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Turk Telekom signs with Redknee

Redknee Awarded a Multi-Year Contract to Support Turk Telekom with the Launch of New Services. Redknee Solutions Inc. (TSX: RKN) announced the signing of a new multi-year expansion of services contract, including licenses, support and other consulting services, with Turk Telekom, a leading mobile operator in Turkey with over 17 million subscribers. With signing of this new contract, Turk Telekom will further strengthen its relationship with…

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24/02/2016 No Comments

New ETSI group to deliver MANO

New ETSI group develops Open Source for NFV. A new ETSI group has commenced development of Open Source software for Management and Orchestration (MANO) of Network Functions Virtualization (NFV). The open source implementation will be aligned with ETSI’s NFV Industry Specification Group (ISG). Two of the key components of the ETSI NFV architectural framework are the NFV Orchestrator and VNF (Virtualized Network Function) Manager, known as…

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24/02/2016 No Comments

Paradox of choice

"He [Barry Schwartz] suggests that because we are presented with so much information, the overload of options and data leads us to falsely believe that, even a fairly mundane task like shopping for toothpaste, has greater significance than it really does." Howstuffworks.com. Why do 5-10yo kids know what profession they want to do but by the end of high school 10 years later, most do not?…

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24/02/2016 1 Comment

Netcracker partners with BT

Netcracker Supports BT’s Digital Service Provider Transformation. Netcracker Technology announced that BT Group (BT), one of the world’s leading communications companies, has extended its partnership with Netcracker for revenue and billing management technology solutions and professional services. BT is leading the industry by transforming its technology platforms, and the business models associated with them, to create a new kind of digital service provider—a network operator with…

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24/02/2016 No Comments

Nokia to acquire Nakina Systems

Nokia strengthens security portfolio with planned acquisition of Nakina Systems. Nokia plans to acquire Canadian software firm Nakina Systems ("Nakina"), to reinforce its position in security at a time when customers are bolstering their defenses to cope with the increasing demands of hyper connectivity, new regulations and emerging technologies. The companies previously had a five-year partnership where Nokia used Nakina's software in several customer projects. Security…

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23/02/2016 No Comments

Creating assets

"Your financial planner, real estate agent, and accountant all call your house an asset. But in reality, an asset is only something that puts money in your pocket. If you have a house that you rent out to tenants, then it’s an asset. If you have a house, paid for or not, that you live in, then it can’t be an asset. Instead of putting money…

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23/02/2016 No Comments

What would Warren Buffett’s OSS look like?

"Lethargy bordering on sloth remains the cornerstone of our investment style." Warren Buffett in his 1990 Chairman's Letter. It's been said that 90% of Warren Buffett's immense wealth has been derived from just 10 deals. That's 10 deals in roughly 60 years of investing. Warren undoubtedly gets to see many opportunities but only invests in a select few, bypassing many great opportunities to bet big on…

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22/02/2016 No Comments

BT Mobile selects Openet

BT Mobile selects Openet to deliver real-time charging for mobile MVNO. Openet announced that BT has installed Openet’s NFV-ready Evolved Charging solution. The market leading converged service provider has selected Openet’s virtualized, real-time BSS technology to monetize its consumer mobile service. BT Mobile will harness the added agility and flexibility of Openet’s real-time charging platform to drive fast time-to-market for its new MVNO venture. BT Mobile…

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22/02/2016 No Comments

Telstra Ericsson and Sequans partner on loT

Telstra network ready to support IoT - Telstra blog post. Telstra announced another major milestone in their network evolution as they enable support for Category 1 (Cat1) devices and build a new foundation for the Internet of Things (IoT). To date when we have spoken of our LTE service on our mobile network we have compared it to a highway optimised for the fastest vehicles racing…

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21/02/2016 No Comments

Getting to genba part 2

In "Getting to genba" we discussed the Japanese concept of genba or defining where is the real place that work gets done. According to a learned colleague named Paul who also grew up in Japan, genba is part of popular culture there, being cited regularly in business discussions. We had an interesting discussion about the earlier blog and some of the thoughts have spawned this follow-up…

