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Cisco to pivot to software

Cisco’s Robbins: We’ll transition our revenues to a software, subscription-based model. Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins is set on pivoting the routing giant toward becoming a software-based vendor, signaling its desire to satisfy customers like AT&T which is transitioning its network to software by the end of this decade. “We believe we will transition more of our revenues to a software and subscription based model and accelerate…

20/08/2016 No Comments

Sankey diagrams go with the flow

There can be many parts that make up an operator's provisioning factory. There can also be multiple different software packages that contribute towards getting an order through the factory. In addition to that, there are usually many different activities that need to take place, some automatic, some manual, some as external dependencies, conditional gates, etc. That's why operators design process maps and why most OSS have…

18/08/2016 No Comments

Customer demand influence

“Global telecommunications study: navigating the road to 2020.” In the study listed above, executives at some of the world's largest CSPs indicate that the players most likely to disrupt their industry is OTT app providers. Any thoughts on why they might be perceived to be 30x more influential than technology specialists, or 5x more influential than cable/satellite operators? My take is that it's because OTT app…

17/08/2016 No Comments

Understanding an OSS shopping list

I recently read this great scenario in a customer's requirements gathering guide and it can be related to the capturing of OSS requirements too. As a husband, I can also relate more directly to the scenario. ;) Wife says... I sent my husband grocery shopping for: Tomato paste Shampoo Apples Extra Virgin Olive Oil Milk Chocolate He comes back with: Tomato paste Shampoo Apples Extra Virgin…

16/08/2016 1 Comment

Simplification at scale

On Friday we published The Simplification Mantra. It discussed the starting perspectives for simplification and that OSS already have so much functionality that they're difficult for users to navigate. An example that I see time and again is where OSS can achieve a requirement, let's say designing a service for one customer, but don't cater for delivering the functionality at scale (ie designing services for hundreds…

15/08/2016 No Comments

Crescendo Partners demands sale of Redknee Solutions

Crescendo Partners Sends Letter to Redknee Solutions Inc. Board of Directors. Crescendo Partners today announced that it has delivered a letter to the Board of Directors of Redknee Solutions Inc. In the letter, Crescendo Partners urges the Board to immediately commence a broad sale process for the entire Company. Crescendo believes that numerous potential buyers would be interested in acquiring Redknee because of its strong brand…

14/08/2016 No Comments

The simplification mantra

When it comes to designing, building and configuring OSS, there is a tendency to have a functionality delivery mindset. That is, if we can get our OSS to meet each functional requirement then we tick the box and move on to the next. There is usually a long list of requirements that need to be ticked off, so we don't have time to go through the…

12/08/2016 No Comments

Redknee wins VoLTE Tier 1 upgrade in Europe

Redknee Wins VoLTE Upgrade With Tier 1 Operator in Europe. Redknee Solutions Inc. announced that it has won a multi-million dollar contract to upgrade a major Tier 1 communication service provider (CSP) in Europe to the latest release of the Redknee Unified Application Server, part of Redknee’s monetization and subscriber management suite. Redknee Unified is deployed in the CSP’s virtualized data center and supports more than…

12/08/2016 No Comments

User journeys

Network operators often talk about five-nines (ie 99.999% up-time on any given network device) as a measure of the reliability of their networks. However, I personally don't believe that many of the operators' customers would consider this as a measure of network quality. Five-nines is a metric that is widely cited from inside the walls of operators, partly because it sounds impressive but also because it…

11/08/2016 No Comments

Extending the OSS value chain

"To avoid commoditization, telcos should become the focal point of the extended value chain, focusing on digital services and taking advantage of their traditional competencies." "Global telecommunications study: navigating the road to 2020." The graph above tells a story about the changing share of wallet (end-to-end value chain) in the telecommunications sector. The three dials to the left are the traditional end-to-end value chain for a…

10/08/2016 No Comments

The danger of shortening time-to-market

Time-to-market is an important metric in the Telco vernacular. It's important because rapid TTM allows one CSP to get an attractive new product out to customers earlier than competitors and all the benefits that go with it (ie rapid revenue turn-on, market share, brand awareness, etc). One of the primary impediments to a product's TTM is the IT stream (including OSS, process / tech / contract…

