 | | March 25, 2011 Editor's Note The terrible ongoing tragedy in Japan has certainly taken its toll on one of the most industrialized and advanced nations in the world. And while the human story is still unfolding – and will doubtless take considerable time to get back to something resembling normal – an interesting side story involves how simple cell service may have actually saved lives during the earthquake and resulting tsunami.
The Insider discovered that NTT DoCoMo customers who opt in can receive instant alerts during such an event through point-to-point SMS, but an existing GSM technology called Cell Broadcast, which can send messages to handsets on a single cell all the way up to an entire network, may help guide more people to safety during future disasters. Let’s hope opportunities to test this are few and far between. Anita Karvé, Newsletter Editor | | | | | | News & Views | | | | | | The Age of 'Instantiality' is Here We have all starting becoming used to the 'instantiality' world we live in, and the telecommunications industry is the very beating heart of it all. It has helped us experience the worst mankind has to endure, but it has also driven home the realization that governments and security agencies cannot continue to hoodwink us with the 'official line.'  Read More | | 
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| | Simple Cell Service Saves Lives No one has escaped the traumatic images of the earthquake and tsunami destruction in Japan, the latest in a string of natural disasters to hit the Asia Pacific region in recent months. Thousands have been killed and injured so far, but the loss of life has likely been limited by three vital early warning technologies: a new earthquake alert system, an ocean-based tsunami warning system and a mobile phone disaster warning service. Read More | | | |
| | It's Official — Women Talk More than Men Did you know that Tuesday, March 8, was International Women's Day? No, neither did I. Now, before you start applying those old chauvinist labels, I have no idea when International Men's Day is, either. However, this monumental day was not missed by an enterprising mobile operator in Belgium. Read More | | | |
| | | Sponsored Article | | | | | | Convergent Billing Speeds Time to Market As Kenya’s Safaricom, the country’s dominant carrier, faced a significant uptick in mobile traffic, it was also facing stiff competition from other wireless operators. By partnering with Huawei to move to LTE and replace its legacy IN system with a convergent billing system, the operator was able to better respond to customer needs, reduce time to market for new services from months to days and cut Opex and Capex by an estimated 30 percent. Read More | | | Brought to you by |  | | | | |
| | Articles | | | | | | Standards Development: Leveraging Effort Across the Industry TM Forum has a long history of liaison with other organizations that are using and developing standards. Since our last report in early 2010, there has been a number of changes in the management standards landscape. The biggest change has been the upsurge in standards activity with respect to cloud computing. In this excerpt from a recent TM Forum Quick Insights report, author Colin Ashford, Founder of OSS Evolution, gives us a look at the importance of standards and how the various standards groups can work together for the common good of the industry. Read More | |  | | | | | Forumville: A Hub of Activity at
Management World 2011 When you come to Management World 2011 in Dublin this May, you will be drawn in to Forumville for an up close, personal and interactive experience with all things TM Forum. With 2 stories of exhibit space right in the middle of the Expo hall, Forumville will be a hub of activity not to be missed. Read More | |  | | | |
| | | Conferences | | | | | Join the Innovation Revolution at
Management World 2011 Learn how innovation is the key to success as service providers transform into service enablers. From new services and business models, to taking advantage of opportunities in the cloud, Management World 2011 has the answers during the Driving Business Innovation Forum. Over three days of interactive sessions, take a fresh look at where to compete, where to cooperate and where to avoid to succeed in this new communications market. Read More | |  | | | | | | Other Conferences | Call for Speakers for Management World Africa Ends Today
| | | | | | | | | Community | | | Blogs
Priority Cellular Access for Public Safety
David Fritz, Principal Communications Engineer, MITRE Corp. "As regulators seek new ways to share spectrum, existing standards, like LTE, already support the prioritization of traffic needed to implement this type of public safety/commercial sharing." Read the Blog Post | |  | | | | More from the Community | | | | Discussions: SLA Provisioning | | Blogs: Malware Paranoia Sets In | | Discussions: Data Analytics Project Charter | | | | | Get Involved | | | | | | Announcing the 2011 Excellence Awards Nominees TM Forum's Excellence Awards 2011 has reached 48 official nominees hitting the judging slate. The Awards have long been regarded as the most prestigious of their kind and recognize global leaders in innovation and excellence while giving significance to the achievements of companies within the communications industry. This year's awards include four new best practice categories: - TM Forum Industry Leadership Award
- TM Forum Business Innovation Award
- TM Forum Operational Excellence Award
- TM Forum Solution Excellence Award
An independent panel of highly-respected industry experts will review the list and narrow it down to six finalists in each category. The winner of the Solution Excellence category will be determined by the more than 200 TM Forum global service provider members, and all winners will be announced in front of an audience of more than 3,500 senior executives from the communications industry on Tuesday, May 24 at Management World 2011. Read More | |  | | | | Documents Available for TM Forum Approval Corporate members of TM Forum have an opportunity to directly influence which technical deliverables become ‘TM Forum Approved’ by voting to approve or reject 7 documents on such subjects as the Business Process Framework, IPsphere, Service Problem Management and more. Voting ends on April 15, so make your voice heard today! Read More | | | | TM Forum Spotlights Continue on World Tour The following events are free and open to anyone: Moscow, Russia – March 29
Adoption of Frameworx for Cable Spotlight – Amsterdam – April 11 Read More | | | | | | TM Forum Supported Events | | | Telco Strategies 2011: Telecom Asia Awards and Conference – Apr. 12 – Singapore
TM Forum Guest Speaker: Tony Poulos, BSS Evangelist
WeDo Technologies Worldwide User Group 2011 – May 18-20 – Troia, Portugal
TM Forum Guest Speaker: Tony Poulos, BSS Evangelist | | | | | | Webcasts | | | Making Decisions in the 'Big Data' Era
On-Demand Webinar As large businesses, CSPs must find a way to analyze and make sense of super-abundant data and to make faster and better decisions that will impact the success of their new offers, retention campaigns or geographical expansion. This webinar focuses on how the next generation of business intelligence solutions can enable CSPs to run better and transform the way they make decisions. 
Sponsored by: SAP
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| | | Training | | | | Putting Theory and Best Practices in Action at Management World 2011 Add Training to your Conference registration to save money, maximize your time and take advantage of: - Real world application examples – Conference case studies explore many of the same topics as Training courses.
- Best practices and standards advice – Trainers deliver the material and show you how to use it, and Conference speakers represent a wide range of global expertise.
- Interactive opportunities – Ask practical questions of Trainers and share experiences with peers in Conference sessions.
Management World is the only industry forum giving you a wide range of tools backed by the knowledge you need to put them to work for you. Read More |
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