Minimise the tentacles on the OctopOSS. Keep it simple
As the title asks, do you know what the most widely used OSS/BSS application is? The answer might actually surprise you, but we’ll get to that a little later in the article. Late last year, we published an article that outlined that a A seismic shift is already underway in IT circles and how it […]
Do you ever look into the past to determine whether commonalities / discrepancies could be used to inform how you might act into the future? When it comes to OSS/BSS and telco, I certainly do. I hark back into the days when CSPs were the world’s leading tech companies and innovators. They also had incredibly […]
Wait, “What??” I hear you ask! No it can’t. Have you ever worked on a BIG OSS project? One where the budget is in the hundreds of millions of dollars? Or even tens of millions of dollars? Have those big projects delivered your best transformation outcomes? Or have other projects, with more constrained budgets, been […]
When speaking with a customer last week, I was hearing the same expression of anguish that I’ve heard so many times before. The anguish of getting an OSS business case approved. Actually, in this rare case, the business case had already been approved. The budget had been allocated long ago. The exec sponsors were onboard […]
There were plenty of search engines before Google came along and grabbed a lot of the search market share. There were plenty of generative AI solutions before ChatGPT appeared and created a large amount of buzz too. The question is why did they grab attention / users and what can we learn from that to […]
How valuable is the OSS / BSS industry do you think? How would you measure it? How would the market measure it? Have you ever pondered these questions? By extension, have you also wondered how to make it more valuable? Or perhaps how to make certain players within it more valuable? If you have, would […]
The cool part of this time of year, the holiday period, is that it prompts you to look backwards and look forwards. To be honest, writing articles here on the blog prompts me to do that throughout the year too, but there does tend to be a bit more downtime for reflection around the boundary […]
With the holidays almost upon us in many parts of the world, I thought I’d share an analogy. Like many analogies, it’s a bit oversimplified. It’s also possibly a bit inflammatory in some circles. Hopefully though, it gives a different frame of reference for how the telco business model has changed over the years. More […]
A seismic shift is happening that will change the world of OSS/BSS so fundamentally in the next few years that it totally blows my mind. It will be the biggest in my 20+ year career in the telco industry. The following pic is from an IA Summit Keynote by Charles Lamanna, the Corporate VP of […]
Thought I’d share some information about a 5G Edge Automation project I’ve been assisting with in recent months – in collaboration with luminaries such as EnterpriseWeb (project lead), KX, Intel, Keysight, Tech Mahindra, Red Hat and Fortinet. KX has just shared a blog article, which includes the following quote that helps to summarise why I’m really […]
Seth Godin recently wrote a brilliant article that describes the craziness of seeking a market with no competition. In entirety, his article goes like this: “There’s no competition for cookbooks on making food out of soccer balls and hockey pucks. There’s no competition for software that charges you to find out the temperature on Mars. There’s no […]
I’ve spent the last 22-ish years working on OSS and even longer on telco projects. Most of that time has involved way more than the typical 40 hour work week (often more than double). But the amazing thing is that it’s (almost) never felt like it. Time has almost always seemed to fly by so […]
“The telecom industry is hurtling towards a staffing and skills precipice at a frightening pace, and truly embracing diversity and inclusion in recruitment and human resources strategies looks to be the only way to avoid a calamity, a somewhat sombre Keri Gilder [CEO of Colt Technology Services, a UK-based telco] told attendees here [at TM […]
In the early days of my career, I was the stereotypical Engineer. I’d get into a project, do the best job I possibly could from a technical perspective, and then get out to move onto the next project. Looking back, I unfortunately had blinkers on through those years. I’ve been lucky to have retained some […]
As we all know, data quality can be a big problem for OSS, at almost every operator around the world. A lot of this problem stems from the fact that most telcos have a lot of passive infrastructure / objects in their networks. Passive devices don’t tend to have programmatic interfaces that allows for current […]
Artificial Intelligence is purported to be the panacea for so many high-volume factors within telco. For example, AI is being used for complex pattern recognition using diverse signal streams like churn reduction. AIOps solutions are making great strides to reducing noise within alarm / event lists, filtering and automating, to limit the number of decisions […]
We’ve regularly discussed how RFPs / PoCs are usually an inefficient way of finding new products or partners for your OSS (see this link). They’re often ineffient regardless of whether you’re a supplier, buyer or integrator. They tend to be expensive and time-consuming for all involved. The short paper shown below by Peter Willis, the […]
An updated call for innovation in the OSS industry We are currently living through a revolution for the OSS/BSS industry and the customers that we serve. It’s not a question of if we need to innovate, but by how much and in what ways. Change is surrounding us and impacting us in profound ways, triggered […]
The OSS we’ve been building for the last 30+ years aren’t too dissimilar to the digital twins the world is getting all excited by today. I find it really interesting, not just because of the buzz, but because the term “digital twin” seems to mean different things to different people. Having seen what OSS are […]
I’m in the privileged position, probably as a result of founding The Blue Book OSS/BSS Vendor Directory, to speak with many vendors each week. It also means I’m lucky enough to watch in on product demos on a regular basis too. Last year DFG Consulting (www.dfgcon.si/en) reached out to tell me about their Interactively Assisted […]
