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Cisco Announces Intent to Acquire OpenDNS

Acquisition to Accelerate Cisco's Cloud Delivered Security Portfolio. Cisco announced its intent to acquire OpenDNS [for a report $635m], a privately held security company based in San Francisco. OpenDNS provides advanced threat protection for any device, anywhere, anytime. The acquisition will boost Cisco's Security Everywhere approach by adding broad visibility and threat intelligence from the OpenDNS cloud delivered platform. The burgeoning digital economy and the Internet…

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02/07/2015 No Comments

Softbank deploys Procera

Procera Networks Deployed on SoftBank's LTE Network. Procera Networks, announced that SoftBank has deployed Procera's PacketLogicTM solutions to enhance its LTE service offerings in Japan. Procera was selected to replace the existing traditional analytics and assurance vendors due to the enhanced Subscriber Experience visibility that Procera was able to provide for the operators on top of traditional mobile analytics. Softbank is committed to providing a superior…

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02/07/2015 No Comments

The law of cascading problems (part 2)

"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.." H. L. Mencken. In yesterday's blog, we discussed the law of cascading problems where if we have data accuracy levels as follows: Locations are 90% Pits are 95% Ducts are 90% Cables are 90% Joints are 85% Patch panels are 85% Active devices are 95% Cards are 95% Ports are 90% Bearer…

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02/07/2015 No Comments

The law of cascading problems

"Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems." Scott Adams. As Scott Adams of Dilbert fame stated, us Engineers love to solve problems. In the world of OSS we don't NEED to create our own because there are already so many that are handily available (although we often do make more of our own anyway for…

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01/07/2015 No Comments

Comptel wins deal in Singapore

Comptel has won a significant deal with leading Singaporean operator for FlowOne Fulfillment. Comptel has won a significant deal with leading Singaporean operator for FlowOne Fulfillment. The deal consists of FlowOne Fulfillment SoftBlade licenses and related services. The multi-year deal is valued over 2 million EUR.

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01/07/2015 No Comments

Accidental team building

"When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That's when you can get more creative in solving problems." Stephen Covey. OSS projects have been some of the most challenging projects I've worked on - with challenges of multiple layers coming at you from different attack angles. But from within these environments have also come unexpected, obscure life…

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30/06/2015 No Comments

Corning glass in OSS

l love this YouTube video by Corning. l love the future-thinking in relation to how we will interact with the spaces around us. l love the way they've turned a blank canvas like our sliding mirror door into an interactive panel. Did you notice the touch panel at around 2:40 into the video? Do you have any ideas for how something like this could be used…

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29/06/2015 No Comments

OSS ROIC (part 6) – Oops. I forgot one… Sort of

"The second question to ask is: can existing assets be reused or recycled? In other words, can the investment be deferred? One of the most common claims used to support an investment case is that the investment is necessary because the network is congested. This is often correct; capacity upgrades are a fact of life for all operators. But it’s also true that operators regularly have…

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26/06/2015 2 Comments

Redknee to Acquire Orga Systems

Redknee to Acquire Orga Systems. Redknee Solutions announced it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire privately held Orga Systems for a total cash consideration of €38M. Orga’s technology and expertise will enhance Redknee’s real-time monetization and subscriber management platform for communication service providers and the Internet of Things (IoT). Orga Systems provides monetization solutions to more than 45 customers in the communications, automotive, energy, and…

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25/06/2015 No Comments

OSS ROIC (part 5) – Should an investment be made?

"There are two questions to ask during the capex planning process that get to the heart of the issue. First, should a particular investment be made at all? The majority of operators have a long tail of marginally profitable—or downright unprofitable—products, networks, customers, channels and segments. A request for additional investment in such assets is an obvious point at which to consider terminating, migrating or consolidating…

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25/06/2015 No Comments

OSS ROIC (part 4) – The technology dilemma

“In our company there’s still a bit of the ‘build and customers will come’ mentality, but those days are gone. If we build the wrong thing in the wrong place or at the wrong price, the customers won’t follow. So, rather than letting technology drive our capex decisions, we need to adopt a more commercial approach.” An un-named executive in this report. Are you surprised by…

