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Service creation made faster and cheaper

When standards for writing computer software were introduced, the industry soared. A new set of standards for creating and deploying services that can be used across fixed, mobile and Internet networks could lead to the same boom in telephony.

August 20, 2004

Known as Parlay, the set of application programming interfaces (APIs) has been devised through the Parlay Group, a consortium from telecommunications and IT industries.

 

This open standard allows Parlay applications to be truly interoperable, both across networks and across technologies. Using the APIs, developers need only create one version of an application, which can then be used on fixed or IP networks and all mobile standards without having to be adapted to each network or operator's protocols.

 

The result is a lot more applications developed in record time.

 

Marc LeClerc, chairman of the Parlay Group's Marketing Executive Committee and Service Layer Business Advocate for Ericsson, says that as the APIs are simple to use, do not require in-depth telecom knowledge and need as little as a small, inexpensive PC to develop and run, the market has been opened up to new and smaller concerns.

 

The savings in development and deployment costs have also led to a renaissance in operator branding and marketing strategies. When applications cost a million dollars to create, detailed pre-analysis needs to be done to ensure there is a market. With Parlay slashing the acquisition and deployment expense, operators are using a different strategy: launching a lot of applications, seeing which ones sell, then offering more of the same to their customers. Consequently, time-to-market has been drastically reduced and opportunities for differentiation and rate of usage increased.

 

Parlay is also network agnostic - the same application will work with a mobile or PC client, within the limitations of the device, on 2G, 2.5G or 3G networks. Operators can therefore offer the same service to mobile and wireline customers, and offer services that 'follow' subscribers when they upgrade to new networks. Such services will help reduce churn and will not need to be completely rewritten as technology evolves.

 

"It is so fast and cheap, an operator in Ireland created an application for use for a single-night campaign, and still got the cost of development back," LeClerc says.

 

"Parlay creates a global marketplace for telecom-enabled applications, reducing risks for all players. The impact is a much greater offering of services into the market. It is the same experience we saw in the Internet when Internet Protocol standards were introduced."

 

Parlay can also be used as an integration point to build 'combinational' services relying on information from different sources accessed on multiple networks. An enterprise conferencing utility for example, will not only check Outlook to see when parties are available for a conference call, but will determine if they are at their desk, away at a meeting in mobile contact, send SMS or MMS reminders, and call the parties automatically at the appointed time. If there are special needs for the meeting, such as video-conferencing equipment, the application could get the subscriber's location via LBS, look-up via the web to find the nearest video facility, book the room, and even send a map via MMS showing the subscriber how to get there.

 

Six years after the concepts for the Parlay APIs were first devised, Parlay is coming into its own. In May 2004, more than 200 Parlay products were on the market. During the previous 12 months, trials and deployments had increased by 44 percent. At least 16 operators have publicly disclosed they use Parlay, including Sprint, H3G and Orange, while gateways are being provided by all major infrastructure vendors.

 

Parlay Gateways are being used to offer Parlay services that have been deployed both in the operator's own environment, as well as run by third parties such as external application service providers or enterprises.

 

"In the last nine months we have really seen a boom in the market," LeClerc says. "It is bigger than a lot of people think. The initial reaction was to use Parlay internally, to reduce costs and develop applications, but not necessarily to buy into the open service layer business concept. That's changing now. There is a lot of open usage."

 

In the last year, Parlay has also expanded its API set to include support for Web Services via Parlay X Web Services. This makes it possible for operators to leverage Internet-based web services for their own commercial offerings, as well as making it possible for operators to offer their network capabilities in the Internet marketplace.

 

Ericsson's own Parlay offering includes its Network Resource Gateway (NRG), used by 40 percent of the market, and Ericsson Mobility World's Parlay software development kit (SDK), which makes it possible for anyone with a PC or laptop to get started in developing Parlay applications.

 

NRG 3.0 is a true 'carrier grade' Parlay Gateway and acts as a firewall to protect the telecom networks. It ensures that the application access to the network is always carried out in a controlled and reliable way and includes the needed business-to-business framework that supports operator's business process.

 

With an expanding number of deployed gateways and an exponentially increasing range of Parlay/OSA and Parlay X Web Services based applications, the potential synergies between Web Services and Parlay also means that both communities stand to gain market scope.

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