"When you hire somebody to cut your lawn, you don’t give them a list of all the blades of grass in your yard and the length to cut each one to (prescription), you tell them to make it look nice (intent) and they figure out the rest. Intent-based networking emphasizes the “cut my lawn” interface and moving away from the “industry-standard CLI” model which has been…
Read More »“Gain a modest reputation for being unreliable and you will never be asked to do a thing.” Paul Theroux. As the domain name says, I’m passionate about OSS. However, I’m starting to wonder whether its reputation outside of OSS fanatics (and there are many!) is on the nose to such an extent that the term “OSS” could soon be relegated to being a legacy term. OSS…
Read More »NEC and NetCracker Complete SDN-Enabled vCPE Trial at Telekom Austria Group. NEC Corporation and NetCracker Technology announced that Telekom Austria Group, the largest telecommunications group in Austria, has successfully completed its in-depth trial of the NEC/NetCracker end-to-end virtual customer-premises equipment (vCPE) solution. The solution included vCPE, SDN controller, service and network orchestration as well as virtual network functions (VNFs) from multiple vendors. Telekom Austria Group is…
Read More »Razorsight Momentum Continues with Virgin Mobile Deployment. Razorsight, a provider of cloud-based predictive analytics solutions, announced Virgin Mobile Latin America (“VMLA”) as part of its impressive client list. VMLA has deployed Razorsight’s advanced analytics solution under a multi-year agreement in Chile, Colombia and Mexico to support its accelerated expansion. Razorsight’s advanced analytics will power targeted marketing campaigns and assist in its delivery of fanatical customer service.…
Read More »"My Ph.D. was based on research and development of new breakthrough technologies. As a scientist, Dr. Andersen instructed us to use our minds, training and skills to solve complex and hard scientific problems. If one solves easy problems, then hundreds of people can do the same. You will differentiate yourself by solving complex, yet big, problems..." Hossein Eslambolchi here in this interesting article on anomalytics. In…
Read More »Redknee Supports Digicel to Offer Prepaid Energy in Asia Pacific. Redknee Solutions Inc. announced that it is supporting Digicel, a leading global group mobile network operator, to offer prepaid electricity to residents and business owners in Papua New Guinea. Digicel has been using Redknee's converged billing solution to provide its customers with prepaid and postpaid offerings for voice, messaging and data. The flexibility of Redknee's software…
Read More »"Google did a great job hacking the Web to create search - and then monetizing search with advertising. And Apple did a great job humanizing hardware and software so that formerly daunting computers and applications could become consumer-friendly devices - even a lifestyle brand." Douglas Rushkoff. Okay, so OSS probably won't become a lifestyle brand at any point soon but the customer-facing OSS that we discussed…
Read More »"People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware." Alan Kay. Something really intrigues me... In the not too distant future, assuming a majority of organisations are hosted on service provider infrastructure (ie XaaS) rather than running in-house infrastructure, does this imply the number of customers for hardware (compute/storage/networks) will significantly reduce? Service providers would obviously be major buyers, but who else do…
Read More »“You are in the business of testing your guesses, not convincing yourself that you are right.” Nathan Furr, in his book, “Nail It then Scale It” The speed of implementation of OSS projects tends to be quite lengthy (months/years on tier-one CSPs), so we’re not exactly as responsive as some other industries by example. However, it’s inevitable that change will speed up so much in the…
Read More »"A manufacturer or retailer that responds to changes in sales in hours instead of weeks is no longer at heart a product company, but a service company that has a product offering." Bill Gates, in his book, "Business @ the Speed of Thought." How often does an OSS vendor win a new sale? Is it in a timeframe of one a week? One a month? There…
Read More »Chilean Market Leader Engages CSG International Managed Services. CSG International announced that one of Chile’s leading telecom service providers has awarded CSG a multi-year managed services contract for the operation and management of its wholesale and roaming systems. The service provider is a long-time CSG client, leveraging multiple components of CSG’s award-winning Wholesale Business Management Solution, including Interconnect, Roaming and Intermediate. Previously, the provider operated the…
Read More »Telekom Srbija selects Ericsson Billing Solutions. Serbian operator Telekom Srbijahas signed an agreement to implement Ericsson’s software suite, Charging and Billing in One solution, for its residential and corporate mobile and fixed-line subscribers, enabling the completion of the transformation of its business support systems (BSS). The implementation is the final step in a transformation process that began in 2011 and will provide the Serbian operator the…
Read More »"The jobs-to-be-done point of view causes you to crawl into the skin of your customer and go with her as she goes about her day, always asking the question as she does something: why did she do it that way?" Clayton M. Christensen. Alex Fuller at SupplyChainCowboy.com suggests, "By focusing on the job the customer needs to accomplish, instead of the product you’re trying to sell,…
Read More »M-net Expands Relationship with NetCracker to Include TOMS Suite. NetCracker Technology announced that M-net Telecommunications GmbH, a regional communications provider in Bavaria, Germany, has selected NetCracker for a large-scale business transformation program. M-net has been a longtime NetCracker Revenue Management customer, but recently decided to implement several additional NetCracker Telecom Operations and Management Systems (TOMS) solutions to launch an end-to-end transformation that will streamline business activities…
Read More »“If you are constantly fire-fighting, you have the impression that you are surrounded by many, many problems… However, careful analysis will point to a few core problems that will solve all the fires.” Eliyahu M. Goldratt in his book, “It’s Not Luck” Have you ever worked on OSS projects/programs that seemed to have infernos blazing almost everywhere you looked? I have unfortunately (or maybe I should…
Read More »Red Hat and NEC Collaborate to Achieve Carrier-Grade OpenStack Solutions for NFV. Red Hat, Inc. and NEC Corporation announced a collaboration to jointly develop network functions virtualization (NFV) features in OpenStack in order to deliver carrier-grade NFV solutions with Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform. As communication service providers (CSPs) transform their businesses and modernize both their infrastructure and offerings, NFV enables them to deliver customer-facing…
Read More »"To be successful, the Chief Information Officer must be seen as a peer level thought leader, partnering with other C-level executives to visualize and drive the digital agenda for each company. They need to combine vision, strategy, technology governance and talent, to exploit digital opportunities and move the culture toward a digital business viewpoint." Annie Turner in "The C-level outlook: Where are the growth opportunities?" The…
Read More »"Many OSS systems were initially not linked to each other and often required manual intervention. For example, consider the case where a customer wants to order a new telephone service. The ordering system would take the customer's details and details of their order, but would not be able to configure the telephone exchange directly — this would be done by a switch management system. Details of…
Read More »"Utility is when you have one telephone, luxury is when you have two, opulence is when you have three - and paradise is when you have none." Doug Larson. Will there come a time when telco services are simply like every other utility - a unit of service (ie Mb) that a residential user (and commercial?) can purchase from any retail provider that services their area…
Read More »"Everyone seems to agree that WebRTC is the next big thing that is going to shake up the enterprise communications landscape. WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) allows for real-time audio and video communications to be developed with a simple Javascript API running in a WebRTC compliant browser such as Google Chrome. There is a seemingly endless supply of enthusiasm for the possibilities that this will bring. However,…
Read More »WEHCO Media Signs Multi-Year Renewal for NetCracker Revenue Management. NetCracker Technology announced that it has signed a multi-year renewal with WEHCO Media for its NetCracker Revenue Management solution. WEHCO Media is a diversified communications company with interests in cable television, newspaper publishing and Internet properties. This agreement provides NetCracker’s Revenue Management solution in support of WEHCO’s cable television operations that span the southern and southwestern United…
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