NetCracker Technology has completed Phase III of the NGOSS Catalyst Project, which is being demonstrated live at TeleManagement World Americas, the world’s largest OSS/BSS exhibition, taking place from December 4th to December 7th at the Adam’s Mark Hotel in Dallas, Texas.

Catalyst Project Background
The Catalyst Project, sponsored by France Telecom, focuses on implementing standards-based OSS for accelerating the delivery of converged products. NetCracker joined the project at the onset of Phase III to broaden its scope. The project will demonstrate how it has created a holistic solution by bringing together elements of network and IT infrastructure, product and service catalog, and end-to-end fulfillment including order management, provisioning and activation, and inventory. The demonstration will also prove the co-existence of all the elements in a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and will further accelerate the development of standards and guidelines for NGOSS, including IMS/SDP.

The lines between the network-centric world and the IT world are converging, and this project demonstrates the significant benefits that NetCracker products bring to NGN architectures. Two key areas that NetCracker addresses in relationship to converged networks are:

Configuring the Generic User Profile (GUP) server as the federated system of the IMS HSS, Wireline network elements, etc.

Extending the TMF SID model to cover user-facing service configuration
In addition to contributing to the growing body of OSS standards, NetCracker will likely propose that the concept of the User-Facing Service model to support 3GPP’s Generic User Profile be included in the next logical release of TM Forum’s SID.

“NetCracker’s OSS strategy will continue to align with TMF standards by providing a focus on subscription and identity management, applying more IT service management to OSS, bringing IMS-based NGN elements into the OSS view, and integrating a service creation environment into service delivery,” said Andrew Feinberg, NetCracker’s president and CEO.

Idir Fodil, IP Architect at France Telecom, stated that “NetCracker has demonstrated its commitment to following industry standards such as TM Forum’s SID, eTOM, NGOSS contract, and web-services. Their core value in end-to-end solutions for inventory and service provisioning will ultimately be required to bridge TMF-based OSS with the ETSI-TISPAN NGN network. As the sponsor of the NGN OSS Blueprint Project, France Telecom is very supportive of the technical solution provided by NetCracker Technology.”

Catalyst Project VIP Tour
A Catalyst VIP Tour will take place on Wednesday, December 6 from 12:30–1:00 p.m. in the Catalyst Theatre area of the Adam’s Mark Hotel. The VIP Tour will give press and analysts an opportunity to interview members of the Catalyst teams.

Catalyst Project Demonstration Times
Demonstrations will take place in the Catalyst Theater, Booth #1 on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Please check the full conference schedule for information on specific times.

In addition to the Catalyst Project, NetCracker is hosting and participating in numerous events during the TeleManagement World Conference and will be exhibiting in Booth #200.

For additional information about the Catalyst Project, visit www.tmforum.org or contact John Tallarico (john.tallarico@netcracker.com)

About NetCracker Technology
NetCracker Technology is the leading global Solution Company enabling Service Providers to rapidly deliver and effectively manage convergent and content-rich offerings. NetCracker delivers service and resource management through its software and implementation expertise. NetCracker’s pre-integrated product modules include Service Inventory, Resource Inventory, Service Provisioning & Activation, Discovery & Reconciliation, Design & Planning, Customer Impact Analysis, Outside Plant, Order Management, Asset Management, and Telecom Cost Management. Founded in 1993, NetCracker Technology is headquartered in Waltham, MA, and can be reached at (Tel) 1-781-419-3300, (Fax) 1-781-419-3301, or www.netcracker.com.

NetCracker is a registered trademark of NetCracker Technology Corp. All other company or product names mentioned in this press release may be trademarks or registered trademarks of the respective companies of which they are associated.

About the TeleManagement Forum
The TM Forum is the leading industry organization dedicated to OSS/BSS issues. For more information about the TM Forum or TeleManagement World Americas 2006, please visit: http://www.tmforum.org/browse.aspx?catID=2732.

For more than 16 years, the TeleManagement Forum (TM Forum) has provided leadership, strategic guidance and practical solutions to improve the management and operation of information and communications services. Through its “Lean Operator” initiative and flagship New Generation Operations Systems and Software (NGOSS) program for developing, procuring and deploying operational and business support systems, the TM Forum creates collaboratively developed, industry standard solutions. These solutions, delivered through a set of guidelines and specifications, define the direction and specific roadmap to achieve business efficiency and operational flexibility – the hallmarks of the Lean Operator.

The TM Forum has 500 members in 60 countries, including incumbent and new-entrant service providers, equipment suppliers, software solution suppliers and systems integrators. For further information regarding the TM Forum, related programs and TeleManagement World, please visit www.tmforum.org.