Working group addresses 3G net complexity - Company Business and Marketing

Equipment vendors and mobile operators are launching a common network management initiative in an attempt to meet doubts about the spiralling complexity of next-generation mobile networks.

A cross-industry group has been formed, chaired by Chicago-based Frank Korinek of Motorola and working under the umbrella of the Telemanagement Forum, a New Jersey-based organization representing 370 service providers, vendors and integrators.

Participants, including operations support systems (OSS) firms and system integrators, claim that work will be completed in May, when the integrated products will be available.

Dubbed mobile common configuration management, the project aims to allay operators' concerns about managing the radio parameters of a joint global standard for mobile (GSM)/universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) cellular network. Such networks, supporting dual-mode handsets, will revert to GSM when a user roams outside a region covered by UMTS.

"Operators want the economies of scale that multi-vendor equipment brings," said Jake Saunders, European director of Strategis Group Inc., Washington, DC. "[Operators] also don't want to be locked to a...vendor in case something goes wrong."

Configuring the radio parameters of existing GSM networks based on single-vendor equipment is difficult enough, said Tom Forsyth, head of network service management at Orange PCS Ltd., based in Bristol, England. Managing networks based on multiple vendor equipment is further complicated as "each [vendor's equipment] has its own interface syntax," added Forsyth.

"UMTS will have many more cell sites," said Brian Buggy, senior vice president of product strategy at OSS firm Cramer Systems Group Ltd., of Bath, England. "This will increase the radio parameters defining the network's operation from several million to up to 15 million," he said.

The working group will give a proof-of-concept demonstration of a pilot management software system for a combined GSM and UMTS network at the GSM World conference in Cannes, France, later this month.

According to analysts, the move is not before time. "It's a common trend in telecoms," said Bhawani Shankar, principal analyst at Gartner Group Ltd., of Egham, England. "Hype the technology, hype the services, raise huge amounts of money and then think about basic issues like [network] management."

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