Network Services Management in the AT&T Intelligent Network

Within the AT&T domestic and international network, the increasing importance of sophisticated new services and an intense commitment to service quality have changed the face of network management. Historically, network management has focused on maintaining network call completion rates by efficiently utilizing switching, signaling, and trunking resources during congestion or failure conditions. This objective was met through the automatic or manual application of a large number of protective or expansive traffic management techniques, based on data obtained through surveillance of network status and traffic load conditions. Although this AT&T commitment to effective traffic management continues, the rapid growth of freephone services (the AT&T 800 Service family) and virtual private network service (AT&T Software Defined Network), often provided to multinational customers, has made "network services mangement" an equally important aspect of network management for AT&T.