Automated Service Activation and Management

Service Activation Center (SAC)'s service adapters and management modules have been pre-integrated with leading network and back-office system components from multiple vendors, ensuring that you can quickly put Service Activation Center to work as a central point of activation interface for all departments.

Service Activation Center automates multi-service activation across all networks and devices through consistent application of business logic to define service activation processes, resulting in the end-to-end integration of access network technologies, back-office support systems and end-user devices.

Service Activation Center also supports all industry-leading broadband technologies, including DOCSIS, DSL, PacketCable, SIP, WiMAX, FTTx, TR-069, DTV and Voice Call Features, and enforces the integrity of all transactions across these multiple platforms based on your defined business process rules.

The service activation flow is integrated with and managed through:

• CSR interfaces;
• Billing integration and mediation;
• Integration with device provisioning mechanisms;
• Video headend integration;
• Voice softswitch integration;
• Email and Web space integration

Accelerated Service Innovation

Service Activation Center eliminates typical barriers to rapid introduction of new services and new vendor systems by providing the tools you need to define and activate services on your own with minimal input from Incognito personnel. The definitions of services are configurable, which means there's no requirement for new coding to create new services.

The platform's modular, decoupled business logic architecture greatly simplifies the development of new service adapters to enable connectivity of new vendor systems into the service activation system. In most instances, creation of new service adapters can be completed within two to three weeks, as has been the case in many projects executed with Incognito customers.

Efficient Multi-Systems Management through a Common Interface

Service Activation Center's Northbound Interface (NBI) provides a simplified API interface for external systems like billing systems, order management, CRMs, inventory systems and user portals.

The NBI decomposes and translates incoming requests into Service Activation Center -compliant messages and forwards these requests to the Service Activation Center server. The server processes the request and performs any provisioning requirements on your network. By integrating with a single API, Service Activation Center lowers back-office complexity and removes obstacles to creating new services.

Simplified Activation of Prepaid Service Options

The Prepaid Services Module provides a simple way to set up pay-as-you-go or try-and-buy offers. Service Activation Center supports various modes of payment, such as credit card and smart card, or for existing subscribers, direct additions to billing statements. Service Activation Center's prepaid capability represents a low-cost point of entry for those who want to launch services without relying on a costly subscription billing system.

The Prepaid module supports a wide range of prepaid billing models, such as scheduled, time-based and volume-based, for any type of service, allowing you to introduce a prepaid billing approach in certain categories where the option may be essential to selling a service while avoiding the prepaid options in other categories where traditional subscription billing is more appropriate. At the same time, you can set up prepaid in a different configuration of service categories for try-and-buy promotions. Such on-demand promotions can be linked to the billing system where, for example, an existing subscriber signs up for high-speed data for three days through the prepaid module, and the billing system is notified to include the line item on the subscriber's monthly bill. CSRs have instant access to the history of all usage on prepaid services.

Billing System Flexibility

You can set up direct entry billing through the Service Activation Center system or support CSR and subscriber self-service billing entries through the existing billing systems interface (the Billing Fed 2-Way model).

In the direct entry model, Service Activation Center is upstream from the billing system, which means its GUI will be the main interface used by CSRs and subscribers. In this case, if required, all messages sent to billing are initiated by Service Activation Center.

In the Billing Fed 2-Way model, where Service Activation Center is downstream from the billing system, the billing system's front end is the main interface used by CSRs as well as subscribers and all messages sent to Service Activation Center are initiated by the billing system. In this case, Service Activation Center's front end can be used for diagnostic purposes.

Pre-provisioning Support

Service Activation Center supports pre-provisioning, which means the subscriber or installer can install a customer's modem before activating the service levels on that device in a web portal. Alternatively, a subscriber may self-activate.

Service Suspension Controls

Through Service Activation Center, service suspension can be implemented. A service may need to be suspended for various different reasons, e.g. non-payment of bills, dispute with subscriber, fraud, etc. Service suspension can be implemented using Service Activation Center and it will retain the status of the accounts, devices and services in a suspended state until the bill is paid or the dispute resolved. The suspension can be done at the account, device or service level. For example, suspending the account will resolve in all the devices being locked and the services suspended. Alternatively, the suspension can be performed on one specific service of the subscriber only.

Unprecedented Marketing Flexibility

With Service Activation Center you can continually generate new offers through simple service configuration adjustments on its platform. This includes free trials of new services or service tiers, pay-as-you-go usage of higher levels of bandwidth on broadband, discount packaging combinations, and time-restricted free usage of one service tied to incremental purchases of another, for example when you want to offer higher broadband access speeds for a certain minimum monthly purchase of VOD content.

Additionally, marketing departments can easily task Service Activation Center to notify customers when a free trial is about to end or has been terminated and to perform other communications in conjunction with promotions through email or SMS.

Operator-Branded GUIs

Whether used for prepaid billing, self-service applications or both, the Service Activation Center GUI can be easily customized to have the graphics and functional feel of other interfaces on your other web sites, thereby unifying customer experience of the Service Activation Center -supported web service components with all of your other web applications.

