It’s all about the variants

“I’ve been involved in telecom operations for decades, and I’ve learned that there is nothing in networking as inertial as OSS/BSS. A large minority of my experts (but still a minority) think that we should scrap the whole OSS/BSS model and simply integrate operations tasks with the service models of SDN and NFV orchestration. That’s […]

Telus and Nuage Networks launch new SD-WAN platform

Telus and Nuage Networks launch new SD-WAN platform. Telus, a Canadian telecommunications company, announced it is teaming up with Nuage Networks, a Nokia venture, to initiate Telus Network as a Service (NaaS), software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) platform. SD-WAN is an emerging network architecture that decouples network control and forwarding functions. The technology enables businesses […]

CSG International extends with Charter

CSG International Expands and Extends Relationship with Charter Four More Years. CSG Systems International, Inc. announced that it will expand and extend its agreement with Charter Communications (NASDAQ: CHTR) through December 31, 2021. Charter is a leading broadband communications company and the second largest cable operator in the United States. In 2016, the company merged […]

What would you do in this situation?

The world of OSS, no matter where you are placed within its orbit, seems to be chaotic. There are always so many things to get done – updates, fixes, incidents, planning, designs, meetings, emails, etc, etc. I’d love to hear what you would do if the following situation presented itself: Every week, you get a […]

Telcos still innovate… but more by proxy now

CSPs globally are trying to be innovative, and being heavily involved in tech since their earliest days, always perceive themselves to be innovative to their core (yes, bad pun). There’s no doubt that there is a lot of innovation happening in large CSPs, but I wonder how much of it is really attributable to the […]

Ramping down network variants, ramping up digital variants

Voice and data are no longer the services that organisations, large and small, see as making a difference. The services that do make a difference are more dynamic and diverse – digital distribution, promotion and marketing, payments and billing, business intelligence, business continuity (including security) and more – the factors that make their organisations thrive. […]

Cisco announces intent to acquire Observable Networks

Cisco Announces Intent to Acquire Observable Networks. The ability to dramatically improve visibility, security and response capabilities across an entire IT surface, including highly distributed branch environments and public cloud infrastructures, is becoming increasingly important as companies and organizations continue their digital transformation. With this in mind, I am pleased to announce Cisco’s intent to […]

The three big lies of the telecoms industry

“What are the three big lies of the telecoms industry? The first lie is that data monetisation is coming. Well we are still waiting. The second is that we have billions of customers. Well are they really our customers or are they people who just tolerate us and are really customers of someone else? The […]

SK Telecom commercializes NFV MANO platform named ‘T-MANO’

SK Telecom commercializes NFV MANO platform named ‘T-MANO’. SK Telecom announced that it commercialized T-MANO, an NFV MANO (Network Functions Virtualization Management and Orchestration) platform that performs integrated management and orchestration of virtualized network equipment and software. *NFV MANO (network functions virtualization management and orchestration), also called MANO, is an architectural framework for managing and […]

Is OSS tech-debt good debt or bad debt?

“But what if it’s ALL tech-debt? Everything we build needs to be supported for its natural life. The more we accumulate, the more that needs supporting. Support represents all the debt we leave behind, like going on a credit-card fuelled spending spree. And like any other debt, the more you collect, the more it compounds […]

What if it’s all tech-debt??

I’ve noticed the term “tech debt” entering the OSS vernacular to represent stuff that is built now as a short-term workaround before the long-term solution comes online. But what if it’s ALL tech-debt? Everything we build needs to be supported for its natural life. The more we accumulate, the more that needs supporting. Support represents […]

Ericsson modernizes real-time charging for VNPT

Ericsson modernizes real-time charging for VNPT in Vietnam. VNPT, a leading telecom operator in Vietnam, has chosen Ericsson as a strategic partner to modernize its charging and business support system. The modernization will enable service convergence and advanced charging capabilities, and improve the user experience for VNPT’s 40 million pre-paid and post-paid subscribers. The new […]

Channelling “Intel Inside” to improve the brand recognition of your OSS

“During Intel’s marketing of “Intel Inside” they taught consumers to look for the Intel Inside logo as an assurance of quality. Consumers eventually came to see “Intel Inside” as a standard and began asking the question: “Why doesn’t your product use Intel processors?” This standard became so important that today it is one of the […]

AT&T Investing up to $200 Million in ONAP Venture Capital Fund

AT&T Investing up to $200 Million in Venture Capital Fund. AT&T* has committed to investing up to $200 million in a venture capital fund as part of its ongoing effort to develop solutions to the toughest technology challenges. AT&T will work with Coral’s Communications Industry Platform (CIP) team to identify and invest in start-up companies […]

…And it works with Alexa

In the past we’ve posed the concept of using a search front-end as a user friendly interface to the OSS of the future. This UI would have the ability to poll all of the disparate systems that make up an OSS / BSS stack and curate responses. The front-end would need to be smart, but […]

The interview question tech recruiters will never ask, but should

Over the last few days, this blog has been diving into the career steps that OSS (and tech) specialists can make in readiness for the inevitable changes in employment dynamics that machine learning and AI will bring about. You’ve heard all the stories about robots and AI taking all of our jobs. Any job that […]

Next step, man-machine partnerships

Getting literate in the language of the future posed the thought that data is the language of the future and therefore it is incumbent on all OSS practitioners to ensure their literacy. It also posed that data literacy provides a stepping stone to a future where machine learning is more prevalent. This got me thinking. […]

Getting literate in the language of the future

As we all know, digitalisation of everything is decreasing barriers to entry and increasing the speed of change in almost every perceivable industry. Unfortunately, this probably also means the half-life of opportunity exploitation is also shrinking. The organisations that seem to be best at leveraging opportunities in the market are the ones that are able […]

Nokia completes acquisition of Comptel

Nokia completes acquisition of Comptel. Nokia announced the successful completion of its acquisition of Comptel Corporation, a Finland-based telecommunications software company. The acquisition was announced February 9, 2017. The acquisition advances Nokia’s strategy to build a standalone software business at scale by expanding and strengthening its software portfolio and go-to-market capabilities. Comptel bolsters Nokia’s software […]

Finding the metrics to invert the OSS iceberg

“Invert the iceberg – show just how much capability is hidden under the surface by mapping how dependant the organisation’s positive outcomes are on its OSS (OSS as the puppet-master). All the sexy stuff (eg 5G, IoT, network virtualisation, etc) can only be monetised if our OSS pull all the strings to make them happen.” […]