Next Generation is a nice way of saying, you’re too old.
And in my case I am too old.
I was listening to a presentation on LTE that mapped it to an IMS strategy and I was feeling like I was back when TINA-C was the major discussion with friends. TINA-C was an effort to get a strategy around telecom’s use of software. Per Wikipedia, TINA-C stands for Telecommunication Information Networking Architecture Consortium. It was an attempt (started in 1992) by several actors in the telecommunication world to define, design and realize a software architecture for the telecommunication infrastructure. The consortium has defined a number of specifications and has organized several experiments and demos.

What killed it? IP.

All of a sudden we weren’t managing the right thing. Its like being in the rail industry and building a solution for tracking passengers only to discover that cargo was the place where the system was needed.

I feel like we are heading there again.

But that is not the point of this post. Its the fact that people want me to write about Service Assurance and love the trend, and all I can think of is a defunct standard.

I have the same problem with UC. Anytime the word Unified gets used, I have the electroshock synapse screaming out Unified Messaging.

So if you are reading this, I thank you for being tolerant of a little historical background.