How do we do Provisioning?

SaskTel International’s provisioning tool is the most powerful in the business.  Read on to find out more about how we put together to make your company the best it can be.

Service Provisioning
MARTENS provides a complete, accurate, detailed logical and physical inventory of your local access network which allows automatic assignment of voice, data and video services across the network.  MARTENS Service Provisioning is the foundation of the product suite and manages both inside and outside plant.  Network components provisioned by MARTENS include Cable, Pairs, Serving Terminals, X-Connects, Telephone Numbers, NGDLC Channel Banks, DSLAM Modem Ports, ATM VPI/VCI, Ethernet VLANS, Router Ports, Carrier Channels and Local Switch Line Equipment.

Automated Assignment
MARTENS facility provisioning process will automatically assign the entire facilities path (inside and outside plant) from the customer premise to the switch and to the ISP for DSL services. Users also have the option to manually assign facilities by specifying the appropriate facility such as telephone number, cable pair, line equipment, etc. or selected facilities from an online list. If facilities are manually specified by the user, MARTENS will edit the entry to ensure the facility is valid, available, non-defective, not associated with a future pending service, etc. Automatic service activation on the switch can be achieved from facilities that have been automatically assigned or facilities that have been manually inputted or selected from one of the many online selection lists.

Complete Customer Record
MARTENS maintains a complete record for every customer line or circuit on the local access network.  This record includes all inside and outside plant facilities, calling features, address, customer name, service orders, work tickets, etc.  As well, MARTENS is designed to provide a complete, accurate, detailed logical and physical inventory of the access network and manage these plant configurations as they exist in the field, rather than forcing the network to be designed to fit the system.

MARTENS provides query and update access to the complete customer record including pending orders from any component of the record, such as terminal, address, customer name, line equipment, phone number, cable pair, carrier channel, etc.  Access to historical information is also provided from any facility component associated with the customer service.

Flow thru Centrex Provisioning
MARTENS delivers the flow through functionality required to assign, administer and switch program CENTREX services.  MARTENS performs all CENTREX provisioning and information gathering activities, as well as auto assignment of all CENTREX features and automatic switch programming for the CENTREX services (down to individual keys on an electronic business set).

Feature-to-feature and feature-to-class of service compatibility editing is also available in MARTENS for CENTREX services. This editing takes place up front in the order process so as to warn the user that there are compatibility problems before sending the order to the switch for programming.  MARTENS currently edits to ensure that the selected facilities (e.g. line equipment, concentrator card, cable pair, telephone number, etc.) are capable of providing the requested service.

MARTENS has a “package” or bundle feature which allows individual calling features to be grouped together and assigned as a package.  Bundles are displayed during the feature selection process.  CENTREX feature templates can be created for special groupings of customers (e.g. lawyers) or for individual companies.

xDSL Provisioning
MARTENS administers and automatically assigns all versions of xDSL. Network elements such as NGDLC, DLC, DSLAM and carriers, and their attributes are user defined in the MARTENS inventory. MARTENS facility inventory process includes identifying which facilities can support or not support DSL services, including the subscriber address. In addition, DSL interference thresholds can be specified to provide warning that other services being assigned may affect existing or new DSL services. MARTENS assigns DSL service by the user simply identifying what type of DSL service is desired. A DSL service can be added to an existing voice subscriber or automatically assigned to a totally new subscriber. MARTENS also supports DSL only services. The automatic assignment routine validates if the existing facilities will support DSL service or, if required, automatically assign a new path including the modem assignment at the DSLAM. Additional information can be stored with DSL (e.g. ISP, data transport route and additional jumpers required).

Services are user defined in MARTENS and when inventoried also allow the user to identify all attributes of the type of service. These attributes are used during assignment to properly provision the service. These services include POTS, Centrex, ISDN, data (switched and non-switched), etc.

The management and assignment of switching capacity is a very large component of providing service to customers.  MARTENS is one of the few systems in the marketplace that manages the entire service provisioning process from the customer to the switch. MARTENS will automatically assign the entire facilities path (inside and outside plant) with a single click.

Inside Plant Management
Parameters such as class of service and features/options are user defined in MARTENS.  When classes of service and features/options are inventoried in MARTENS, the user identifies the attribute required to support the services and features, such as which switches, types of telephone numbers, etc. During the assignment process if a product or service is not supported in the serving area of the customer that product and/or service will be displayed in red to the user.

MARTENS knows the host or remote switch from which the customer service will be provided, as well as the features and options supported by each switch.  If a switch does not support a feature or option, the user is notified that the feature/option is not available.  However, the user does have the option of requesting service from another switch that supports the feature/option.

Hunt Group Processing
All aspects of directory number and line equipment number hunt groups can be established and maintained in MARTENS. Hunt group members are linked within MARTENS, so if an inquiry is made on one member of a hunt group the other associated members can also be viewed. At this time MARTENS and OSG are not automatically activating hunt groups, however, investigation has been made into providing this functionality and it has been determined that if required, can be accommodated.

DID/DOD Provisioning
MARTENS also supports the provisioning of DID/DOD services. Local Access facilities required to support DID/DOD trunks can be automatically assigned in MARTENS. The DID/DOD number and trunk number are associated with the facilities along with the customer’s name and the terminating location. In addition blocks of DID numbers are provisioned in MARTENS and a record is kept as to what blocks of numbers have been allocated to which customers. At this time MARTENS and OSG are not automatically activating DID trunk groups, however DOD trunks should be possible.