 environments. A fast service provisioning is particularly important today. Two of the main competition issues frequently addressed in telecom business literature are TTM (time to market) and TTC (time to customer), which clearly demand actor agility. Old service provisioning involved heavy costs because of manual, non-standardized or non-integrated procedures. See Figure 16.17. Fast service introduction. (TTM) Fast deployment of services (TTC) Faster failure recovery Improved traffic management Simplified manageable billing Efficient network planning Improved customer care Lower O&M costs Short provisioning Improved ISP Revenues Expenses Improved traffic management Capital Improved traffic engineering employed Improved spares handling Figure 16.16 TM and ROCE Telecom Management - Operations Order Manual work Service in operation Manual Order Service in operation Automatic Service provisioning Figure 16.17 Automation is a key in reducing time to customer It was quite complicated to connect a subscriber to a network or a new service, and data had to be set in several independent system databases (access network, local switch, billing, IN node, etc.) Also manual work or proceedings were often necessary. Telecom management allows fully automated and standardized service provisioning. This is achieved in a user-friendly environment and from a single point in the network. This leads to satisfied customers, short TTC and faster time to revenue, favouring increased profitability. For the operators themselves a fast and efficient handling of the billing makes a very strong impact on their result. The handling cost of one bill might well be in the range of $10-20, SO being able to send a single bill to each customer instead of maybe three or four (e.g. fixed telephone, mobile phone, cable TV, Internet connection) saves money. See Figure 4.50 in Chapter 4. Telecom management also contributes to revenue generation via what is called billing mediation. Billing mediation takes care of the collection, buffering and delivering 