09/08/2016 2 Comments

How is OSS a strategic priority for telco execs

"Global telecommunications study: navigating the road to 2020" It's interesting that "Improved IT Systems and Processes" is seen as a strategic priority by around a third of respondents to this executive study by EY. It also implies that improved IT systems and processes are probably only front-of-mind for investment for about one third of Telco executives. Do you know what I see in this graph? I…

08/08/2016 No Comments

NEC and Netcracker provide vLTE to ITRI in Taiwan

NEC and Netcracker Provide Virtualized LTE Core Network to ITRI in Taiwan. NEC Corporation and Netcracker Technology announced that they have provided a virtualized Evolved Packet Core (vEPC) solution via NEC Taiwan Ltd. to the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), a non-profit research institute working under the Ministry of Economic Affairs in Taiwan. The NEC/Netcracker vEPC solution has a proven global track record of virtualizing network…

06/08/2016 No Comments

Indosat Ooredoo signs with Fortumo

Indosat Ooredoo and Fortumo Launch Direct Carrier Billing in Indonesia. The mobile payments company Fortumo and Indonesia’s leading digital telco Indosat Ooredoo are today announcing the launch of direct carrier billing. The partnership will enable 69.8 million Indosat Ooredoo subscribers’ to make online payments by charging purchases to their mobile account, without the need to use a credit card. “We are pleased to build this strategic…

06/08/2016 No Comments

Contingency planning in real-time

"Instead of asking: do we have enough capacity? telcos should be asking: when (and where) will we run out of capacity? And what are we doing to mitigate? Instead of simply reacting to outages, telcos should have a real time view of the current risk points, failure scenarios and their impacts - with recovery plans should the worst case failure happen." Robert Curran here. What a wonderful concept…

05/08/2016 No Comments

TM Forum Open APIs

"Until now, communications service providers could not match their digital native counterparts when it came to delivering what customers want, when and where they want it. Now there is a real opportunity to close that gap through a number of interrelated, big trends that are happening in parallel. This includes transforming their infrastructure through network functions virtualization (NFV), software-defined networking (SDN) and cloud technologies, and transforming…

04/08/2016 2 Comments

The network must at least break even

"I made the point that there was one rule that had to govern any operator shift of focus to higher service layers—the network itself must remain profitable. You can’t say you’ll earn new revenue that in part at least will subsidize a network loss, because competitors with no network and no losses will then have a pricing advantage you can’t make up. What higher-layer services could…

03/08/2016 No Comments

Digital innovation practices

"Gartner’s 2016 CIO Survey revealed five key innovation practices that deliver the highest improvement in digital performance: Crowdsourcing, Different metrics, Formal innovation management and work with Startups. Nevertheless according to the same survey, CIOs also indicated that these five innovation were the least used." Sebastian Barros here. I suspect these CIO findings are also mirrored in the OSS industry. How many OSS organisations do you know that are making use of: Crowdsourcing,…

02/08/2016 No Comments

Redknee selected by Tbaytel

Redknee Selected to Monetize Tbaytel’s Multi-Play Services and Support its Digital Transformation. Redknee Solutions Inc. announced the signing of a new multi-million dollar digital transformation contract with Tbaytel, the largest independently owned telecommunications service provider in Canada. This win will leverage Redknee’s experience in managing and implementing complex IT transformation projects to modernize Tbaytel’s business support systems. The Redknee solution will consolidate Tbaytel’s existing multi-play service…

02/08/2016 No Comments

The small-grid OSS platform

"Perhaps the most egregious platform failure is to simply not see the platform play at all. It is also one of the hardest for traditional firms to avoid. Firms guilty of this oversight never get past the idea that they sell products when they could be building ecosystems. Sony, Hewlett Packard (HP), and Garmin all made the mistake of emphasizing products over platforms. Before the iPhone…

01/08/2016 No Comments

Sprint and Ericsson renew partnership

Sprint and Ericsson renew portions of managed services partnership. Ericsson and Sprint announced a renewal of portions of the companies' 2009 managed services contract, which reaches its full term in September 2016. Going forward Ericsson will continue to be a key business partner for Sprint. As part of the new relationship Ericsson will provide some multi-vendor services that support the ongoing operations, development and transformation of…

29/07/2016 No Comments

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