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Netcracker goes live at Slovak Telekom

Netcracker's Converged Fixed and Mobile Revenue Management Solution Goes Live at Slovak Telekom. Netcracker Technology announced that Slovak Telekom, the largest Slovak communications service provider, has gone live with Netcracker's converged Revenue Management solution for its residential and VSE/SoHo customers. Netcracker's offering enables Slovak Telekom to manage all billing and rating processes for both fixed and mobile customers through a single, converged, end-to-end system. As a…

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20/11/2017 No Comments

6 principles of OSS UI design

"When we talk about building capabilities by design, there are a set of four core capabilities that you should keep in mind: Designed for self-sufficiency: Enable an environment where the business user is capable of acquiring, blending, presenting, and visualizing their data discoveries. IT needs to move away from being command and control to being an information broker in a new kind of business-IT partnership that…

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20/11/2017 No Comments

NTT East Japan adopts Cisco NFV

NTT East Japan Adopts Cisco NFV Portfolio To Help Small and Medium Enterprises With ICT Cloud Computing. Cisco Systems G.K. announced that Nippon Telegraph and Telephone East Corporation has adopted a full-stack, ETSI-compliant NFV solution validated and supported by Cisco for its new Maruraku Office service. This will enable the centralized creation, management and operation of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) environments for small and medium…

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19/11/2017 No Comments

Guns don’t kill OSS

Guns don't kill people, people do. Similarly, Technology doesn't kill OSS projects, people do... Actually people with technology do. The following shows the escalation of global CAPEX allocated by CSPs over the last thirty years (in current currency).. apart from a few brief years around the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). The CAPEX uplift also represents the increase in complexity in the networks and solutions used by…

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17/11/2017 No Comments

Building an OSS piggybank with scoreboard pressure

"The gameplan tells what you want to happen, but the scoreboard tells what is happening." John C Maxwell Over the years, I've found it interesting that most of the organisations I've consulted to have significant hurdles for a new OSS to jump through to get funded (the gameplan), but rarely spend much time on the results (the scoreboard)... apart from the burndown of capital during the…

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16/11/2017 No Comments

Been done before, been done before

"What percentage of the work you do each day is work where the process (the 'right answer') is known? Jobs where you replicate a process instead of inventing one... The place where we can create the most value is when we do a job where exploration and a new solution is what's needed. Not rote, but exploration. Which means we're doing something that's not been done…

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15/11/2017 No Comments

If OSS is my hammer, am I only seeing nails?

OSS is a powerful multi-purpose tool, much like a hammer. If OSS is my only tool, do I see all problems as nails that I have to drive home with my OSS? The downside of this is that it then needs to be designed, built, integrated, tested, released, supported, upgraded, data curated and maintained. The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for a given problem extends far…

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14/11/2017 No Comments

OSS User Experiences at 3.5 inches

"The far-reaching impact of the technology revolution of 2007 with the launch of the Apple iPhone is not to be underestimated. Across every industry, Apple has had a profound influence through the psychological effect of how consumers expect technology to interact with them. People now expect good design as part of their visual communication and interactivity with information. In obsessing over simple, intuitive design, Apple sets…

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13/11/2017 No Comments

OSS death in The Matrix

"84 percent of employees are "matrixed" to some extent, meaning they serve on multiple teams" Gallup Report: "State of the American Workplace." Like me, you've probably worked on some highly functional OSS teams as well as some dysfunctional ones. Perhaps you've even worked with teams that have had elements of both. Today I reflect on what have been the ingredients of the highly functional teams I've…

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10/11/2017 No Comments

Big circle. Little circle. Crossing the red line

Data quality is the bane of many a telco. If the data quality is rubbish then the OSS tools effectively become rubbish too. Feedback loops are one of the most underutilised tools in a data fix arsenal. However, few people realise that there are two levels of feedback loops. There's what I refer to as big circle and little circle feedback loops. 1. The little loop…

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09/11/2017 2 Comments

An uncommon list of OSS books

Since reading the first book on this list, I've become a very avid and wide-ranging reader. The seeds sown by the book list below have immensely helped enrich the content you see here on the PAOSS blog and other PAOSS content. These are the books that have most inspired me or influenced my thinking. Sometimes in a small way. Sometimes as core, fundamental beliefs. Even though…

