Ontology-based management systems for the next generation services: State-of-the-art

Next Generation Networks (NGN) introduces a great emphasis on creating innovative telecommunications services that are rapidly deployed and tied to users need. Telecom operators and Service Providers are therefore facing important challenges to manage the overloaded data of the user preferences, the customized services and the whole service delivery chain. This is mainly due to the lack of standardization and common vocabulary, which strongly hinder information exchange and communication between information systems. Ontologies, which capture the semantics of information from various sources and giving them a concise, uniform and declarative description, have gained significant interests in research activities and industry. This paper is an analysis of ontologies usefulness to answer the NGN management challenges. Hence how ontologies may be used to improve Telecom Operators information systems in the NGN context.