Next Generation Service Delivery Networks: A Strategic Approach Involving Architectural Planning and Design, from a Business Perspective

The crucial challenge that communications industry has been wrestling with is the issue of how the underlying technologies should evolve and be used to help service providers remain competitive in an environment that for many years has been marked by increased rivalry and deregulation. Next Generation Network with its decomposed architecture addresses this challenge by taking full advantage of sophisticated technologies both to offer new services that increase service providerspsila revenues and to reduce the providers' operating costs. A strategy for evolving smoothly from modern networks to this new network structure is essential in order to minimize the required investment during the transition phase. However, any steps that are taken during this transition must make it easier for the networks to ultimately evolve to the NGN. The migration strategy proposed and explored in this paper enables the development of a capable concept of changes in the way networks are structured, and pays particular attention to the business needs of diverse service providers and network operators in doing so.