The case for enterprise SLAs should be obvious. They could give operators and competitive advantage in attracting entperprise customers, and reassurre enterprises that their mobile service is all it should be. Yet Mobile Europe met little enthusiasm for them amongst the operators themselves.
t seems obvious to those used to the level of service enterprises demand from the fixed network providers that network based SLAs for their mobile calls and data sessions would also be on the enterprise tick list. But in fact the mobile world is surprisingly quiet on this subject, reaching little agreement on the best way to approach the topic.
On one side are the players in the growing service assurance and service quality management camps. One of these, cto of Vallent Keiran Moynihan answers questions is more detail over the page, but the theme from him and his competitors is roughly similar. Mobile operators need to be able to interrogate their service management system to be able to report to an enterprise in detail why it is a call was dropped or a data session interrupted. But this interrogation is not being made by the engineers within the network operations centre, rather it is the customer care and account management people themselves who are directly extracting network information and applying that to the agreements they have with their corporate customers.
It is a view of service management that is very attractive to those selling the probes and software but it is one that has as yet met little large scale take-up amongst operators. Moynihan and his colleagues within the OSS industry say that is changing, and they have been having higher level conversations within operators detailing the advantages of pushing the quality process through all the business functions within an operator. But against that we can also state that when we rang round a host of operators to ask them about their strategies for implementing network based, accountable enterprise SLAs, incorporating class of service, application management, prioritised users and applications and all the things their fixed counterparts offer, we were met with little enthusiasm. Indeed one operator told us that CIOs and CTOs within large enterprises weren’t interested in what goes on within their service providers’ network.
“They don’t have the time nor really the implication to go through detailed reports with us, were we justify or explain what network event or handset fault happened to cause a particular dropped call or session. What they want is a more integrated customer service, where they can be sure they have the most suitable devices and applications, their data is secure and if something goes wrong, we fix it quickly.”
Of course, the argument against this is that enterprise customers will come to view mobile connectivity as mission critical, and then things might not be quite so relaxed. Shouldn’t operators be preparing for such an eventuality — as Sprint and Cingular have in the USA, where enterprises are much more used to rigorous customer service and penal clauses for failure of delivery?
To operators, who place great store on enterprise customers who tend to be more loyal and, of course, much more profitable than consumer customers, you’d think such thinking may change. But one independent consultancy says that operators tend to offer service to the level of their competition, rather than the actual demands of their enterprise users. inCode wireless cmo Rene Link says that if operators are thinking about enterprise SLAs, then it is the customer, not the competition, which should be in their minds.
“Operators will always balance the financial implications of adding new customers and retaining them with the costs associated with implementing the SLA. If this continues, most operators will strive to offer a service level on a par with the standards set by the competition. This is rather limiting since it should be their customers, not their competition, that dictates to operators.Â
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“This is where SLAs derive their true value – understanding the service their enterprise customers receive using this information to improve its services and strengthen its relationships with its customers.”Â
So how do most operators currently go about implementing SLAs to their enterprise customers? inCode has found that the process typically is based on “measurable segments of the network and {operators] report on the aggregate statistics that are available to the operators.”
Yet it says the “best way” to implement SLAs, given the extensive set of variables facing network operators, is by looking at sample data taken subscribers’ handsets. This, inCode says, is the most accurate way to gauge the end user’s QoS experience.
“In reality, operators need to understand how to measure their service levels so they have an understanding of how they can be improved. Part of this is understanding the cost and quality trade offs that an enterprise must consider when deploying applications across a wireless network.”
But there are problems too, for the operator, and chief amongst these is nothing to do with technology, but the people on either side of the contract.
“SLAs are typically used as commercial vehicles and provide a measure on whether operators are delivering the level of service they committed to initially. It is therefore essential that operators base their SLAs on realistic customer expectations and that meaningful measurement techniques are in place that create realistic solutions to potential problems.”
“SLAs are charged with emotion both from the enterprise and the operator side. Ultimately therefore, the approach and tone of the SLA and the benefits they generate should be based on a mutual understanding of what the service can realistically deliver.”
That question of what can be realistically delivered seems to be the sticking point, and there is a gap between what operators say their customers actually want, and what the service assurance providers say they will need. At the moment the operators say it is too expensive. The suppliers respond that that is exactly the issue they are there to solve.
The vendor view – why and how operators can offer better SLAs
Mobile Europe:
Is there an identifiable need for mobile SLAs from enterprise? If so, what is driving this, increased mobile data usage/ in-building coverage/ poor call quality/ dropped calls/ other?
Keiran Moynihan:
Yes – the critical driver underpinning the enterprise sector’s push for genuine contractual SLAs is the growing dependency of the enterprise business on these wireless services which they have now incorporated into their day to day business. In cases such as courier/shipping companies, their entire daily operational model is based around mobile devices.
As the complexity and diversity of the wireless enterprise data services grow, the IT departments of the enterprises are growing increasingly concerned as to the ability of the service provider to consistently deliver quality services.
ME:
What are enterprises demanding on the SLA? Class of service, application monitoring, alerts to network problems etc?
KM:
The key SLA parameters the enterprises are looking for are:
l Accessibility
l Retainability
l Service performance i.e. delay, jitter, latency, throughput
l Customer care effectiveness
ME:
How do operators currently or “traditionally”service these needs?
KM
Tier 1 and Tier 2 service providers are addressing these needs today by paper-based SLAs based on network performance scorecard reporting with in-house crude approaches to looking at dropped transactions etc. based on CDR analysis etc. These paper-based SLAs are very manually intensive and while usually done once a quarter, consume substantial resources.
ME:
How can they better equip themselves to meet these demands? What tools/ systems and processes on the market can operators use to offer and then deliver on meaningful corporate SLAs for mobile services?
KM:
A new generation of OSS, termed customer-centric Service Quality Management (SQM)/ SLA management systems, have now emerged. Leading service providers such as Cingular Wireless, [who have commercially deployed Vallent’s ServiceAssure SQM/SLA solution], are now monitoring enterprise SLAs in real-time and delivering enterprise SLA reporting to their major enterprise customers.
A critical factor in offering enterprise SLAs is the foundation needed of internal and third party SLAs which characterise the end-to-end service quality delivered to customers. This is complimented by a new powerful integration of network operations, customer care and enterprise account management to manage enterprise customers in a holistic integrated manner.
ME:
Will near-ubiquitous GPRS and increasing 3G coverage mean things are only going to get more complex? What about other future headaches — eg mobile VoIP?
KM:
As the service providers increase their range of offerings to the enterprise and the complexity of these offerings increase, it will become business-critical for the service providers to manage the network in a customer-centric manner delivering consistent service quality to their enterprise customers in a profitable manner.
Voice over IP, both traditional VoIP and the emerging VOIP over wireless networks, is a good example of an IP service which, while offering significant cost advantages to the service provider in terms of infrastructure investment, is posing a significant challenge in terms of putting in place a telco grade management capability.
Mobile Europe was speaking to Kieran Moynihan, CTO at Vallent, a supplier of network performance, service quality and service level agreement management solutions and services.
