Telcordia revamps back-end software for ISPs

Telcordia Technologies, a leading provider of back-end software for telecommunications carriers, has overhauled its operations support systems for wireline and wireless ISPs. With the revamped software, ISPs can rapidly create, deliver and manage new IP-based services for their corporate customers, Telcordia officials say.

Dubbed the Telcordia Elementive Portfolio, the software is now available in a dozen stand-alone modules rather than as a single, integrated package. Three versions of the software are available for the management of IP, optical and mobile services.

Corporate IT managers will be “much more serious about going to a traditional carrier if the carrier can deliver faster and cheaper services,” says Steve Noonan, group senior vice president for new generation systems, strategy and initiatives at Telcordia. “This [software] could represent a significant change for the carriers’ ability to do more for corporate IT groups.”

Telcordia declined to release the names of carriers that are testing the new Elementive Portfolio software. But Noonan says the software will help these carriers develop managed IP services and build their network outsourcing businesses.    

Telcordia spent 18 months and $60 million developing its Elementive Portfolio. “The lion’s share of that investment has gone into supporting IP services across our new product line,” says Steve Noonan, group senior vice president for new generation systems, strategy and initiatives at Telcordia. “We support Layer 2 VPNs, Layer 3 VPNs and voice over IP.”

Noonan says 50% of the features in the Elementive Portfolio are new. The revamped software also supports industry standards such as J2EE and TMF 513, a network management standard.

“A lot of the effort has been in the messaging platform and bus underneath [the software modules] that pulls it all together,” he explains. 

New features in the Elementive Portfolio include:

* Telcordia Service Composer for rapid development of new services.

* Telcordia Service Director, which provides quality of service monitoring and service-level agreement management for mobile networks.

* Telcordia Service Express, which automates the delivery of new high-bandwidth services.

* Telcordia Inventory for managing multi-vendor network equipment across a range of technologies including Multi-protocol Label Switching and ATM.

* Telcordia Activator, which provides centralized configuration for multi-vendor networks.

With its new modular approach, Telcordia was able to slash the cost of its software by a factor of 10. Telcordia’s previous generation OSS cost around $10 million, while the new Elementive Portfolio starts at $1 million.    

Telcordia’s Elementive Portfolio was announced in late September and is available immediately.