Future challenges for Telecommunications Testing

By: M Trellis

Testing in the telecommunications industry is under huge pressure due to the tremendous change to deliver reliable, secure innovative services and products that constantly improve performance and deliver a flexible, reliable cost effective solution for the end users.

In the 1980s it was felt that the main challenge for telcomms in the UK was to provide basic fixed line telephony services. However since privatisation and the introduction of competition into the UK market in the mid 80’s, coupled with the arrival of technological leaps such as Mobile, Broadband, Internet, Cable TV, and Online television services (IPTV), the challenges have increased immensely. All this change has moved the telecoms sector a long way towards the ultimate goal of convergence of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).

One of the main drivers in the telecomms industry is the need for increased speed and bandwidth. The recently published government interim report into ‘Digital Britain’ by Lord Carter, includes a 22 point action plan which outlines the government's strategy for the UK's digital transformation, along with the upgrading and modernising of all wired, wireless and broadband infrastructure and making broadband available to every house in Britain by 2012. It also highlights the strategic importance that the telecommunications industry plays in the future of UK PLC and the need for ‘Superfast’ connectivity in order to keep the UK in the forefront of the telecoms revolution and to gain competitive advantage by doing so.
So what does this mean for telecoms testing?
In order to understand the specific challenges for the testing community one first needs to understand the complexity and diversity within the Operational Support Systems (OSS) Architecture and the associated commercial and financial pressures that exist to ensure first to market products, which perform and function in the desired manner.

Who is the ideal telecoms tester?
It is clear that the tester must possess skills and experience beyond the generic ability to write and execute tests. This is because of the varied range of functional areas (listed below) that telecoms testing encompasses.
• Billing
• Customer Relation Management (CRM)
• Service provision and repair (also known as ‘lead to cash’ and ‘lead to fix’)
• Collaborations - with other licensed operators (OLO’s)
• Technical Domain and Network access areas.
There is also a need to have the relevant expertise to facilitate testing across the products and services offerings, for example:
• Mobile applications
• Broadband and internet applications
• IPTV (Internet TV)
• VoIP (Voice over IP) applications
• Banking applications

However it is unlikely that a single tester would possess the experience to cover all of these areas and functions. The tester must communicate effectively as it is imperative that they can converse throughout the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), with Business Analysts (BA), Designers, Developers, Third party supplies, Customers and End users throughout the different test phases such as in waterfall:
• System testing
• Integration testing
• End to End (E2E) testing
• Acceptance testing
• User Acceptance (UAT) testing
• Regression testing
• Non functional testing - such as Load and performance

There is also the issue of data to consider. This may result in the tester selecting or creating data for tests. Or in the case of the introduction of new platforms and data structures, there a need for data migration activities to take place, this means that the tester needs to have the capacity to understand and verify the transformed or migrated data.
Large telecoms companies are moving towards a simple standardised Service Orientated Architecture (SOA) that has an emphasis on reusability and common capabilities in order to deliver consistent customer experience. These architectures will support the full range of business activities including
Customer and Commercial management – Customer management, Billing and Payments
Service Execution Management – Service Inventory / Design, Service management (Network and IT)
Resource management – Domain management, Engineering workforce
Portfolio management
Enterprise information and management
Collaborations – Partners, Other Licensed Operators (OLO’s), Customers and users, Employees, Third party applications

Test environments can be complex and expensive to establish and maintain, it is common for environments to be shared by many systems and integration test teams, however this can produce a configuration management headache.
In recent years it has become popular for testing to be outsourced to offshore test factories with the aim of reduced cost and delivery timescales. The test factories provide automated regression test services which constantly run on the test environments to identify if any errors have been introduced as a result of recently delivered code.
In conclusion:
There are heaps of exciting challenges ahead for the teleco’s industry, with the consumer expecting better, faster innovative services and UK PLC depending on the successful realisation of greater business efficiency and the ability to export newly developed technologies. However it is clear that it is not possible to achieve any of these benefits unless the new services products and technological advancements are tested to ensure that they meet the high standard expected from consumers and the wider business community. For more information please go to http://www.acutest.co.uk