SDP Global Congress

01 December 2007

Our panel threatened to overrun its allotted time. Whether that was because of our discussion, or previous timekeeping issues, we cannot say! However, this was a stimulating event and perhaps the main theme that emerged was explicit recognition that there are no definitive standards either for what an SDP is, or how to put one together. At some point during the proceedings, SDPs morphed into Service Delivery Frameworks, further adding to the variety. Perhaps the most memorable presentation came from Denis Magaya of Cell C in South Africa. He showed how some of the considerations of the conference need to be reviewed in the light of specific markets and forcefully argued that operators should focus on single services that can generate mass market momentum. Look at what the customer wants, and start from there! Wise words indeed.

The other hot topic was the presentation of APIs to third parties. This is a conference favourite and there are plenty of solutions on offer. Broadly though, we seemed to agree that Parlay X had some potential, at least more than the original Parlay standards themselves. It was also revealing to hear operators giving solid examples of how they have adopted something that looks like an SDP and have started to bring services to market. Equally interesting were some not-so-successful efforts, one of which floundered in an inability of the SIP-heads to understand the legacy signalling to which they needed to connect to make their platform work!