Passionate About OSS Blog | Passionate About OSS and BSS

OSS requirements

"I have no requirements for a style of architecture." Michael Graves. There's an interesting thing about generating requirements for technical projects - they are rarely requirements. More often than not, they're written as a solution. Requirements documents should focus on the business objectives, the outputs, the problems that need to be overcome. Unfortunately they are generally written by technical people and end up specifying technical functions,…

11/11/2015 2 Comments

Cisco and Ericsson to partner

Cisco and Ericsson to partner. Today we are taking an important step forward in our transformation journey. Ericsson and Cisco are announcing a multi-faceted partnership to create the networks of the future – and through this, shape the direction of the industry. Both companies have invested a lot of time in designing this partnership over the past year, and I am thrilled to be able to…

10/11/2015 No Comments

Simple sophistication

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." Leonardo da Vinci. l often speak about the urgency for simplification here on PAOSS and it has me wondering why it is such a challenge, for me included, within the realm of OSS. I suspect the ambiguity of simplicity scares many people as it requires us to think in terms of reduction, in terms of what is most important. An example…

10/11/2015 No Comments

Skating on thin ice

"Imagine that it's Winter, you're walking in the forest, and you see a frozen pond with a hundred people skating on it. Now, imagine walking past the same pond with nobody, or just one person skating on it. Would you be more likely to go skating on the pond in the first case or in the second one?" Luc De Brabandere and Alan Iny. Luc and…

09/11/2015 No Comments

Strategic / contingency planning playbook

"A contingency plan is a plan devised for an outcome other than in the usual (expected) plan." Websters dictionary. This week we've used the metaphors of black swans, elephants in the room and boiling frogs to highlight some of the challenges that could be faced by the OSS industry. Once you've gone through your own version of this risk profiling exercise, the next step is to…

06/11/2015 No Comments

Strategic planning – boiling frogs

"The idea of ‘boiling frogs’ relates to the anecdotal frog that, in theory, doesn’t jump out of the pot if you raise the temperature very gradually and ends up being boiled alive. Apparently the latest biological research is that the frog actually would jump out, which is perhaps encouraging for him and for people trying to be creative. An example of boiling frogs is climate change,…

05/11/2015 No Comments

Telefonica Selects Gigamon

Telefonica Selects Gigamon to Gain Network Visibility and Optimize Customer Offerings. Gigamon Inc. announced that Telefonica Argentina, a subsidiary of the Telefonica Group, has selected Gigamon’s visibility solutions to help optimize its subscriber service offerings. Through the market-leading capabilities of Gigamon’s solutions, Telefonica Argentina is able to gain insight into the way its subscribers consume content and adjust their service offerings accordingly. Telefonica Argentina is also…

05/11/2015 No Comments

Strategic planning – elephants in the room

"The ‘elephant in the room’ is something that everyone is well aware of, but they deliberately or subconsciously choose to ignore it. Sometimes we encounter clients who refuse to face the fact that their industry is declining or that something hugely impactful is about to happen." Alan Iny. There are a number of elephants that face our industry: Many people in the communications industry have lost…

04/11/2015 No Comments

Strategic planning – wild cards

"A synonym for ‘wild cards’ in many ways is the Black Swan. We’re talking about unexpected, high impact things. We have to recognize that no matter how much data we have about trends and predictions of what’s going to happen in the future there will still be wild cards." Alan Iny. OSS are responsible for network monitoring and fault management; with most (but not all) relying on anomaly…

03/11/2015 No Comments

Strategic planning – wild cards, elephants and frogs

"A synonym for ‘wild cards’ in many ways is the Black Swan. We’re talking about unexpected, high impact things. We have to recognize that no matter how much data we have about trends and predictions of what’s going to happen in the future there will still be wild cards. This could take the form of volcanic ash impacting air travel, Toyota’s brakes failing despite its reputation…

02/11/2015 No Comments

Frontier selects Ericsson

Frontier selects Ericsson agility suite to enhance customer experience. Frontier Communications has selected Ericsson to provide and integrate a next-generation OSS (Operations Support System) architecture to improve Frontier's customer experience, capture new revenues and drive business efficiencies. Frontier will deploy Ericsson Order Care and Ericsson Catalog Manager solutions, part of the Ericsson OSS/BSS Agility Suite, to upgrade components of its back office support systems in Texas,…

01/11/2015 No Comments

Synchronoss acquires Razorsight

Synchronoss Acquires Razorsight, Leader in Cloud Based Analytics Predictive analytics solution underpins Synchronoss’ mission to deliver fine-grained semantic profiling that improves security, user productivity, and mitigates risk for its Communication Service Providers(CSPs) and Enterprise clients.

