How the TowerCo carve-out model is inspiring new ways of thinking about old telco assets
In a recent blog series, we described the potential for OSS to help drive entirely new revenue / business-models that leverage the many strengths that telcos retain – Telco’s burning exchange moment – a playbook of fixes. Today’s article will take a closer look at one of the ideas under Playbook #7 – They have […]
I’ve just been blown away again by another really revolutionary demonstration

Earlier in the week, I shared a really exciting video from EnterpriseWeb (in collaboration with KX and Microsoft in particular). Clearly others have been just as impressed with that video as I was. That one video alone has triggered a wave of discussions. I suspect that’s because it provides a line-of-sight to what network operations […]
I’ve just been blown away by a really revolutionary demonstration
Over the last year, I’ve been assisting a consortium that includes a number of iconic brands such as Intel, RedHat, Fortinet, Keysight and TechMahindra. More importantly, those elements are underpinned by a powerful closed-loop engine formed by EnterpriseWeb and KX that stands up, observes and optimises a 5G RAN testbed. You can view the test-bed […]
An AR/VR product I’d love to develop. What are your thoughts?
As some of you will have spotted in past articles, I’ve spent the last couple of years working with solutions at the intersection of OSS/BSS (data) and AR/VR for visualisations and new ways of working. A couple of animated GIFs from that work are shown below. An interactive 3D model with assets identified from OSS […]
Crossing the Chasm: How to avoid flip-flopping between OSS products and services models
Are you familiar with Geoffrey Moore’s famous, “Crossing the Chasm” concept from his book of the same name? It basically describes the large gap between early adoption of a product and getting it to mainstream utilisation. With the large amount of fragmentation in the OSS/BSS market, there are clearly many products that haven’t been able […]
From Idle Time to Deep Attention: The Impacts on Operational Support Systems
Of all technological advancements, smartphones have had one of the most profound impacts on humanity in recent history. They have ingeniously monetised “idle time,” the brief intermissions between our important tasks, often filling our idle moments with a plethora of addictive apps, content and social media. However, as technology has evolved, these “idle time” tasks […]
Let us review your OSS product development backlog and I’ll predict if there’s growth in your future
In the last year, I’ve seen RFP responses worth an accumulated total of well over $1B for network services, systems and such. In almost every case, the carrier buyers have indicated that they’re seeking innovative solutions. That’s the outward-facing commentary at least. But the real, inward-facing story is that they’re just seeking cost-reductions in most […]
A detailed account of the SolarWinds hack. A must-read story for all OSS/BSS suppliers
OSS solutions hold a privileged place in the operations of communications service providers around the world. They collect logs and events from network devices, security devices, shared services (like Active Directory) and other support systems. With increased automation and orchestration, they also have the power to quickly push controls back into all of those devices […]
Graph Data Summit (Melbourne, 9th May 2023) – A presentation about telco network data modelling
When it comes to telco / OSS / BSS data, I’m a big believer in matching the type of database to the type of data you’re handling. For alarms / events / logs, it’s time-series databases, where KX is a stand-out. For network inventory-based use-cases, graph databases like Neo4j provide some significant advantages. If you’re in Melbourne next […]
Putting on the Big Black Hat: How Project Pre-Mortems can save your OSS Project before you begin
Have you ever heard of the concept of a project pre-mortem? Have you ever used the concept on one of your OSS projects? They can be a really useful technique to use prior to embarking on OSS projects. But what are they and how do you use them I can hear you asking. Think of […]
Would you believe that 70+ personas and 700 use-cases is NOT a definitive list for OSS/BSS tools?
Have you ever stopped to wonder who actually uses OSS and BSS tools? Or how many role types (personas) do you think interact with OSS/BSS? Then, to go a step further, have you ever wondered what they do with their OSS and BSS tools? This was an itch we just had to scratch, so we […]
The one person, two day, OSS challenge (The Friction Continuums)
For all of the OSS and BSS vendors out there, I’d like to issue you a challenge. Can one person who’s not yet familiar with your solution (but has pre-requisite skills) set up your OSS / BSS product and demonstrate your product’s most essential use-cases with their own data / configurations and then demo to […]
Telco’s burning exchange moment – a playbook of fixes
The previous article in this series, “Telecommunications has reached its burning exchange moment,” highlighted that the current telco business model is at risk. It described how we could be experiencing an era of creative destruction of capital based on the works of Schumpeter and Marx. It also described: Poll results where nearly half of Europe’s […]
Telecommunications has reached its burning exchange moment
I’ll start this article with an apology – for crossing into the world of politics. An important basis of the discussion comes from the concept of creative destruction of capital and references quotes from Karl Marx. I have no interest in politics, especially historical politics, so I have little awareness of what the groundswell of […]
Crafting an Investment Memorandum (IM): A Comprehensive Guide
Are you an OSS and/or BSS supplier or telecommunications company that is thinking about seeking external investment or selling (in the sense of M&A [Mergers and Acquisitions], not the normal products and services you sell)? In recent years, we’ve been involved in an increased number of M&A projects, and I’m assuming this mirrors a rise […]
Want to know where the next wave of OSS/BSS innovation is coming from?
Everything you know right now, and all the knowledge you have collected over your career, is diminishing in relevance at an increasing rate. For those of us who’ve been in this game for decades rather than years, a lot of the knowledge we accumulated during our “apprenticeship” years is losing its lustre. This is particularly […]
Do you know what the most widely used OSS/BSS application is?
As the title asks, do you know what the most widely used OSS/BSS application is? The answer might actually surprise you, but we’ll get to that a little later in the article. Late last year, we published an article that outlined that a A seismic shift is already underway in IT circles and how it […]
What’s your future in OSS/BSS more closely linked to – elements of scarcity or abundance?
Did you notice that our previous article (What does the future hold for telco?) touched on scarcity and abundance in telco as well as how the dynamics of those are changing? Have you ever stopped to think how these changing dynamics of scarcity / abundance might impact the business and revenue models of yourself personally […]
What does the future hold for telco? Can it inform long-term OSS/BSS supplier strategies?
Do you ever look into the past to determine whether commonalities / discrepancies could be used to inform how you might act into the future? When it comes to OSS/BSS and telco, I certainly do. I hark back into the days when CSPs were the world’s leading tech companies and innovators. They also had incredibly […]
What’s your Everest?
What’s your Everest? I was out doing a walk today and listening to a podcast (Jeff Lerner‘s “Unlock your Potential” with guest Colin O’Brady [episode #226]) and that question stopped me in my tracks (literally). What’s that big ambition, that big goal that you’ve always wanted to achieve? I don’t have the answer to that question now […]