Passionate About OSS Blog | Passionate About OSS and BSS

CSG selected by Globalstar

CSG to Support Next Generation Satellite Services at Globalstar. CSG International (NASDAQ: CSGS) announced that Globalstar (NYSE MKT: GSAT), a leading international provider of mobile satellite voice and data services, has selected CSG as the revenue and customer management solution provider for its second-generation service launch in the first half of 2016. Globalstar's advanced second-generation satellite constellation and next-generation ground network will offer enhanced services for…

28/01/2016 No Comments

The problem with virtual reality

In the past I've written about a cool tool called AugView that lets you augment what you see in front of you with a spatial representation of physical assets, such as conduits, cables, etc that are actually hidden underground. At the moment there are two limitations that restrict the usefulness of tools like AugView. The first is finding geo-positioning hardware (eg GPS units) that are accurate…

27/01/2016 No Comments

Incident playback

There's an interesting thing about incidents, once they're resolved they no longer need attention, especially not attention on how they might be resolved better in future. But there's something of the special snowflake about incidents - they're all just a little bit different or unique and need their own special attention. [I'm not talking about the "noise" incidents like flapping ports here of course]. With every…

26/01/2016 No Comments

Vicious cycle

Let's have a look at how OSS stands today in the eyes of the customers that invest in them: The pieces don't work together well Too expensive Too risky Too time consuming Consume too many resources Compromised outcomes - Don't give us what we need Then look at it from the perspective of vendors / integrators: Too few customers Too many varied needs Too little margin…

25/01/2016 No Comments

MTN chooses ItsOn

MTN Group chooses ItsOn. ItsOn announced that it has signed a group agreement with MTN Group, Africa's largest mobile operator with more than 230 million customers throughout Africa and the Middle East. MTN will use ItsOn's cloud-based solution to increase subscribers and revenue by selling both enhanced mobile connection services and new digital content through a personalized and affordable on-device commerce experience. ItsOn's platform virtualizes and…

23/01/2016 No Comments

Four carriers breaking away

"China Mobile, Tata, NTT, and Telefónica are creating open source groups to work on their own versions of management and orchestration (MANO) within ETSI’s network functions virtualization (NFV) framework." SDX Central. Interesting news from SDX Central that these four organisations are breaking away from the theoretical development of MANO and looking to push things along in its implementation. Telefonica's OpenMANO open-source project has been underway for…

22/01/2016 No Comments

With knowledge comes power

“You’ve got Amazon knowing everything about purchasing, Google knowing everything about what people do on the Internet, and Salesforce knowing everything about the revenue side of a business.” Scott Raney. The big question for CSPs as they make the transition to the more modern Digital Service Provider (DSP) business models is, "what big thing can they know everything about and use to help their customers be…

21/01/2016 No Comments

CSG expands with WIND Mobile

CSG Expands Relationship with Canada’s WIND Mobile. CSG International (NASDAQ: CSGS) announced that WIND Mobile, Canada’s fourth largest carrier, will add Singleview Commerce Engine to its existing CSG revenue management solutions. The addition of this solution will enable WIND to leverage a single platform to offer pre-paid and post-paid payment models as well as real-time rating and charging, enabling true service convergence across all offered services.…

21/01/2016 No Comments

VSD, PPT, XLS

Question for you: Do your OSS users also use ubiquitous tools like Visio, PowerPoint, Excel and others to help perform their day-to-day workflows? I have two contrasting views on this: POSITIVE: They have carefully specified their needs and they 're rightly using the OSS only to do the most important / efficient tasks, using swivel-chairing to ensure simplicity at all levels of the OSS; or NEGATIVE:…

20/01/2016 2 Comments

Toy Story

I'm currently reading the book, "Creativity, Inc" by Ed Catmull, the CEO of Pixar, the company famous for creating animated films like Toy Story, Cars, Monsters Inc, etc. Perhaps you've heard of them? For me, animated movies are a fascinating blend of technology and art. For almost every customer of Pixar's work, the technology is irrelevant, a means to an end - where the end is…

