The diagram below shows what is known as The Whale Curve. It shows a graph of the relative profitability of each product in your product mix. From the book, "Waging War on Complexity Costs," by Steven A Wilson and Andrei Perumal. You might be wondering how a profitability graph could ever peak at over 100%. After all, a company can only ever have a profitability of…
Read More »If you were to define just one trait that every person in OSS must unquestionably have, what would it be? There are so many to choose from: Ability to work in a team - projects tend to be too broad for any one person to specify, design, implement, hand over and maintain Flexibility - it's a bit like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates. You're never sure…
Read More »I was recently asked how I would go about building up an OSS from scratch. To be honest, I didn't do a great job of explaining it at the time despite having done it at four tier-1 carriers in the past. Well, not exactly from scratch, as each of these carriers had operated from NMS for years but had never had OSS. They had existing organisation…
Read More »CENX Awarded Tier 1 EMEA Service Provider Contract. CENX announced the company has been selected by a Tier 1 global communications service provider, with headquarters in southern Europe, to orchestrate and assure on-demand cloud and data center services. CENX's Exanova Service Intelligence (http://cenx.com/products/exanova-service-intelligence-for-sdn-nfv/) software will enable on-demand deployment and real-time assurance of innovative services for the service provider's international enterprise and wholesale carrier customers. Initial services…
Read More »I've been lucky enough to have mentored and spoken with quite a few people taking the first few steps on their career journeys. I find it interesting that many new grads focus on getting a role or internship with the big name corporations. You know the ones. At the time, I was shattered upon falling at the last round of interviews to enter the graduate program…
Read More »Ooredoo Maldives Selects Alepo’s Fixed Broadband Charging and Customer Care Solution for the Introduction of Next-Generation Fixed Broadband Services. Alepo announced that Ooredoo Maldives has selected Alepo to provide a fixed broadband(FBB) charging and customer care solution for its nationwide fixed broadband network. In the Maldives, Ooredoo has established itself as the market leader in the mobile broadband sector and recently piloted new mobile money services…
Read More »I was just rummaging around here on PAOSS looking for an old post that I wrote giving a high-level description on NETCONF and YANG... only to find that I hadn't written a a high-level description on NETCONF and YANG yet. I could've sworn that I'd written something a year or two ago but apparently I hadn't. Anyway, here's the article I didn't write two years ago...…
Read More »Indonesia's Biznet Selects Amdocs Software to Support its Business Growth. Amdocs announced that Biznet, Indonesia’s leading fiber-optic operator and provider of Internet and Cable TV services and a new Amdocs customer, has selected Amdocs to provide a comprehensive customer care and billing solution in support of its growth plans and to deliver a premier customer service. "In order to support our ambitious growth plans, we needed…
Read More »General Communication, Inc. (GCI), the leading communications service provider in Alaska, has selected Netcracker. Netcracker Technology announced that General Communication, Inc. (GCI), the leading communications service provider in Alaska, has selected Netcracker to enable its Polaris Program, which is the transformation of GCI’s customer, revenue and operations management systems. These new capabilities will deliver a better customer experience, reduce operational costs through managed services and greater…
Read More »"...the program "The Brain," in which Dr David Eagleman, neuroscientist, NYT bestselling author and Guggenheim Fellow shared a fascinating but little known secret…our brains are specifically designed so that we learn on the job – by doing. Dr Eagleman explained that this is why human babies do not have anywhere near the survival skills possessed by animal babies. While a giraffe calf can stand and walk…
Read More »OSS regression testing, for those not already familiar with the term, is to re-run old tests to ensure existing functionality in your OSS doesn't get broken by new code releases. With agile development methodologies becoming more widespread and regular, smaller releases occurring it's important to have a robust regression testing regime in place. There are a number of tools on the market that make automated regression…
Read More »Amdocs Launches Amdocs Cloud-Fusion, Enabling Service Providers to Deliver Cloud Services for Business Customers Utilizing Microsoft Azure. Amdocs announced a new solution called Amdocs Cloud-Fusion in collaboration with Microsoft. The solution enables service providers to provide connectivity and more secure cloud applications for enterprise and small-and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). It enables enhanced cloud service offerings such as premium bandwidth, wide area network (WAN) optimization, and committed…
Read More »"For many, the idea of self-service business intelligence, where IT opens up a small menu of capabilities for employees, has not yet produced its promised benefits despite having been around for a few years. It is clearly an improvement on the traditional, IT-run report factory, but it is still too limiting to satisfy people’s ever-growing appetite for information. So far, self-service BI is more like IKEA’s…
Read More »"It's astounding to see the huge range of products and services that are becoming commoditized. Consumers can't see differences between major brands in most categories, and as a result, many are buying based on price. If companies want to increase their margins -- maybe even survive -- they must learn how to develop value-add brands that set them apart from the competition in their customers' minds."…
Read More »Turkcell Improves Customer Experience with NEC’s and Netcracker’s Resource Management Solution. NEC Corporation and Netcracker Technology announced today that Turkcell, a converged telecommunication and technology services provider in Turkey, has successfully deployed Netcracker’s Resource Management solution. This is part of Turkcell’s continued focus on customer satisfaction and infrastructure optimization and will allow it to provision new services more quickly. Turkcell, with support from NEC and Netcracker,…
Read More »John P. Reilly has recently released his latest book, entitled, "The Value Fabric: A Guide to Doing Business in the Digital World." (Amazon link here) You've probably already heard of John in the world of OSS. He is a subject matter expert, master trainer and Distinguished Fellow of TM Forum. He has also been responsible for providing Information Framework (SID) model subject matter knowledge in support…
Read More »Arguably the world's biggest OSS event, TM Forum Live, starts today in Nice, France. Details can be found here. I'll be particularly interested in the 29 Catalyst programs (proofs of concept by industry leaders).
Read More »Late last week we borrowed from Ben Evan's three classes of search/discovery to look into what the future holds for OSS. There is giving you what you already know you want (Amazon, Google) There is working out what you want (Amazon and Google's aspiration) And then there is suggesting what you might want (Heywood Hill). Benedict Evans here. In the last in this series, we look…
Read More »Andorra Telecom Optimizes Converged Billing by Deploying Additional Netcracker BSS Capabilities. Netcracker Technology announced that Andorra Telecom has gone live with a BSS expansion by implementing Netcracker’s Online Charging System and Voucher Management solution to consolidate its pre-paid and post-paid customers onto a single converged billing platform. The BSS solutions will integrate with Andorra Telecom’s already extensive suite of end-to-end Netcracker BSS and OSS solutions. Andorra…
Read More »Salesforce Creates Communications Industry Framework to Modernize and Bring Communications Service Providers to the Cloud. We all know that the communications industry is facing enormous disruption. New, over-the-top players, such as Amazon, Facebook and Google, threaten traditional business models. At the same time, operators struggle to provide customers, who are shopping for services or resolving issues across separate channels, with a seamless experience. In fact, according…
Read More »In yesterday's blog we discussed Ben Evans' models of search and discovery (as follows) as well as how that overlays on OSS: There is giving you what you already know you want (Amazon, Google) There is working out what you want (Amazon and Google's aspiration) And then there is suggesting what you might want (Heywood Hill). Benedict Evans here. Now if you think of OSS as being:…
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