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Build it and they will come. This is not always true for OSS. Let me recount a few examples. The project team is disconnected from the users – The team that’s building the OSS in parallel to existing operations doesn’t (or isn’t able to) engage with the end users of the OSS. Once it comes […]
There’s a common belief that most jobs see people rewarded for presence rather than performance. That is, they’re encouraged to be on site from 9am to 5pm rather than being given free reign over their work schedules as long as key outcomes are met / exceeded. In OSS vendor / product selection there’s a similar […]
PLDT, AMDOCS SIGN NEW AGREEMENT TO TRANSFORM PLDT AND SMART’S IT INFRASTRUCTURE. The six-year managed IT infrastructure deal is in addition to the seven-year master transformation service agreement Amdocs signed with PLDT and Smart in Jan 2018 Leading telecommunications and digital service provider PLDT, and Amdocs, a provider of software and services to communications and […]
Automation is about using machines / algorithms to respond faster than humans can, or more efficiently than humans can, or more accurately than humans can… but only if the outcomes justify the costs. When it comes to automations, it’s a case of, “just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.” The more complex the decision […]
One of the challenges with getting a new OSS or OSS transformation project completed can be the large number of dependencies that can cause momentum gridlock. If you’re looking to deliver business value in one big-bang, which is a really common approach to delivering OSS projects, then you end up juggling many different activities and […]
“Apple became the first company to be worth a trillion dollars. They did that by spending five years single-mindedly focusing on doing profitable work. They’ve consistently pushed themselves toward high margin luxury goods and avoided just about everything else. Belying their first two decades, when they focused on breakthrough work that was difficult and perhaps […]
“When a project appears to be in limbo, in a permanent holding pattern, where sunk costs meet opportunity costs, where no one can figure out what to do… Cancel it. Cancel it with a week’s notice. One of two things will happen: A. A surge of support and innovation will arrive, and it won’t be […]
“Network slicing opens new business opportunities for operators by enabling them to provide specialized services that deliver specific performance parameters. Guaranteeing stringent KPIs enables operators to charge premium rates to customers that value such performance. The flip side is that such agreements will inevitably come with tough contractual obligations and penalties when the agreed KPIs […]
Over the years I’m sure you’ve seen many different OSS demonstrations. You’ve probably also seen presentations by vendors / integrators that have shown multiple different products from their suite. How integrated have they appeared to you? Have they seemed tightly integrated, as if carved from a single piece of stone? Or have they seemed loosely […]
“ONAP provides a comprehensive platform for real-time, policy-driven orchestration and automation of physical and virtual network functions that will enable software, network, IT and cloud providers and developers to rapidly automate new services and support complete lifecycle management. By unifying member resources, ONAP is accelerating the development of a vibrant ecosystem around a globally shared […]
We keep shiploads of data in our OSS don’t we? Just think about how much storage your OSS estate consumes. Technically, it doesn’t cost much (relatively) to retain all that potential for insight generation with the cost of storage diminishing. The real cost of storing the data goes a little deeper than the $/Mb though. […]
As you already know, there are two categories of downtime – unplanned (eg failures) and planned (eg upgrades / maintenance). Planned downtime sounds a lot nicer (for operators) but the reality is that you could call both types “incidents” – they both impact (or potentially impact) the customer. We sometimes underestimate that fact. Today’s question […]
“The iPhone disrupted the handset business, but has not disrupted the cellular network operators at all, though many people were convinced that it would. For all that’s changed, the same companies still have the same business model and the same customers that they did in 2006. Online flight booking doesn’t disrupt airlines much, but it […]
The diagram below attempts to show how the entire market (whether that’s the supplier-side or the buyer-side) will absorb a given new feature. The leaders pick up the concept at T0 and then it takes another few years before the laggards implement it. Most of us in the OSS implementation world crave to be at […]
When selecting new applications for an OSS or to augment an existing OSS, it always makes sense to me to run a Proof of Concept. But what do we want to demonstrate in that PoC? For me, we want to run demonstrations of the factors (eg features, use-cases, processes, etc) that justify the investment. A […]
We had a highly flexible network design team at a previous company. Not because we wanted to necessarily, but because we were forced to by the client’s allocation of work. Our team was largely based on casual workers because there was little to predict whether we needed 2 designers or 50 in any given week. […]
Interesting table below in relation to the customer satisfaction and costs of delivering various styles of customer assurance activities: Proactive Fix Self-help L1/2/3 Assurance Field Operations Customer Satisfaction Very High High Medium Low Expense Low Medium High Very High The ambition for any organisation is to perform a shift to the left on this table. […]
Ciena announces intent to acquire DonRiver. Ciena Corporation has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held DonRiver, a global software and services company specializing in federated network and service inventory management solutions within the service provider Operational Support Systems (OSS) environment. DonRiver will bring new capabilities to Ciena’s Blue Planet software and services portfolio […]
“The more data you have, the more data you need to understand the data you have. You are engaged in a data ponzi scheme…Could it be in service assurance and IT ops that more data equals less understanding?” Phil Tee in the opening address at the AIOps Symposium. Interesting viewpoint right? Given that our OSS […]
Comarch to Help Korean LG U+ to Launch One of the First 5G Networks Worldwide. Comarch and LG U+ have signed a major contract in a bid to completely revamp the Korean operator’s network resource and service management, covering Operations Support & Readiness, Fulfilment and Assurance domains, in preparation for the operator’s planned big scale […]
