Can you remember how you felt during the initial weeks of your first OSS project? I can vividly recall how out of my depth I felt on my first OSS project. I was in my 20s and had relocated to a foreign country for the first time. I had a million questions (probably more actually). The challenges seemed immense (they were). I was working with talented…
Read More »Have you ever experienced an epic customer experience (CX) fail when dealing a network service operator, like the one I described yesterday? In that example, the OSS/BSS, and possibly the associated people / process, had a direct impact on poor customer experience. Admittedly, that 7 truck-roll experience was a number of years ago now. We have fewer excuses these days. Smart phones and network connected devices…
Read More »In yesterday's post we talked about the cost of quality. We talked about examples of primary, secondary and tertiary costs of bad data quality (DQ). We also highlighted that the tertiary costs, including the damage to brand reputation, can be one of the biggest factors. I often cite an example where it took 7 truck rolls to connect a service to my house a few years…
Read More »Juniper Networks Announces Intent to Acquire Mist Systems to Bring AI to IT, Delivering on Promise of Software-Defined Enterprise. Juniper Networks announced that the company has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Mist Systems, a pioneer in cloud-managed wireless networks powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI). The deal will enhance Juniper’s enterprise networking portfolio by combining Mist’s next-generation Wireless LAN (WLAN) platform with Juniper’s best-in-class wired…
Read More »This week of posts has followed the theme of the cost of quality. Data quality that is. But how do you calculate the cost of bad data quality? Yesterday's post mentioned starting with PNI (Physical Network Inventory). PNI is the cables, splices / joints, patch panels, ducts, pits, etc. This data doesn't tend to have a programmable interface to electronically reconcile with. This makes it prone…
Read More »Have you seen OSS tools where the applications are brilliant but consigned to failure by bad data? I definitely have! I call it the data death spiral. It's a well known fact in the industry that bad data can ruin an OSS. You know it. I know it. Everyone knows it. But how many companies do you know that invest in data quality? I mean truly…
Read More »The diagram below has some parallels with OSS. The story however is a little long before it gets to the OSS part, so please bear with me. The diagram shows analysis the US Navy performed during WWII on where planes were being shot. The theory was that they should be reinforcing the areas that received the most hits (ie the wing-tips, central part of the body,…
Read More »Telefónica and Ericsson sign AI-powered Network Operations agreement. Ericsson and Telefónica, one of the world’s largest communications service providers, have penned a new four-to-six-year managed services deal for AI-powered Network Operations in the UK, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Uruguay. Through its global Network Operations Centers (NOCs), Ericsson will provide services spanning day-to-day monitoring and service desk, change management, and problem and incident management - all powered…
Read More »Mobily deploys Ericsson full stack Telecom Cloud. Mobily Saudi Arabia has deployed Ericsson’s full stack telecom cloud solution, focusing on transforming its wireless network and providing a 5G Cloud Core. Mobily will gain a flexible, agile, and programmable network to improve customer experience and support the development of new services. Moezid bin Nasser Al Harbi, Chief Technology Officer, Mobily, says: "The cloud will help meet the…
Read More »Ericsson committed to extending OSSii agreement to include 5G. Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia have agreed to initiate discussions to extend an OSSii (Operation Support System Interoperability Initiative) Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to cover 5G network technology. The aim is to enable and simplify interoperability between OSS systems, reducing overall OSS integration costs and enabling shorter time-to-market for 5G. The scope will also look at simplifying integration…
Read More »AED-SICAD acquires the Dynamic Design Group. AED-SICAD GmbH has recently acquired all shares of the Dynamic Design Group. Dynamic Design develops, sells, implements and maintains software solutions for the planning and management of telecommunications networks. With its ConnectMaster product family, the company complements the existing business of AED-SICAD, whose technology focuses on information systems and software solutions for the management and operation of distribution networks in…
Read More »Telefónica UK Selects Netcracker’s End-to-End BSS/OSS Suite. NEC Corporation and Netcracker Technology have signed an agreement to partner with Telefónica UK to implement Netcracker’s end-to-end BSS/OSS suite. The partnership further expands Netcracker’s global, strategic relationship with Telefónica and underscores Netcracker’s continued market leadership in BSS and OSS. Telefónica UK will use Netcracker’s comprehensive BSS/OSS suite comprising its Revenue Management, Customer Management and Operations Management solutions. In…
Read More »Ericsson and Airtel to further build real-world AI use cases for Network Operations. Ericsson and Bharti Airtel ("Airtel"), India's leading telecom services provider, announced their collaboration for building intelligent and predictive network operations. Leveraging on its developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation, Ericsson will support Airtel to proactively address network complexity and boost user experience. Combining deep domain expertise with advanced technologies like AI and…
Read More »Telecom Egypt and Ericsson apply Artificial Intelligence to operate telco cloud. Telecom Egypt and Ericsson completed the successful deployment of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to its full-stack telco cloud infrastructure. The objective is to operate telco cloud environment intelligently and efficiently to enable cloud Automation and orchestration. The telecom industry is moving into cloud automation especially with introduction of Cloud Native in 5G. Artificial Intelligence assets provide…
Read More »On Friday, we provided a link to an inspiring video showing Rolls-Royce's vision of an operations centre. That article is a follow-on from other recent posts about to pros and cons of using MVPs (Minimum Viable Products) as an OSS transformation approach. I've been lucky to work on massive OSS projects. Projects that have taken months / years of hard implementation grind to deliver an OSS…
Read More »Way back in 2015, the PAOSS blog proposed the idea of an OSS Olympics to help identify the best OSS'ers in the world. It suggested the following 10 events (noting that operators can use tools of their own choosing): Order handling - set up a particular type of order, with complexities, and see who can generate the order the fastest into a pseudo-BSS order repository Service configuration and activation -…
Read More »Telefónica Movistar México selects Ericsson Expert Analytics to enhance customer experience. Ericsson has been selected by Telefónica Movistar México, a subsidiary of Telefónica South America, to deploy the Service Operation Center (SOC) platform to enhance subscribers’ experience through Ericsson Expert Analytics. The new SOC platform, based on Ericsson’s solution, will be deployed to gain visibility of Telefónica Movistar México’s service operations, quality, and end-customer experience. This…
Read More »Yesterday's post mentioned the importance of setting a future vision as part of your MVP delivery strategy. As Steve Blank said here, "Founders act like the “minimum” part is the goal. Or worse, that every potential customer should want it. In the real world not every customer is going to get overly excited about your minimum feature set...You’re selling the vision and delivering the minimum feature set…
Read More »"This minimum feature set (sometimes called the “minimum viable product”) causes lots of confusion. Founders act like the “minimum” part is the goal. Or worse, that every potential customer should want it. In the real world not every customer is going to get overly excited about your minimum feature set. Only a special subset of customers will and what gets them breathing heavy is the long-term…
Read More »Today's is something of a heretical post, especially for the believers in ITIL. In the world of OSS, we look to build in layers of resiliency and not layers of redundancy. The following diagram and subsequent text in italics describes a typical ITIL process and is all taken from https://www.computereconomics.com/article.cfm?id=1074 The sequence of events as shown in Figure 1 is as follows: At TIME = 0, an…
Read More »"We need more teachers and less bosses." Lee Cockerell. The quote from Lee could be bordering on condescending to some people. Hmmm.... Sorry about that. But let me ask you a couple of questions: Of all your years in OSS (or in industry in general), who are the 5 people who have been the most valuable to you (and your customers)? Of those 5 people, which…
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