solve issues in a minimum amount of time the revenue is increased with optimal network utilization. Increased customer loyalty by managing service quality as perceived by the customer and effective customer support as guaranteed in the service assur- ance package. Reduction of capital expenditure (CAPEX) as new services will be introduced based on forecast and trends identified while end-to-end monitoring of the network for service assurance parameters. Customer centric approach is becoming popular with all aspects of tele- com management and development. Service assurance is a customer centric approach to service management. Optimize performance of the service delivery platform. When the operational process is centered around providing good quality of service for customer ser- vice assurance, the performance reports can be used to optimize performance of the service delivery platform. Reduction of operational expenditure (OPEX) with improved operational processes to meet the parameters of service assurance. There are products solely developed for service assurance in telecom industry. Fundamentals of EMS, NMS and OSS/BSS 4.7 Network Operations Support Network operation support involves the maintenance activities involved with the network and its elements. Reduction in the cost of operations support is a major goal of every service provider. The cost for operations support is inversely proportional to the quality of network management. As the quality of network management increases the cost on operations support decreases and vise versa. Some of the functions performed at the network operation center (NOC) pro- viding network operation support are: Network monitoring and management Software and hardware maintenance Information security Troubleshooting of issues Call support: technical and customer Disaster recovery Migration, upgrade, and system engineering Deployment, replacement, repair, and restoration of elements In addition to cost reduction, another issue that is of major concern is the lack of trained tech