Introducing SID - Part One

The Telemanagement Forum’s Shared Information Data Model (TMF SID) is part of the NGOSS (Next Generation Operational Support System) and has been in the public domain for several years now.

The SID offers the first truly Open Enterprise Data Model for the Telecommunications industry.

There have been proprietary Telecommunications Enterprise Data Models in the market place. The author has hands on experience with Oracle’s Telecoms Enterprise Model and Teradata’s Communications Logical Data Model (cLDM). Both of these models have a great deal of strength and robustness but each is only a single organisation’s view of the information within a Telcoms business. The TMF SID however is not based on any particular software or hardware. It defines the information within a Telecoms business in such a way that it can be used to describe all products, everything from POTS to IP Telephony in a simple unified manner.

There are other things that make the SID powerful in its data modelling approach (such as the use of Party Roles and the subtle use of Logical and Physical Resources), but in this article I will be focusing of the definition of Products.

The SID does not describe the Telecoms products and services in a subscriber or MSISDN centric manner but in a very subtle integrated two-layer approach that allows all offerings to be described in a way that is understandable to the Customer (aiding billing and customer care) at one level and implementable in the network and as reusable components at another.

Lets examine the SID’s Product concepts

• Product Offering – the thing that is marketed and sold. This is best thought of as the box that everything is put in. Just as when you buy cornflakes it is the flakes of corn you want inside the box, but it is the box with its logo, brand name, and barcode that you actually purchase.

• Customer Facing Service – the things that you use in the Product Offering, or more subtly the things that the customer thinks he is using, which on the network may be supported by multiple services

• Resource Specifications – the definition of the resources needed to implement the Customer Facing Services (CFS). Note this is the specification of the resources, not the resource instances. When defining a POTS product the resources required would be a line and a phone number, not a specific line running from 34 Acacia Avenue and not a specific phone number 01252794888. Plainly when a Product Offering is sold its Resource Specifications are instantiated as specific Resources that are allocated to a particular customer for as long as that Product Offering is used (or subscribed to) by the customer

• Price Plan – the definition of the charges associated with the Product Offering. These will include the One Off Charges (such as the price of the Product Offering), the recurring charges – for the use of the Customer Facing Services and the One Off Charges (penalty charges for example). Note the Price Plan is a component of the Product Offering not the Offering itself. The practice of telecoms companies thinking they sell price plans comes from the manufactures of billing systems and confuses the heck out of the business and, more importantly, the customers

And that is all, at this level at least; there is no need to think about how the Product (Offering) is to be implemented or provisioned in the network (at this level).