The Forum’s Mission
In today’s dynamic and evolving landscapes, operators are seeking ways to accelerate new service creation and delivery of telecom products from reusable service components in both IN and NGN networks. Over the last 24 months the Service Broker Product Category has developed as a result of the broadening 3GPP discussion around SCIM and the need to address operator’s requirements for a flexible, efficient and future proof application to network connectivity solution. The Service Broker Forum is committed to accelerating the awareness of the Service Broker product category and to helping the market take full advantage of the time, cost and overall network efficiencies within the solution.
About Service Brokers
A network element that efficiently manages the composition and execution of interactions between any service, regardless of execution platform and the protocol(s) it speaks, between services and network enablers (call/session control, charging, policy server, subscriber data management systems, presence and location servers etc) and between two or more network enablers. It resides between the service layer and the converging network, supports network protocols with carrier-grade signaling infrastructure and is decoupled from both core network enablers and the service creation/execution environment.
Typically Service Brokers provide a combination of the following Key Functions:
- SCIM
- IM-SSF
- IN-IN Trigger Management
- Protocol/Call Flow Management
- Subscriber Data Management Interaction
Key Benefits of the product include:
- Extends new and existing application reach while also interacting with data services management such as subscriber data, policy management elements.
- Provides an innovative alternative for protecting and leveraging an operator’s current network assets and application investments while also introducing new services over NGNs
What The Industry is Saying
“The announcement of the forum is a welcome development as the concept of a service broker has caused some confusion in the industry which is bad for all participants in the industry. Vendors and CSPs who are interested in the service broker area should support the forum. “
– Peter Mottishaw, Analysys Mason
“Service providers are seeking innovative solutions to speed application deployment and improve the business case for introducing new services” “In response to these challenges, the Service Broker Forum represents a collection of companies who are committed to providing network and services migration strategies aimed at protecting network investments while increasing ARPU through new services.”
– Brian Partridge, Director, Enabling Technologies for Yankee Group
