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From Indispensable to Overlooked and Back: Making OSS Dragon Slayers Valuable Again

Many OSS veterans, the people who built the OSS of today, are no longer being offered full-time roles. Clients often assume they have become obsolete or are simply too expensive. However, these same experts are still solving the toughest OSS problems, drawing on decades of hard-earned experience. They are just not doing it from inside your org chart. The real surprise? These highly experienced OSS dragon…

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The Buyer-Seller Chasm Series Summary

This article provides a summary of our Buyer-Seller Chasm series of articles, where we start with the guiding principle that: The buyers (carriers) desperately need better tools to transform their operations. The sellers (vendors) already have better tools, which they desperately want to sell. The problem worth solving lies in the extraordinary amount of time, resources and cost it usually takes to bring buyers and sellers…

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What if the Real Legacy in OSS isn’t Code – But Culture?

Everyone’s chasing a better OSS, which for most means planning the next OSS platform migration. Yet we rarely ask the key questions that guarantees long-term success: “When was the last time someone in your team really challenged the way things are done?” “Does everyone on your team feel empowered / safe to pose radical new ideas (not just incremental suggestions)?” "Are we designing for day 1…

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Digital Threads are Re-inventing the Modern TowerCo: OSS, Drones, 3D Models and GTM Innovation

Tower sites / assets have long been seen as fixed infrastructure. Passive, static, silent. But a new wave of tools and novel go-to-market (GTM) models are rewriting the rulebook. The smartest TowerCos no longer manage their tower assets from CAD drawings, spreadsheets and manpower alone. They're turning each site into an edge utility hub. Dynamic, intelligent and interactive, with full commercial visibility and immersive situational awareness.…

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Sam Altman Warns of One Major Constraint on Intelligence. And OSS are Closely Linked

Most people think AI innovation depends on breakthroughs in models and training algorithms. But those are just the surface. Underneath, OSS and BSS aren't the constraint, but their coordination could become the ultimate facilitator of intelligence. Sam Altman's testimony at the Senate Committee Hearings on 8 May 2025 only underscores that: "I think it's hard to overstate how important energy is to the future here... Eventually…

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Beyond the Prompt: Training OSS Masters When AI Takes over the Basics

“In vain do we build the city if we do not first build the man.” Edwin Markham AI will surely run the OSS cities of the future. AI may even build the OSS cities of the future. What can we do now to build the OSS masters of the future? . We’re already witnessing the dawn of an AI-infused era in OSS. From fault-fix to network…

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Jeff Bezos Designs for What Won’t Change: 7 Enduring Truths for OSS / BSS and Telco

Forget what’s trending in telecom. The future of telecom isn’t about what changes. It’s about what never will. It’s not about desperately trying to keep up with all the fads or buzzwords. It’s about delivering the things your customers will never stop expecting. Why Jeff Bezos Designs Platforms for Stability, Not Speed Jeff Bezos famously said at AWS that instead of obsessing over what will change…

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Avoiding the Dead Zone: The OSS Transformation Accelerator that is Almost Always Overlooked

Most OSS programs stall before they even start, waiting on the longest pole in the tent - production infrastructure - to become available for the first OSS software builds. This invariably involves waiting on solution designs, procurement, approvals, integrations and more. But what if there were a faster way? There's one step that we use on almost all transformations, one that’s too often overlooked, yet gives…

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Subtracting the Suck: An OSS Product Roadmap

Making your OSS easy to use isn't about adding more "easyness" - it's about subtracting what sucks. "To make your stuff "easier to use" you don't make it "easier." You look at all the things that make it hard, then remove them one by one. Easy isn't something you add. It's what's left over after everything that sucks is removed." Alex Hormozi. "Easy to use" is…

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Field Notes from a Network Exorcist: How to Curse-Proof Your Network

The call came in at 5:43am. “The routers are acting up again down at 1313 Packetloss Lane” the night supervisor whispered, as if afraid the devices might hear her. “It’s... flickering. The network’s hanging in there, but people keep reporting ghost pings and strange device behaviour.” This is the bane of my existence - another cursed asset. I grabbed the essentials: laptop, EM Packet Field Meter…

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Why Telcos desperately need an 8th Layer in the OSI Model

Telco appears to be an increasingly tough industry. Demand for connectivity continues to soar, yet profitability and differentiation are becoming ever more difficult to achieve. The traditional telco playbook - built on infrastructure, scale, and one-size-fits-all services - is collapsing under the weight of commoditisation and digital disruption. Telco services have never been more essential, but telco business models have never been more broken. What if…

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Am I turning into the angry old guy who shakes his fist at the cloud(s)?

I know a guy. One of my great friends actually. We've known each other since kindergarten - back when we were five years old. He loves listening to the radio and watching old videos. He yearns for the old days - the simpler days, the easier days, the less tech-advanced days. I've been finding myself looking at the constant stream of new content coming out of…

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Is your OSS a thermometer or thermostat? 10 Critical Questions to find out

Most OSS platforms monitor, but only the best ones take action. Is yours a thermometer or a thermostat?  Does your OSS only report the temperature, or can it actually help change your environment? Do you think your OSS is doing enough? It could be missing the crucial capabilities that power future-ready networks. Below we provide you with 10 questions to help you uncover the truth about…

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PAOSS Podcast Ep020 – Turning AI from Buzzword to an Implementation Plan with Simon Wilson

  We love doing The Passionate About OSS Podcast, but it's been a loooong time between episodes. Too long. We love the conversations, but the post-processing takes around 8-10 hours depending on the episode. Unfortunately (or fortunately), we've been so busy with client work over the last few years that the podcast has taken a back seat. But we've decided the show MUST go on and…

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Why small tweaks won’t get your OSS into orbit: 4 lessons from rocket scientists

After working with countless OSS product teams over the years, we’ve noticed one universal truth: they’re all overloaded by huge backlogs of feature requests. But when we saw this image of SpaceX’s Raptor engine evolution, it highlighted a vital lesson - one that has the potential to help guide how OSS development teams prioritise their work. However, we'll also provide you with a really interesting twist…

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The two strongest customer acquisition techniques used by OSS vendors today are in serious decline. How to respond?

Yesterday marked a an exciting milestone for the PAOSS business. We made our very first commission payment to an affiliate whose introduction led to a payment arriving in our account (for providing our services). This occasion is far more than a mere financial transaction; it symbolises a significant step in our journey to strengthen our network of partners and advocates. Don't worry, this article isn't just…

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What got your OSS there will keep your OSS there… Unless…

Your OSS is either a catalyst for innovation or a roadblock to progress for your business. The same strategies that built your OSS might now be the reason it’s slowing you down. If your OSS was built for yesterday’s challenges, the question is - will it be ready for tomorrow’s opportunities? Is it time to rethink your approach? Do you know where to start? We recently…

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For 50 years, we’ve been building better calculators… and OSS. Now it all changes!

For decades, OSS has followed the same pattern: design, then keep adding lots more "baked-in" capabilities into a complex OSS UI, process inputs, generate outputs. At incredible scale. We made them faster, (somewhat) more automated, and vastly more scalable. But we never made them think. Until now... If... (we'll come back to the if shortly). But first, I'd like to share a concept from Greg Isenberg…

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One Critical Step is Almost Always Overlooked by OSS Transformation Teams. And it’s the One that could Prevent Obsolescence

What if your OSS transformation is already outdated before your project even begins and you don't even know it yet? There's one overlooked step that separates forward-thinking OSS teams from those stuck in the past. It's a step that, if not implemented, leaves teams destined to introduce insignificant, incremental changes to their OSS (at best) in the future rather than being truly transformational. For some customers,…

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