19/01/2016 No Comments

More things gone wrong

Whoa! What an awful week. Last Monday, l promised to write a follow up post to "Things gone wrong" the next day. Well, that clearly didn't happen, true to form, due to something going wrong. If you plan on taking gastro for a test-drive like l did, I'd strongly recommend against it. :) Anyway, back to the follow-up post that continues to drow parallels to how…

18/01/2016 No Comments

ETSI harmonises NFV information modelling

ETSI Seeks Harmonization of NFV Information Modelling. ETSI’s Industry Specification Group for Network Functions Virtualisation (ETSI NFV) convened a ground-breaking industry workshop to align cloud-centric initiatives and network-centric initiatives to ensure successful realization of NFV through automation. The workshop brought together the leading Standards Development Organizations (SDOs) and Open Source communities in an ‘NFV Village’. The workshop was hosted by CableLabs at their Louisville, Colorado (USA)…

15/01/2016 No Comments

O2 extends Netcracker partnership

O2 in the UK Extends Netcracker Hosted Managed Services Partnership to Enable Nationwide M2M Initiative and Partner Revenue Share Ecosystem. Netcracker announced that Telefónica UK, which operates as O2 in the UK, has agreed to extend the use of Netcracker’s Revenue Management solution through a hosted managed services model for two new significant initiatives. By using Netcracker’s Revenue Management solution and Hosted Managed Services, O2 will…

14/01/2016 No Comments

CenturyLink consolidates on Amdocs

CenturyLink to consolidate ordering, billing across its markets. CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL) is moving to consolidate its local service ordering and billing systems so it can streamline its process and systems across its markets for wholesale CLEC customers. The telco currently operates two ordering and billing systems for its local services products, a product of the various acquisitions it has made over the past two decades, including…

13/01/2016 No Comments

Things gone wrong

OSS has a bad name amongst many of our customers. Yes, even though they invest billions in our industry each year. Do they consider us a necessary evil? Quality, dependability, repeatability. These are the catch-cries of success in many industries. TGW (things gone wrong) per million or per thousand are common metrics that are the bellweather of attaining success (or not). Do we have such metrics in…

11/01/2016 2 Comments

Openet to provide free NFV software

Openet to Provide Free of Charge NFV Software in Initiative to Promote Interoperability and Openness. Openet announced that its OVLM (Openet VNF Lifecycle Manager) software will be made available free of charge from March 2016. This initiative will enable the adoption of vendor-interchangeable and interoperable Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) and help operators to realise the benefits that open NFV can deliver. Michael O’Sullivan, GVP Engineering for…

10/01/2016 No Comments

Slovak Telekom selects Netcracker

Slovak Telekom Selects Netcracker to Radically Simplify Operations with Converged Billing and Services Deal. Netcracker Technology announced that it has expanded its billing relationship with Slovak Telekom, the largest telecommunications service provider in Slovakia. Slovak Telekom will leverage Netcracker’s Revenue Management solution to bring its fixed and mobile billing processes onto a single, end-to-end platform. Netcracker’s Revenue Management solution was Slovak Telekom’s longtime wireline billing system.…

09/01/2016 No Comments

Ready for Work

There's a commonly used terminology in our industry, I'm sure you've heard of it, TOW (Ticket of Work). I like to think of it as a RFW (Ready for Work) because that's what your TOW needs to empower the field worker with. The field worker must know what they need to do, where they need to do it and be appropriately supplied (consumables, tools, equipment) to…

08/01/2016 No Comments

Do I actually generate value?

"Are you an expert at something that actually generates value?" Seth Godin in a recent post called, "No direction home." Seth's post is actually about finding a job in a different way than most people try, one that I'm also a big advocate of. The quote above though is a very philosophical one for all of us in the OSS industry to ponder. Do our OSS,…

07/01/2016 No Comments

CSG Ascendon offers Digital Streaming Service

CSG's Ascendon to Power Digital Streaming Service. CSG International (NASDAQ: CSGS) announced that its CSG Ascendon digital services platform now supports a new digital membership service offering the biggest collection of movies, TV, books, music and apps from one of the world’s most loved entertainment brands. The new membership-based streaming service is available in the United Kingdom and allows consumers to explore entertainment content through a…