Thursday, June 4, 2020

MEF's LSO Inter-Provider Automation takes another step forward

Eight leading service providers are on track to be production-ready in 2Q 2020 for deploying MEF 3.0 LSO Sonata APIs to automate the ordering of MEF 3.0 Carrier Ethernet Access E-Line services:

  • AT&T
  • Infonas
  • Bestel
  • PCCW Global
  • Sparkle
  • Colt Technology Services
  • Telefónica International Wholesale Services
  • HGC Global Communications

Five already have implemented LSO Sonata APIs in production environments and three expect to be ready for deployment before the end of Q2 2020.  In addition, Bloomberg is the first multinational enterprise to take this step.

The goal of  LSO Sonata APIs is to help service providers to transition from operating as independent islands to participating in a global federation of automated networks that will support dynamic inter-provider services with frictionless commerce.

“More than 50 global and regional service providers are at various stages of evaluation, demonstration, and production readiness of LSO Sonata APIs to enable frictionless inter-provider commerce,” said Nan Chen, President, MEF. “We congratulate this outstanding group of production-ready service providers who are committed to implementing MEF 3.0 LSO Sonata APIs to improve overall customer experience. Their collective efforts represent a major leap forward in accelerating industry transformation to dynamic, assured, and certified services across a global federation of automated networks.”

MEF is standardizing LSO Sonata APIs as part of a comprehensive effort to standardize multiple sets of LSO APIs enabling service automation across providers and network technology domains. LSO Sonata APIs relate to the interface reference point within the LSO Reference Architecture that supports automated business-to-business interactions between service providers. The full suite of available and planned LSO Sonata APIs deals with serviceability (address validation, site queries, product offering qualification), product inventory, quoting, ordering, trouble ticketing, contracts, and billing.

“Automating inter-provider services with MEF 3.0 LSO Sonata APIs enables providers to rapidly deliver high-performance/on-demand data services that are available beyond the network footprint of any individual operator,” said Pascal Menezes, CTO, MEF. “Participation in the global federation creates an opportunity to provide higher margin, highly differentiated services that leave behind commoditized, low-margin fixed-bandwidth services.”

“Sparkle is a strong supporter of the evolution underway of the interaction process between partner carriers to accelerate time to market and improve customer experience," stated Mario Di Mauro, CEO, Sparkle. "Having this clear objective, we are fully committed to implement Sonata APIs in production, for both seller and buyer roles, within June 2020. At the same time, we are actively working to empower selected partner providers with a plug & play Sonata-enabling technology to expand the ecosystem with the aim to offer customers a consistent experience throughout Sparkle’s extended footprint."