If you found this article useful or valuable, subscribe (in the top-right corner of this page) and share. Let's spread the word and inspire more people to become passionate about OSS. Ryan is Passionate About OSS and has dedicated the last two decades to sharing his passion for OSS with the world. He is a founder, author, blogger, Engineer, connector and inquisitive learner about OSS and managing networks. To find out a little about his back-story and why he's so Passionate About OSS, click on the About Page. To connect with Ryan and the PAOSS team, click on the Contact page.
The first OSS/BSS I used, back in 2000, was built around an Oracle relational database and the GUI was built using Oracle Forms (as well as some C++ apps). The developers had implemented a concept they referred to as a boilerplate. It basically allowed the customers to modify any label they wished on the forms. […]
OSS/BSS stacks can be incredibly complex and cumbersome beasts, especially in large carriers with many different product, process and network variants. We don’t make that task any easier by creating many unique product offerings to take to market. And this time to market can be a significant competitive advantage, or be a serious impediment to […]
The world of OSS/BSS is changing rapidly. There’s so much to learn. New forms of information, approaches and technologies are proliferating. Are you wrestling with the challenge of trying to determine what OSS/BSS training you and/or your team requires? We’ve just revised and re-launched our core OSS/BSS training offerings. Click on the image below to […]
Our OSS and BSS are highly complex by nature. However, we seem to do a great job of making them more complex, more challenging, less repeatable and hence, more difficult to change. Perhaps that caters to our deeper desires – so many of us in this industry love to prove our worth by solving complex […]
We just launched a new video series describing the Fundamentals of OSS/BSS yesterday. One of the videos in the series describes Network Operations Centres (or NOCs) for telcos or network operators. It also provides examples of the OSS/BSS tools and data sets that help to power them. Whilst creating this video, it dawned on me […]
We’ve just launched a multi-part video series to provide an introduction to OSS and BSS. It answers these fundamental questions and more: Part 1 – What is an OSS? What is a BSS? Why are OSS and BSS even a thing? Part 2 – Who uses an OSS and/or BSS? Part 3 – What Functions do OSS and BSS […]
If the network is ultimately the product for any network operator, then OSS/BSS are the great connectors, connecting customers to that product. Both for initial activation, but also ongoing utilisation of network resources. Whilst everyone has a different perspective on the relevance / importance of OSS/BSS, there tend to be even broader divergences of opinion […]
The video below, starring Martin Pittard, the Principal IT Architect at Vocus Group, provides a number of important OSS/BSS Transformation call-outs that we’ll dive into in this article. Vocus has embarked on a journey to significantly overhaul its OSS/BSS stack and has heavily leveraged TM Forum’s Open API suite to do so. One of the primary […]
When it comes to OSS/BSS implementations (and products), Time to Market (TTM) is one of our most important metrics. Not just for the network operator to deliver new offerings to market, but also in getting solutions up and running quickly. Faster TTM provides the benefits of cost reduction and faster turn-on of revenue, but potentially […]
There are three distinct categories of organisations that interact with OSS/BSS – those who create them, those who use them and those who implement them. But no matter how good the first two are (ie the products / creators and the users), if the implementation isn’t done well, then the OSS/BSS is almost pre-destined to […]
Have you noticed the rise in trust, but also the rise in sophistication in Open Source OSS/BSS in recent years? There are many open-source OSS/BSS tools out there. Some have been built as side-projects by communities that have day jobs, whilst others have many employed developers / contributors. Generally speaking, the latter are able to […]
Jim Collins’ book, “Good to Great,” has achieved iconic status in the world of corporate strategy. One of the ideas he shares in this book is The Hedgehog Concept. I’d encourage you to take a look at the link above. It provides excerpts from the book, outlining why the “great” companies in his study acted […]
While it’s the tier-1 telco OSS/BSS that get all the attention, it’s actually the mid-market that makes up the largest number of OSS/BSS by customer count (in most deregulated telco markets). The mid-market consists of Tier 2/3 telcos and ISPs with subscriber counts measured in the thousands rather than hundreds of thousands or millions. However, […]
A question came in from a reader this morning, “What is the role(inputs) of the service providers in the research (technology modernization) compared to the equipment vendors and standard bodies (3GPP, TMForum, IETF, etc.)? Do operators have any influence in the research and how the coordination happens (except being the members) between the vendors, operators, […]
Firstly, what is Digital Sharecropping? Nicholas Carr coined the term Digital Sharecropping all the way back in 2006, citing the phenomenon where, “One of the fundamental economic characteristics of Web 2.0 is the distribution of production into the hands of the many and the concentration of the economic rewards into the hands of the few.” […]
You’ve no doubt heard about NOC (Network Operations Centres) and SOC (Security Operations Centres) [or perhaps alternatively, Service Operations Centres], which are the people / processes / infrastructure / tools that allow a network operator to manage the network health and security posture of their networks. The NOC and SOC are vitally important to keeping […]
We’re often asked, “what’s the best OSS / BSS?” One of the biggest challenges for OSS buyers is the huge amount of choice available. There are well over 500 listings in our Blue Book OSS / BSS Vendor Directory, so buyers are spoilt for choice. The problem is there is usually too much choice, with […]
There are just so many vendors in the OSS/BSS market (our vendor directory has over 400 listings – https://passionateaboutoss.com/directory) that it can be incredibly challenging to differentiate one product or vendor from the next. OSS/BSS customers may only know of a handful of possible solutions, but there are plenty of others out there. Cutting through […]
The pandemic has been beneficial for the telco world in one way. For many who weren’t already aware, it’s now clear how incredibly important telecommunications providers are to our modern way of life. Not just for our ability to communicate with others, but our economy, the services we use, the products we buy and even […]
With well over 500 product suppliers in the OSS/BSS market it can be really difficult to stand out from the other products. Part of the reason we compiled The Blue Book OSS/BSS Vendor Directory was to allow us to quickly recall one product from another. With so much overlapping functionality and similarities in their names, […]