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24/06/2015 2 Comments

Huawei partners with Ascom

Huawei and Ascom Agree to Cooperate Under the OSS Interoperability Initiative (OSSii). Huawei announced that it has signed an agreement with Ascom to license its network infrastructure interfaces for integration with Ascom TEMS Discovery network optimization products. The agreement ensures that Huawei will provide full support to Ascom TEMS Discovery for their integration with the relevant Huawei products. The agreement between Huawei and Ascom is in…

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23/06/2015 No Comments

OSS ROIC (part 3) – Four divergent solutions

"As Figure 1 (below) shows, global capex levels have soared from just over US$50 billion to about US$325 billion in real terms over the past 30 years...Yet this massive investment isn’t producing the returns the industry requires... the telecoms industry is at an inflexion point. It’s spending lots of money on new infrastructure, but it’s not optimising returns. Most telecoms executives admit as much; they say…

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23/06/2015 No Comments

OSS ROIC (part 2) – Four justification attempts

"Are your colleagues in Marketing, IT, Networks or Finance frustrated with how your company’s capex is allocated, how that capex is controlled or the performance it delivers?" Report entitled, "We need to talk about CAPEX - Benchmarking best practice in telecom capital allocation." In Friday's blog, I posed a series of questions about OSS and whether they pull their weight in terms of providing a Telco…

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22/06/2015 No Comments

Swisscom virtualises with NEC and NetCracker

Swisscom Launches Strategic Initiative for Migration to Cloud-Based Applications and Virtualized Infrastructure with NEC and NetCracker. NEC Corporation and NetCracker Technology have announced that Swisscom AG has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with NEC and NetCracker as a part of its major cloud-based transformation. NEC and NetCracker will assist Swisscom to transform its business to a full cloud environment by jointly developing next-generation IT solutions,…

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20/06/2015 No Comments

Does your OSS provide a ROIC?

"...in a capital intensive industry like telecom, the key metric is return on capital, especially when that industry turns ex-growth. Revenue, EBITDA and cash are useful interim steps along the way, but the ultimate end-point is ROI. It’s not a clever conclusion, but it’s not the consensus conclusion either. Unfortunately, such basic principles have gotten buried in daily practices that shift focuses elsewhere. ROI is rarely…

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19/06/2015 No Comments

New category for Executive Series OSS posts

A new category has now been created here on PAOSS for bundling Executive Series posts. I'll be looking to expand on this with some new executive-centric posts in coming weeks. OSS are tools have a big part to play in modern ICT organisations. They can make the difference between effective or ineffective operations of electronic assets. The Executive Series of blogs provide information that is targeted…

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18/06/2015 No Comments

Thailand’s CAT Telecom selects Elitecore

Thailand's CAT Telecom Selects Elitecore's BSS Platform to Enable MVNE Strategy. Elitecore Technologies, a leading global provider of Next-generation BSS and Packet Core solution announces that, Thailand based CAT Telecom, a leading Tier 1 Telecom Operator and Suvitech a Thailand based IT Solutions and Service Company, have selected Elitecore's end-to-end pre-integrated BSS stack to enable their Mobile Virtual Network Enabler (MVNE) strategy in Thailand. Under this…

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17/06/2015 No Comments

OSS – the afterthought

"Thomas Edison devoted ten years and all of his money to developing the nickel alkaline storage battery at a time when he was almost penniless. Through that period of time, his record and film production company was supporting the storage battery effort. Then one night the terrifying cry of 'Fire' echoed through the film plant. Spontaneous combustion had ignited some chemicals. Within moments all of the…

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17/06/2015 No Comments

Another sticky BSS story

"The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope." John Buchan. Yesterday's story about vendors building irreplaceable staff reminded me of another sticky BSS story. A very big carrier I knew had a very complex billing process. It required a variety of custom scripts to pull pulleys and switch levers during a…

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16/06/2015 No Comments

Sticky OSS viruses

"Welcome those big, sticky, complicated problems. In them are your most powerful opportunities." Ralph Marston. In previous blogs such as, "The marriage analogy" and "If people like you," I've spoken about the perils of vendor lock-in. But today, I've decided to play out the polar opposite perspective for the purpose of curiosity. Please take a moment to think about these two questions: Which companies are the biggest,…

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15/06/2015 No Comments