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19/02/2016 No Comments

T-Mobile Netherlands selects Netcracker

T-Mobile Netherlands Optimizes End-to-End Product Management with Netcracker BSS. Netcracker announced that T-Mobile Netherlands, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, has selected Netcracker to implement its sophisticated Product Management solution, which is comprised of Product Catalog and Product Lifecycle Management components. This will help T-Mobile Netherlands improve the overall management and delivery of its services. T-Mobile Netherlands is among the largest providers of mobile telecommunications, offering services…

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19/02/2016 No Comments

3 Macau signs CSG

3 Macau Leverages CSG Singleview for New 4G LTE Services. CSG International (NASDAQ: CSGS) announced that 3 Macau now uses CSG Singleview® to provide comprehensive integrated revenue and customer management system for its advanced 4G LTE services. To coincide with the network launch in December 2015, CSG used its proven Accelerate methodology to deploy a comprehensive revenue and customer management solution. The deployment included CSG’s Singleview…

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19/02/2016 No Comments

Network data models

Over the years of working with different OSS products I've noticed two distinct approaches to building the data models that underpin OSS functionality. The two options are: Network specific data model Generic data model The first approach sees the vendor implement a different data structure for each different network type (eg Ethernet, transmission, etc). The second has a network-agnostic approach that by default is also agnostic…

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18/02/2016 4 Comments

TOT signs with Netcracker

TOT Combines Pre-Paid, Post-Paid, Mobile and Fixed Billing with Convergent Netcracker Solution. Netcracker announced that TOT Public Company Limited, formerly known as the Telephone Organization of Thailand, has implemented Netcracker’s Convergent Billing solution to consolidate its pre-paid and post-paid fixed and mobile rating, charging and billing processes, which were traditionally managed on disparate platforms. TOT is a leading provider of fixed and mobile telephony services across…

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18/02/2016 No Comments

Getting to genba

Efficiency experts refer to getting to genba (or gemba), a Japanese term for "the real place" or the place where the "real" work gets done. lt's the place where every movement is vital and any inefficiency or waste is a target for improvement. In OSS, genba resides in two places - the product development and the customer implementation site. Creating OSS tools and configuring them for…

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17/02/2016 No Comments

Designing complex solutions with seemingly insignificant OSS tools

"Great things are done by a series of small things brought together." Vincent Van Gogh. I recently contributed on a vendor's product design exercise and came away with some ideas that are worth sharing here. We started the process by trying to resolve a problem faced by many OSS customers. The problem related to re-designing their network to adapt to ever-changing demands within the network. The…

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16/02/2016 No Comments

SolarWinds completes $4.5B sale

SolarWinds completes $4.5B sale. On Friday morning Austin software maker SolarWinds Inc. quietly completed its $4.5 billion sale to two investment firms. Jason Ream, Solarwinds’ chief financial officer, said the day was business as usual for the 17-year-old company, with only an internal email announcement sent out notifiying employees the deal had closed. In October, Silver Lake Partners and Thoma Bravo announced plans to take SolarWinds…

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15/02/2016 No Comments

Smart city OSS

A great friend of mine, Evan, and I recently caught up with Mike Lawrey, the Chairman of the TM Forum. Mike spoke to us about some interesting initiatives the TM Forum has in the pipeline, including some that build upon the success of their Smart City Forum. You may have noticed that I regularly discuss the future of OSS spreading from operations into digital ecosystems. I…

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15/02/2016 No Comments

OSS pyramid scheme

Most pyramid schemes have a bad name, but I have one for you today that is actually helpful to all involved. As we know, (almost) every organisation in the OSS industry is constrained by a shortage of talented resources that know the organisation's specific solution intimately. In some cases, the shortage leaves individuals as single points of knowledge and single points of failure. This is not…

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12/02/2016 No Comments

Planning – A tough challenge

After years of seeing OSS products, there's one set of functionality that tends to be highly desired by customers but rarely offered (well) by vendors. This tells me that it is very difficult to implement, and having also worked with vendors, I can attest to the challenge faced. The functionality set I'm talking about relates to network planning, being able to store multiple overlapping or cross-dependant…

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11/02/2016 2 Comments

Nokia launches AVA

Nokia AVA, the new cloud-based cognitive platform for service delivery to operators. Nokia has created a new way to develop and deliver expert services to operators seeking near-perfect network performance and availability, improved operational efficiency and thus a superior customer experience. Nokia AVA is a cloud-based platform that combines big data storage, intelligent analytics and extreme automation, allowing operators to move away from traditional reactive network…

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10/02/2016 No Comments