30/10/2015 No Comments

Using external advisors: Outside knowledge combined with tribal knowledge

"It is unrealistic that any organisation, regardless of size, can have all the expertise they require in constant employ. Sometimes you need expertise or advice that is a little bit niche, or maybe you only need it for a short amount of time. It is just that you don’t want people like me running your projects or even worse, deciding which projects you should be undertaking…

30/10/2015 No Comments

What problems are your OSS solving?

"Problem-solving becomes a very important part of our makeup as we grow into maturity or move up the corporate ladder." Zig Ziglar. What problems are our OSS trying to solve? Have you ever pondered what problems they could be solving? Sometimes our answers to the first question show the day-to-day issues that we're trying to overcome to benefit our customers / users. They are often the…

29/10/2015 2 Comments

Alestra deploys NetCracker

Alestra Leverages NetCracker’s Revenue Management Solution to Support New and Innovative Offerings. NetCracker Technology announced that Alestra, a leading IT services company based out of Mexico, has deployed the NetCracker Revenue Management solution in order to leverage a modern and flexible billing system capable of supporting Alestra’s innovative offerings. Alestra is a Mexico-based information and communications technology provider, offering a wide range of cloud, collaboration, security,…

29/10/2015 No Comments

OSS product overhaul

"First, explore how to doubt everything you think you know, and remember that all your ideas, even the most successful, are hypotheses within you – and not set in stone. Challenge the boxes that determine how you perceive the world, and think creatively about how you're defining the specific problems you're hoping to solve." Luc De Brabandere and Alan Iny in their book, "Thinking in new…

28/10/2015 No Comments

Omnichannel

"Omnichannel describes a coordinated, consistent strategy for engaging and interacting with your customers, and potential customers. This can take place at any and every channel touchpoint in the customer journey as shown in the graphic. These channels can include: actual and online stores; kiosks; digital signage; broadcast, electronic and print media; email; gaming consoles; online catalogs; social networks; help desks; customer relationship and customer experience management…

27/10/2015 No Comments

The two review technique

"As you work on your project (your presentation, your plan, your speech, your recipe, your...) imagine that it's the sort of thing that could be reviewed on Amazon. Now, write (actually write down) two different reviews: First, a 5 star review, a review by someone who gets it, who is moved, who is eager to applaud your guts and vision. And then, a 1 star review,…

26/10/2015 No Comments

Throwaway day – The new hackathon

"The day before yesterday, for the first time this attempt for us, we have conducted a "throw away meeting"." Susumu Fujita (quote has been Google-translated from the original Japanese blog into English) [Another translation could be - "The day before yesterday, we held our first "throw away meeting." This meeting was proposed in a recent "tomorrow" (or forward-looking) meeting"]. Hackathons or innovation days have become common…

23/10/2015 No Comments

Movistar Argentina / Telefonica selects Comptel

Movistar Argentina Applies Advanced Analytics to Data with Comptel. Comptel Corporation announced that it has started the deployment of Comptel’s DATA FASTERMIND™ with Movistar Argentina, an operator owned by Telefónica Group, one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world. With the advanced analytics solution, Movistar Argentina can now glean real-time insights from its data, to enhance business stream and service monitoring and improve data record…

22/10/2015 No Comments

Your network is key

"The network is key. This is a large part of how you learn new things. Connect with smart people. Talk. What have you seen in last couple of months? What do you know? It’s not a go-and-read-everything strategy. You’d die before you could pull that off. Just exchange ideas with the smart people in your network. Not constantly, of course—you need to do work too—but in…