Passionate About OSS Blog | Passionate About OSS and BSS

OSS – like a duck on a pond

Let's start with a basic question. "What does an OSS need to do?" The basic answer is, "make operations easier." The real answer(s) is so much more nuanced than that of course. The term easier can also encapsulate other words such as faster, more accurate, more repeatable, cheaper, etc. Designing, building, operating and maintaining a sizable network is extremely challenging, despite network operators around the world,…

12/10/2018 No Comments

OSS Road-itecture. Part-roadmap, part-architecture

A post from earlier this week discussed a less risky, dependency-reduced, stepping-stone transformation approach. It contrasted with the big-bang delivery model that's often proposed on OSS projects. Taking the same train of thought, have you noticed how often architects (including myself) come up with an end-state view of what an OSS, or IT, or networks will be? Have you also noticed that they often seek to…

11/10/2018 2 Comments

OSS / BSS supplier list updated

We've just added a bunch of additional suppliers to our OSS and BSS product / vendor list. There are now over 200 entries in the table. Check it out here: https://passionateaboutoss.com/vendors-products/ Who have we missed??

09/10/2018 No Comments

For fear of OSS investment

Friday's post discussed three analogies about the challenges of performing an OSS pivot. The biggest challenge in initiating the transformation / replacement of any significant OSS is fear. There are many OSS out there whose "owners" want to change and need to change... but fear changing because a significant pivot would mean a "sell the farm" decision. The fear is completely understandable. These are highly complex…

08/10/2018 No Comments

Do the laws of physics prevent you from making an OSS pivot?

As you already know, the word pivot has become common in the world of business, particularly the world of start-ups. It's a euphemism for a significant change in strategic direction. In the context of today's post, I love the word pivot because it implies a rapid change in direction, something that's seemingly impossible for most of our OSS and the customers who use them. I…

05/10/2018 No Comments

Global OSS/BSS Market to surpass $50bn by 2024

Global OSS/BSS Market to surpass $50bn by 2024: predicts Global Market Insights, Inc. OSS/BSS Market share is estimated to cross USD 50 billion by 2024, according to a new research report by Global Market Insights, Inc. The OSS/BSS market is propelled by the increasing trend of outsourcing services in the telecom industry. As telecommunication service providers grapple with the increasing amount of data, they also need…

05/10/2018 No Comments

Build an OSS and they will come… or sometimes not

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 time for cut-over, the end users want to stick with what…

04/10/2018 No Comments

Falsely rewarding based on OSS existence rather than excellence

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 concept. Contracts are often awarded based on existence rather than excellence.…

02/10/2018 No Comments

PLDT signs with Amdocs

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 media companies, announced that they are expanding their strategic partnership under…

01/10/2018 No Comments

OSS automations – just because we can, doesn’t mean we should

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 tree you're trying to automate, the higher the costs and therefore…

01/10/2018 No Comments

OSS implementation, but without the dependencies

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 hoping they all align at the right times. I've noticed that…

28/09/2018 No Comments

OSS that are profitable, difficult, or important?

"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 important, nothing they’ve done recently has been either... Profitable, difficult, or…

27/09/2018 No Comments

OSS project stalled? Cancel it

"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 stuck any more. B. You’ll follow through and cancel it, and…

26/09/2018 No Comments

OSS holds the key to network slicing

"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 are not met...even high numbers of slices could be managed without…

24/09/2018 No Comments

OSS designed as a bundle, or bundled after?

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 integrated, a series of obviously different stones joined together with some…

21/09/2018 No Comments

If ONAP is the answer, what are the questions?

"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 architecture and implementation for network automation–with an open standards focus–faster than…

20/09/2018 No Comments

Very little OSS data is ever actually used

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. Other cost factors include data curation, cleansing, database search performance, etc.…

19/09/2018 No Comments

Where are the reliability hotspots in your OSS?

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 is whether you're able to identify where the hotspots are in…

17/09/2018 No Comments

Stop looking for exciting new features for your OSS

"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 was hugely disruptive to travel agents. Online booking (for the sake…

14/09/2018 No Comments

Chasing the big OSS waves

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 the leading edge of change. The right-side of the curve is…

13/09/2018 No Comments

Persona mapping for OSS PoCs

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 simple exercise you can use is to identify the personas /…

12/09/2018 No Comments

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