No telco wants to buy an OSS/BSS
When you’re a senior exec in a telco and you’ve been made responsible for allocating resources, it’s unlikely that you ever think, “gee, we really should give our operations teams some new operations systems (OSS/BSS) to work with.” It would be nice if they did, but that’s just not what they’re thinking about. For the […]
Our next deep-dive report: Igniting the OSS Revolution
If you’re a regular reader of the PAOSS blog, you might have noticed that we’ve been generating at least one deep-dive tech report per year. Last year it was AIOps of the Future, the year before it was The Most Exciting OSS/BSS Innovations, and Inventory of the Future, etc. We’ve loved using these freely downloadable reports […]
Will AIOps widen a highly problematic skills-gap between network masters and apprentices?
In recent years, we’ve been trying to generate at least one deep-dive tech report per year here at PAOSS. Last year it was AIOps of the Future, the year before it was The Most Exciting OSS/BSS Innovations, etc. They tend to be an itch that we want to scratch for ourselves, but they’ve had an […]
$500M at the speed of trust – One big difference between Warren Buffett and the OSS industry
We’ve recently been talking about the chasm between OSS buyers and sellers. OSS buyers and sellers desperately need each other to improve the effectiveness of the entire telecommunications industry. The size of the chasm is harming both sides. In part 2 of the “buyer-seller chasm” series, three of the biggest contributing factors were identified as: […]
The Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) cliff facing the telco and OSS/BSS Industries
In recent times, we’ve seen widespread damage caused by cybersecurity events impacting the telecommunications industry. Unfortunately, we’re rapidly approaching another monumental cliff for security of telecommunications (and all the industries that rely on electronic communications). The same cliff is something the OSS/BSS industry also needs to be patently aware of. Traditional cryptographic algorithms, which underpin […]
The rise of the super-ISP and a whole-quilt OSS solution
The early 2000s (when I first started out in, and fell in love with, the OSS industry) saw many Tier-1 telcos make large OSS and BSS transformation investments. Prior to that, they’d largely run their operations from NMS level and/or using home-grown systems. Since there weren’t many existing OSS to unseat, these projects were mostly […]
What will you do if the telco industry dies?
Christel Heydemann, Orange’s CEO, brought to our attention at MWC 2023 that a survey of European telcos indicated that almost half of the polled CEOs do not expect their businesses to make it through another decade. That’s a pretty scary thing to think about if you’ve built your career around the telco industry and don’t […]
Closing the OSS Buyer / Seller chasm – More solutions (part 5)
This is the fifth of the “buyer / seller” chasm articles (pt1, pt2, pt3, pt4). We’d previously highlighted the issues, the pain points, the sources of friction and more about getting Buyers and Sellers together to build better telcos. But in today’s article we’ll complete the solutions list that we started on in part four, […]
Closing the OSS Buyer / Seller chasm – Solutions (part 4)
This is the fourth of the “buyer / seller” chasm articles (pt1, pt2, pt3). We’ve already highlighted the issues, the pain points, the sources of friction and more about getting Buyers and Sellers together to build better telcos. But in today’s article we’ll explore some possibilities for how to overcome those challenges by building bridges […]
Using a complete re-framing to reduce the OSS Buyer / Seller chasm (part 3)
This is the third part of a series that looks into the chasm that exists between OSS/BSS buyers (eg carriers, ISPs, utilities, etc) and sellers (OSS/BSS product vendors). In part 2 we pondered whether it’s possible to target a 10x reduction in operational costs. We’ll take a closer look into what this means with the […]
How can we reduce the size of the OSS buyer-seller chasm? (part 2)
Our previous post highlighted a chasm between buyers and sellers. It has sparked quite a lot of conversation, which is exactly as intended. In another earlier post about telco reaching its burning exchange moment, we wrote: In a keynote speech at Mobile World Congress (MWC), Thierry Breton, the European Union’s internal market commissioner opined, “In […]
Could it be possible? Is the telco industry’s biggest constraint a shortage of bridge builders? (part 1)
I’m currently lucky enough to be involved in a couple of vendor selection processes where we’re helping carriers (buyers) to find the best-fit OSS vendors (sellers) for their needs. Most start a vendor selection process by preparing a looooong list of requirements. This approach takes forever to write, forever to respond to and forever to […]
Knowledge used to be power. Is it still?
Many years ago, I was lucky enough to spend a year advising the executive team of an Asian monopoly carrier. I was helping them to implement their first ever OSS project. It was a real eye-opener on many different levels. This carrier had a strong culture of hoarding knowledge. It was well known amongst the […]
Our latest whitepaper has finally launched – AIOps of the Future: A Definitive Guide
I’m really excited to announce that a project we kicked off in collaboration with Ramandeep Bhalla, Deepak Kakadia and Rakesh Ashok, all the way back in March of 2023, has finally launched. It got a whole lot bigger than I was originally expecting. It’s nearly 100 pages long, well over 30,000 words and over 40 […]
Who are the real heroes of your OSS project? It might not be who you think!
When I first left uni with my freshly minted degrees, whenever I thought of salespeople, I had an image something like the one below in my head. This image might still be true if you’re on the hunt for a used clunker. However, nothing could be further from the truth for the salespeople that make […]
How our OSS can enhance customer experiences and perceptions for the telcos we work for
In a recent article, we compared how telco holds itself accountable to its internally adored five-nine availability standards, yet still has cellar-dwelling customer satisfaction scores. When you consider the expanse and complexity of the global telco network, and the millions of micro-events that occur on it each day, telco networks are amazingly resilient. Telcos certainly […]
Telco innovation: 13 examples of harnessing OSS for super-charged experimentation
We know the modern digital marketplace is evolving and proliferating at mind-blowing speeds. Everything you know right now, and all the knowledge you have collected over your career, is diminishing in relevance at an increasing rate. The same is true of us as individuals as well as us as the telco industry and the companies […]
The OSS fireplace that is running out of heat
There’s an old parable from Earl Nightingale that I think about every day in terms of the OSS industry and the business operations of Passionate About OSS. Earl was a motivational speaker and author known for his inspiring teachings. He gained prominence in the 1950s and continued his work until his passing in 1989. One […]
Let us review your OSS product development backlog and I’ll predict if there’s growth in your future
In the last year, I’ve seen RFP responses worth an accumulated total of well over $1B for network services, systems and such. In almost every case, the carrier buyers have indicated that they’re seeking innovative solutions. That’s the outward-facing commentary at least. But the real, inward-facing story is that they’re just seeking cost-reductions in most […]
A detailed account of the SolarWinds hack. A must-read story for all OSS/BSS suppliers
OSS solutions hold a privileged place in the operations of communications service providers around the world. They collect logs and events from network devices, security devices, shared services (like Active Directory) and other support systems. With increased automation and orchestration, they also have the power to quickly push controls back into all of those devices […]