication IT system. As shown in the figure above, following WSO2 products can be used to realize the proposed reference architecture.

Expanding the value addition across multiple operators

MNOs have their own strength and weaknesses when it comes to the network capabilities and other service offerings to their subscribers. MNOs wants to expand their strong capabilities to subscribers within other networks while subscribers wants to get the best possible service no matter who the operator is. This is one of the major reasons for the introduction of GSMA OneAPI. According to Wikipedia, it is defined as “ OneAPI is a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) supported by the GSM Association that exposes network capabilities[clarify] over the Internet “.

In simple terms, it is mechanism to expose set of capabilities within MNOs through a standard set of APIs so that everyone can build applications on top of those APIs and allows interoperability across different MNOs (like they do for roaming) for services which they offer. If we think about roaming capabilities, there should be an agreement between your local MNO and the visitng MNO so that you can use the same SIM card within that visiting country or region. With the OneAPI specification, this interoperability brings to the next level where users can use services and applications which are offered by visiting MNO. With the reference architecture discussed in the previous sections, MNOs can easily adopt to OneAPI standard without any changes or additions to their IT architecture or networking architecture. The only requirement is to implement the set of APIs defined by OneAPI specification using the API management layer and relevant system integrations through integration layer.

Telecommunications Information Technology reference architecture with GSMA OneAPI

Figure 6: Telecommunications Information Technology reference architecture with GSMA OneAPI

As depicted in the above figure, when all the MNOs implement the OneAPI standard and expose their network capabilities and subsciber information, 3rd party service providers as well as application developers can reap benefit of a larger subscriber base. In fact mobile operators can also sell their services to subscribers on other network operators. Subscribers will get services from multiple operators by having only one subscription. To mediate and govern these interactions, there needs to be a “OneAPI Gateway” which will eventually route the subscriber requests based on set of defined rules and agreements across different operators. This gateway functionality can by done by a 3rd party provider (3PP) or one of the operators themselves. With this architecture, different operators can have their own internal implementations on how the systems are interconnected and so on, but they must expose a standard set of APIs. This architecture can be expanded across boundaries and the entire world can be connected into a single network (similar to internet) and a person with a mobile phone and a subscription to his local operator can access services across the world when he is travelling or staying in his own country. It is somewhat similar to you watching youtube from your home through internet, you are using a mobile application which is used to channel a doctor in another country where you mother is living and make the appointment from the phone by paying from your mobile wallet !.

Summary

In summary, the technology which used to connect people needs to be connected in a more meaningful manner. With the telecommunication information system reference architecture introduced within this article discusses about how to provide innovative services to your subscriber base and drive revenue to your business. By using GSMA OneAPI specification, it is possible to expand the business into other operators as well as other regions. Subscribers will alse benefitted from the global connectivity and service sharing across multiple operators.

References

[1]https://www.gl.com/images/gsm-gprs-umts-sigtran-protocol-analyzer-over-tdm-ip-ps-web.gif

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OneAPI

[3]https://www.slideshare.net/oneapilive/gsma-oneapi-gateway