TOWARDS SERVICE OPERATION AND MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGY

With the dramatic rise in the number of Internet users, the expansion of international corporate activity and the arrival of multimedia serv ices. highly-competitive information and communication services are en tering a period of severe global change. There is widespread recogniti on that as these changes take place, it is important to establish oper ation and management (O&M) that will enable ''seamless'' end-to-end co mmunication services between any points on the earth. With worldwide t rends moving toward automation, the study of automation of O&M is bein g energetically pursued. This paper describes the requirements for ser vice O&M and gives an overview of the technology believed to be essent ial to achieve them. The progress of developments is also reported.