The Special Services Automation Initiative: An Overall Architecture for Flow-Through Operations

AT&T's Special Services Automation (SSA) initiative provides an overall functional and network architecture for a number of operations support systems that, together, will radically reduce the cost of Special Services Circuit installation and maintenance. Under SSA, currently deployed systems will be updated with the latest technology, including artificial intelligence, standard protocols, and new flexible human interfaces, as well as integrating new systems with the old to form a flexible, multivendor environment. This paper will review the SSA architecture, describing the novel design features that allow the systems under the SSA umbrella to be implemented separately, in combination with each other, and in concert with multiple vendors' systems to provide flow-through operations.