Automation of customer premises equipment provisioning in a telecommunications network

An apparatus for provisioning a next generation network to provide network services, the apparatus comprising:

• one or more processors;
• a network communicatively coupled to the processors and configured to communicate one or more packet flows among the processors and a network;
• and
• a computer readable storage medium comprising one or more sequences of instructions for provisioning a next generation network, which instructions, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform:
• receiving a service request that specifies a service to be provided to customer premises equipment in the next generation network;
• creating and storing information that represents a logical decomposition of the next generation network into a plurality of discrete functional areas;
• analyzing the information representing the functional areas to identify one or more provisioning requirements for each of the functional areas;
• defining one or more provisioning procedures and identifying one or more tools based on the provisioning requirements;
• creating and storing a provisioning plan that includes a sequenced execution of the defined procedures and identified tools;
• executing the procedures and tools in the provisioning plan in the sequence identified therein to provision the next generation network to provide the specified service.

A computer-readable storage medium encoded with one or more sequences of computer-executable instructions for provisioning network service in a next generation telecommunications network, which instructions, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to carry out the steps of:

• receiving a service request that specifies a service to be provided to customer premises equipment in the next generation network;
• creating and storing information that represents a logical decomposition of the next generation network into a plurality of discrete functional areas;
• analyzing the information representing the functional areas to identify one or more provisioning requirements for each of the functional areas;
• defining one or more provisioning procedures and identifying one or more tools based on the provisioning requirements;
• creating and storing a provisioning plan that includes a sequenced execution of the defined procedures and identified tools;
• executing the procedures and tools in the provisioning plan in the sequence identified therein to provision the next generation network to provide the specified service.

A next generation network telecommunications system comprising logical discrete functional areas of:

• a subscriber customer premises equipment area comprising one or more customer premises equipment devices that deliver services to a subscriber;
• an access network and core network area comprising one or more network devices at access edge and core that provide connectivity to subscriber customer premises equipment devices;
• and
• a switch and other processors area comprising one or more next generation network components that provide network services;
• said next generation network telecommunications system additionally comprising:
• an electronic memory coupled to one or more processors;
• one or more stored program instructions stored in the memory, which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the steps of:
• receiving a service request that specifies a service to be provided to customer premises equipment in the next generation network;
• creating and storing information that represents a logical decomposition of the next generation network into a plurality of discrete functional areas;
• analyzing the information representing the functional areas to identify one or more provisioning requirements for each of the functional areas;
• defining one or more provisioning procedures and identifying one or more tools based on the provisioning requirements;
• creating and storing a provisioning plan that includes a sequenced execution of the defined procedures and identified tools;
• executing the procedures and tools in the provisioning plan in the sequence identified therein to provision the next generation network to provide the specified service.