A journey through the life of an IN service in a commercial IN system

There have been lots of speeches about service creation and service management at various conferences during the last couple of years-but the more we talk about it, the more complex this subject seems to get. Where the first talks were mostly restricted to pure creation of the service logic itself, the latest speeches tackle more and more the different aspects to be considered when you actually want to implement your new service in a live environment, e.g. integration and service provisioning aspects. The article looks at the entire life cycle of an intelligent network (IN) service from the idea of a new service via the verification and realisation of this service idea until final operation of the service in a commercial IN system i.e. in a `live´ network. The article reflects Siemens´ and Siemens Nixdorf´s experience in developing and implementing services for various customers worldwide, tackling the various stages of the service implementation and service operation to be considered. In a time of ongoing deregulation and the merging of computer and telecommunication technologies network operators find themselves confronted with a more and more competitive environment. The players have to secure their market shares by offering new value adding services based on their customers´ needs