OSS/BSS solutions are designed to perform network / service activities fast, efficiently and intuitively. A solution’s UI (User Interface) / UX (User eXperience) heavily influence the success of the solution.
Making your OSS easy to use isn’t about adding more “easyness” – it’s about subtracting what sucks. “To make your stuff “easier to use” you don’t make it “easier.” You look at all the things that make it hard, then remove them one by one. Easy isn’t something you add. It’s what’s left over after […]
During my first forays into OSS, over a period of 6+ years, I averaged 85 hours a week whilst being paid for a 40 hour week – and loved every minute of it! It wasn’t because I had to, but because I wanted to – all because OSS felt like play. Time was meaningless as […]
I know a guy. One of my great friends actually. We’ve known each other since kindergarten – back when we were five years old. He loves listening to the radio and watching old videos. He yearns for the old days – the simpler days, the easier days, the less tech-advanced days. I’ve been finding myself […]
Most OSS platforms monitor, but only the best ones take action. Is yours a thermometer or a thermostat? Does your OSS only report the temperature, or can it actually help change your environment? Do you think your OSS is doing enough? It could be missing the crucial capabilities that power future-ready networks. Below we provide […]
After working with countless OSS product teams over the years, we’ve noticed one universal truth: they’re all overloaded by huge backlogs of feature requests. But when we saw this image of SpaceX’s Raptor engine evolution, it highlighted a vital lesson – one that has the potential to help guide how OSS development teams prioritise their […]
Your OSS is either a catalyst for innovation or a roadblock to progress for your business. The same strategies that built your OSS might now be the reason it’s slowing you down. If your OSS was built for yesterday’s challenges, the question is – will it be ready for tomorrow’s opportunities? Is it time to […]
For decades, OSS has followed the same pattern: design, then keep adding lots more “baked-in” capabilities into a complex OSS UI, process inputs, generate outputs. At incredible scale. We made them faster, (somewhat) more automated, and vastly more scalable. But we never made them think. Until now… If… (we’ll come back to the if shortly). […]
Have you ever had an OSS or BSS project that’s impacted by poor data quality? The problem of data integrity gets raised on almost every project we get involved with here at PAOSS, especially when passive assets such as cables, splice joints, etc are involved. Our systems face a perennial challenge of poor data quality. […]
“One of my favorite things about designing software is designing the defaults. The defaults define the experience for everyone out of the box. And, therefore, for most people in perpetuity. Convention over configuration rules the day. To me, everything it could possibly do is less interesting than what it does right now, factory fresh. At […]
In the last week alone, I’ve had two potent reminders that the world of OSS is simply (pun intended) too complex. This manifests in many ways, but I’ll start with the standards that underpin our industry. The standards bodies do fantastic work. I’m a huge fan. Enormous credit should go out to everyone who has […]
I’ve just finished reading the book, “Elon Musk,” by Walter Isaacson. It’s a fascinating study of a fascinating, and highly polarising engineer. Polarising, but also inspiring (inspiring what to avoid as much as inspiring what one could/should/can do). Musk’s biography cites example after example of his ability to think big, but also think very small […]
Standing out in a highly saturated and fragmented OSS market can be really difficult. We’re regularly involved in bake-offs where we see dozens of OSS compared against each other. We’ve recently been involved in one with 10 making the short-list for further analysis. All 10 are the best in class (for this client’s unique needs […]
One of the things I love about my job is all the vendor demos I get to see. Product demos are one of the four important steps in the “inverted pyramid” vendor selection process we follow with our carrier and utility clients as we go about finding a best-fit new OSS and/or BSS solution for […]
Earlier this week, I was lucky enough to be introduced to a talented RAN automation expert. He’s one of Australia’s foremost, hands-on, experts on SON (Self Organising Networks), so it was a fascinating conversation about network automation and many other things. The discussions inevitably led to RAN data. As much as I’m Passionate About OSS, […]
I was listening to a group of telco experts on a podcast the other day. As they were talking, I kept picturing the image of Eeyore – you know, the donkey from A.A. Milne’s “Winnie-the-Pooh” stories with an overly pessimistic outlook on life. Sources: https://getwallpapers.com The podcast was just soooo gloomy. Channeling Eeyore, I’ll paraphrase: […]
Earlier in the year, we wrote a series of articles about the chasm that exists between OSS/BSS buyers and sellers (pt1, pt2, pt3, pt4, pt5, pt6). “The chasm” is best exemplified by the situation where a buyer (eg carrier) desperately needs a new OSS and a seller (eg a software vendor) desperately wants to sell their OSS to the […]
In the highly competitive domain of Operational Support Systems (OSS) and Business Support Systems (BSS), standing out isn’t just about offering a comprehensive set of features. It’s about delivering an exceptional user interface (UI), user experience (UX), and customer experience (CX). Despite this, it seems that the prioritisation of UI / UX / CX is […]
I love blogs. One of the amazing things about them is that it allows you to hear the wisdom of exceptional individuals who you’d otherwise never have access to or ever have the chance to meet. They’re the best mentors you never had. One example of that was in last week’s post from David Heinemeier […]
We were honoured to be guests on the Zero-Touch Telecom (ZTT) show last week. The discussion mainly revolved around a highly problematic skills gap that’s likely to widen between network masters and apprentices once we introduce significant automation via tools such as AIOps and the like. In response, Michael P. asked a great question, “With the […]
Are you as fascinated with automation, AIOps, zero-touch networking, autonomous networking and the like? If so, you might like to listen in on a chat I had with Geoff Hollingworth of Rakuten Symphony on the “Zero-Touch Telecom Show” In it, we talked about some of the concepts from recent content here on PAOSS including: The […]
Here at Passionate About OSS, we are exactly that – Passionate About OSS (Operational Support Systems). We’re also passionate about BSS, NMS, or any other names you call the tools that help to operationalise your network.
