A.1 Processes

32.1403GPPRelease 17Subscription Management (SuM) requirementsTelecommunication managementTS

Processes involved in SuM can be described by the e-Business Telecom Operations Map (TOM) version 2.1. It is the Fulfilment part that describes those processes. The present document mainly focus on the Development and Operations Process, Network and System Management Processes and on the Network Element Management process.

The MWIF business model MTR-002 [4] shows an organizational model for Trading partners co-operating to provide wireless mobile services, the terms used in this example may not coincide exactly with those used in other parts of the present document, e.g. Subscriber and Customer are believed to be equivalent.

Figure A.1: Assumed Business Model

In this business model the Subscriber is a customer of the Service Provider (SP).

Commercial agreements are set up and maintained between them for the provision of services from the SP to the User via the Network Operator.

The Subscriber may have contracts with multiple SPs and maintains these on behalf of one or more users.

The Subscriber informs the SP which services each user should have access to and may choose to set limits on how much a User can use a particular service. For instance the Subscriber may authorize $x a day of video calls with a high QoS and unlimited video calls with a lower QoS.

The SP must enter into contract(s) with one or more Network Operators in order to deliver services to Users. Other companies may wish to sell services without having a contract with a Network Operator. This can be achieved by adopting the role of Third Party Service Provider and selling service via the SP. Other Companies may wish to sell just content. This is made possible by developing a commercial relationship with either a SP or a Third Party Service Provider.

It is important to note that Service Use, Customer Service Negotiation, etc are roles , and that one Actor may adopt more than one role. For instance an individual may adopt the roles of both Service Use and Customer Service Negotiation. A Company may adopt the roles of Network Operator, SP and Content Provider.

A user initiates a service by requesting it from the Service Provider, not the Network Operator. On receipt of a service request the Service Provider uses Network Operators and Third Party Service Providers to service the request in the best way possible. In the example of the video call the Service Provider may choose to use different Network Operators for high and low QoS calls.

Taking the VHE concept, where HE, HE-VASP are defined and VASP is used:

– The roles Service Provider and Network Operator can be mapped to the actor HE (See 3GPP TS 22.121 [9]).

– The role Service Provider can be mapped to the actor VASP.

– The role Third Party Service Provider can be mapped to the actor HE-VASP, because they both provide services on behalf of an actor having the Service Provider role.

The Subscriber-to-Service Provider relation (indicated as a Commercial Link between Service Provider and Subscriber) defines the agreements under which the Service Provider provides services to a Subscriber. The users associated to the Subscriber consume these services. (See Subscriber definition in 3GPP TR 21.905 [1].)

There are also Business-to-Business relations in the picture, where several actors may be involved in the delivery of services. Examples of such are the Commercial Link between Service Provider and Third Party Service Provider, the Commercial Link between Third Party Service Provider and Content Provider and the Commercial Link between Service Provider and Network Operator.

The present document has the focus on the Subscriber-Service Provider role relation.