The world’s digital connections are becoming broader and faster, providing a platform for every industry to boost productivity and innovation. Today, service delivery platforms (SDPs) are reframing the way telecom service providers have operated their networks. SDPs play a vital role in making sure these operators can increase their revenue by serving customers and over-the-top (OTT) partners using flexible multimedia platforms.

As legacy services, systems and networks continue to undergo upgrades or replacements with software-driven frameworks, the traditionally separate IT and telecom networking worlds have now converged at an impressive rate. To meet the demands of a tech-savvy generation of users and sell higher-quality services, separate legacy networks must be transitioned and the focus of business shifted towards service-oriented architecture (SOA).

The big question though is how to get there. One answer is investing in SDPs to emphasize core capabilities and business functions and create multiple flexible services. With 5G about to go live in several regions across the world, a significant amount of success attributed to next-gen networks will be determined by how services are created and sustained in this new software-driven environment.

What Are Service Delivery Platforms (SDPs)? (H2)

In the telecom industry, an SDP is a group of technological components that provides the delivery architecture for a particular service type offered to a mobile user. Its design is intended to accommodate a "two-sided" business model to serve customers and over-the-top (OTT) partners using carrier transport capabilities. SDPs allow service providers to create an expansive digital ecosystem to easily monetize telecommunication capabilities and aggregate partners.

SDPs are utilized to meet these 4 objectives:
Increase the overall agility of the service delivery infrastructure
Lower OPEX and CAPEX costs
Automate and standardize frequently performed tasks
Create and sustain new sources of revenue by leveraging unique assets (like customer information, operations systems, and QoS capabilities) provided by partners

How SDPs Achieve Business Continuity and Service Improvement (H2)

To provide differentiation and facilitate for QoE, service providers had to first address what the experience is, which means discovering what features lie beyond simple connectivity since the Internet already provides an open connectivity model. The answer was found in the creation of service value through the optimal mapping of connectivity tools to consumer and business needs. This kind of value becomes available both on a per-service basis and across the boundaries of traditional services, thanks to these features of an SDP:

Facilitate the management of content aggregation partners (H3)
Improving and expanding the digital ecosystem, the SDP manages and aggregates partners as well as content and digital services. Particularly, it helps in channel diversion, service distribution data assessment, and operational risk management.

Facilitate advanced service management (H3)
Integrated lifecycle management, created by combining service logic and service management, is essential to assuring the economy of scale for network operations. Service providers are dependent on the processes that support the lifecycle management of cross-network services and their components. The SDP offers APIs and protocols that connect to OSS/BSS, network equipment, and other service resources. service delivery platform

Unlock 360° operational control of digital service (H3)
The SDP plays an integral role in providing centralized operational access to all digital services. These include service and user management, service subscription, charging payments, and complaint management. A highly-organized SDP equips businesses with the development process of refining, implementing, and monetizing service values for maximized revenue gains.

Enable service differentiators (H3)
SDPs permit quick service deployment and validation by using software to host service components and support advanced service creation techniques. With the information they have about customer preferences, service providers can also capitalize on offering differentiated services to increase ARPU and customer value.

Drive business goals while maintaining and/or increasing network value (H3)
By outsourcing the service delivery aspect of the business to external third parties, service providers can utilize SDPs to make their networks more valuable to customers by adapting flexible services customized to individual customer behavior(s). This can be done without causing performance and operations issues that would otherwise beset the venture with extra costs.