Simple Implementation of Customer Self-Service Applications

The Content and Access Management API provides a simple way to create and manage end user self-service portals, offering subscribers capabilities like parental control over access to Web sites and TV channels, and personalization of their content. The functionalities associated with these self-service applications can be extremely granular, which adds to subscribers' convenience and further differentiates your services. For example, users can:

• Apply parental controls on a per-device basis;
• Add restrictions to certain TV channels during specific hours or disable access to specific premium services;
• Manage service content and access according to their individual preference.

Scalable, Modular & Extensible

With Service Activation Center's modular architecture, you can quickly introduce new vendor system components, avoiding long delays and high costs for system integration or reconfiguration of the activation system. And, by simple configuration, you can continually introduce new types of services at minimal cost. This ongoing expandability and scalability rest on how the Service Activation Center core provisioning engine readily accommodates the addition of new service activation modules onto the message bus that serves as the communications link between service activation and service management modules.

Service Activation Center is built on a modular, distributed-component architecture, employing a service activation engine that communicates over a distributed message bus with service adapter and management modules to support virtually unlimited extensibility and scalability.

The four layers of the Service Activation Center architecture include:

• Platform, consisting of the management modules that provide system services to other layers in order to accelerate activation of services and special offers.
• Applications, which encapsulates business processes, rules, transactions and workflow
• Services, which exposes the generic attributes and behavior of each entity in the application
• Adapters, which support integration of services with external hardware and software systems

Intrinsic to this architecture is a portable operating system abstraction and networking environment that aid in distributing Service Activation Center across dispersed systems.

Efficient Multi-Systems Management through a Common Interface

Service Activation Center's Northbound Interface (NBI) provides a simplified API interface for external systems like billing systems, order management, CRMs, inventory systems and user portals.

The NBI decomposes and translates incoming requests into Service Activation Center -compliant messages and forwards these requests to the Service Activation Center server. The server processes the request and performs any provisioning requirements on your network. By integrating with a single API, Service Activation Center lowers back-office complexity and removes obstacles to creating new services.

Modular, Low-Cost Systems Integration via Pre-Integrated and Easy-to-Build Service Adapters

Service Activation Center comes with an adapter framework to allow for the easy development and integration of new adapters. Incognito has over 10 years of experience in developing new adapters to leading network and back-office system components from multiple vendors, ensuring that you can quickly put Service Activation Center to work as a central point of activation interface for all departments.

The adapter layer employs a standard interface mechanism to Service Activation Center to decouple applications from external systems. By hiding the integration details associated with specific external components, this architecture allows similar types of adapters for other external systems to be plugged in or taken out with minimal or no changes to the Service Activation Center business layer. As a result, you can flexibly change out third-party components as technologies evolve without interfering with the service activation processes.

A key to transactional integrity is the ability to track each adapter's participation in service activation transactions. This information eases troubleshooting in case of transactional failures. Adapters also provide a consistent queuing mechanism for asynchronous non-transactional operations with external entities.

Have a question about what systems Service Activation Center supports? Contact us.

Comprehensive Aggregation and Use of All Data Relevant to Service Activation

Service Activation Center's modular architecture and management systems support extends to the aggregation of data across all collection points in your domain. The system reconciles all events recorded in these databases against subscriber, device and service data tracked by Service Activation Center and generates the required records for the billing system and payment processes associated with prepaid or separate on-demand payment gateways.

Rapid Integration of New Networks into Existing Activation Architecture

Service Activation Center has enabled clients to implement alternate access networks and integrate their subscriber management to encompass these new networks in a matter of days. For example, our clients have been able to integrate customers on GPON networks into their activation processes on Service Activation Center within two or three weeks of asking Incognito to build the management module required.

Cost-Saving Streamlining of Device and Service Monitoring and Diagnostics

The Monitoring and Diagnostics Module enables a CSR or Administrator to check the active status of a managed customer device, display devices assigned for each service, check the status of those devices with tools, such as ping, TraceRoute, SNMP Walk, Device Graph, IPDR Graph and retrieve current provisioning and lease information.

For example, if a customer calls to complain he is not receiving an ordered level of high-speed data service, the CSR (with one or two clicks of the mouse) can verify that the service order was sent, that it was activated and that the Service Activation Center system confirmed activation and performance. If all these points are confirmed, the CSR can then ping the subscriber's modem and/or do an SNMP walk to determine what the actual data rate is and whether engagement with tech support is necessary.

User-Friendly Product Cataloging Framework

The Product Catalogue Module provides a compelling framework for systematizing service management and development. The module:

• supports existing product sets and assists in the definition and maintenance of future product sets by defining services by service type, configuration and filtering conditions
• enables rapid creation and deployment of tailored packages based on combinations of geography, network equipment and CPE
• supports storage of all service specific information on a per-subscriber basis
• allows flow-through provisioning through direct access to subscriber data contained in operations and business support systems