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07/11/2017 No Comments

The OSS cosmetic surgery analogy

I love the fact that we're constantly seeking incremental improvements for our OSS. However, cumulative OSS changes can be a double-edged sword, just as they can be in the cosmetic surgery industry. In both cases, these well intentioned changes can distort as readily as they can improve. Photo-collage courtesy of DailyMail.co.uk. I've seen OSS go from being open, intuitive, adaptable and flexible tools to being so…

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06/11/2017 No Comments

The alchemy of OSS

"Alchemy is the ancient practice of trying to turn lead into gold... alchemy was an art based partly upon experimentation and partly upon magic." Benjamin Radford here on Live Science. The definition of alchemy is, "part science, part art," according to Geoff Leong. To William Whewell, "In general, art has preceded science. Men have executed great, and curious, and beautiful works before they had a scientific…

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03/11/2017 No Comments

The madness of most OSS training

When you've just implemented a new OSS, what does the training look like? A 2-3 week classroom course series? A train-the-trainer series, which then trickles down to the workforce? If this is what your OSS training looks like (or even closely resembles), then this is madness. Unfortunately, this is the model that I've seen most predominantly in the wild. Many OSS build contracts / RFPs even…

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02/11/2017 2 Comments

This is NEVER going to happen

Have you noticed all the recent headlines about the big, iconic brands in our industry struggling to make targets, cutting headcounts, etc.? This covers vendors and service providers alike. As a complete generalisation: Vendors are going backwards Traditional CSPs are going backwards Profit decline means projects and investments in OSS can only be trending downwards too We know it's a burning platform. We know that the…

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01/11/2017 2 Comments

Lighting the fire under OSS

"Forcing people to follow new rules is always an uphill battle, but getting them to buy into a concept to the point where they start contributing their own ideas can literally create a movement within an organisation." Ken Segall. I've really diverted away from direct discussions about OSS in a couple of recent posts about influence, persuasion and change. However, as the link suggests, I recently…

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31/10/2017 No Comments

Fon joins prpl Foundation

Fon joins prpl Foundation to accelerate open-source innovation for the Digital Home and Carrier WiFi. The prpl Foundation, an open-source, community-driven, not-for-profit consortium with a focus enabling the security and interoperability of embedded devices for the smart society of the future, has announced that Fon has joined the Foundation. As the world's leading WiFi software company, Fon joins prpl to accelerate the development of a common,…

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28/10/2017 No Comments

Your OSS – asset or liability?

An asset is something that puts money into your pocket every month. A liability takes money out. Based on those very simple terms, is your OSS an asset or a liability? If a liability, does it aspire to be an asset? By that, I mean are you actively doing stuff to make it profitable in its own right, or are you happy to just apportion the…

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27/10/2017 No Comments

Vivo extends with Netcracker

Vivo Extends Operation for Netcracker's Revenue Management and Provisioning Solution Until 2020. Netcracker Technology announced that Vivo, the subsidiary of the Telefónica Group operating in Brazil, has extended its BSS Operations and Support contract with Netcracker until 2020. The Netcracker BSS platform used by Vivo is currently responsible for supporting the billing operations for B2C and B2B for more than 35 million subscribers. As the leading…

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26/10/2017 No Comments

Event news – OSS in the era of SDN / NFV

Event: "OSS in the era of SDN / NFV" In it's fourth year of staging this event, Light Reading continues to build on its successes as the industry's premier forum for the discussion of the impact of SDN and NFV on network operations and OSS. It's being held on 1 Nov (next Wednesday) at The Royal Garden Hotel in London. More info can be found at…

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26/10/2017 No Comments

Dirty tickets done dirt cheap

"The only way to get rid of Dirty Tickets of Work (DToW) is to get rid of Tickets of Work (ToW)" DToW is terminology used in Telstra to indicate that incorrect information has been entered into the ToW or where the field tech hasn't been able to complete the ToW as originally designed / planned. I'm not sure if only Telstra uses this terminology. I haven't…

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26/10/2017 No Comments