Architectures for telecommunications software

High-level goals and attributes for a software architecture for telecommunications are described. Such an architecture needs to consider various business and technical viewpoints, including services provided to customers, internal business organization, application data and function decomposition, modularity and interface requirements, platform portability requirements, and system instantiation and deployment. Many current standards activities are relevant to this architecture; however, standards must address both technical and business objectives to succeed. Open systems will require close collaboration between LECs (local exchange carriers) and vendors to achieve high-quality software