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.
There’s a common misnomer that AIOps and Network Automation solutions are just stood up and a bunch of people are stood down. That is, as soon as the tools become operational, the network operator can start reducing head-count. Project sponsors pray for it (to justify their business cases), network operations staff fear it (for the […]
We’ve embarked on a journey of trying to plan for the future of OSS/BSS, not by predicting the future, but by seeking ways to be ready for possible future situations by using Peter Schwartz’s scenario planning technique. Using this technique, we’ve identified four possible future scenarios for telco based on two high-impact variables (tech growth […]
In recent articles, we’ve discussed how Private Equity (PE) could help to reshape the struggling telecommunications business models and how OSS/BSS stacks touch almost every part of a telco business model without most people even realising it (as per the diagram below). We’ve also discussed how the pragmatism of Tier-2 telco thinking could be a […]
There’s this phrase that just keeps ringing in my head when I see OSS and BSS in action – “Made by Engineers for Engineers.” This was certainly a badge of honour. If the people who built OSS tools had network engineering experience, then there was a great likelihood that they were building solutions to solve […]
Back in my early days of OSS, I knew there was soooo much to learn. As the signpost below suggests, as well as the OSS applications themselves, there were also adjacent / related fields like databases, networks, services, architecture, programming, and so much more. Pretty daunting! But after a few years in the industry, I […]
Did you love to play with Lego as a kid? I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that since you’re reading a blog about OSS, then you’re probably leaning towards the technical end of the spectrum… and therefore probably did play with Lego. Perhaps you even crossed into Lego Technic that allows […]
The airline industry is comprised of many regional carriers. There is no global carrier (although there are alliances). Each continent has multiple airlines. There are also local / regional airlines. Airlines of different sizes, business models and target customers. Different service offerings and different look & feel in terms of the customer experience (CX). This […]
I find that writing these blog articles is a fantastic way of assembling a variety of ideas and distilling them into coherent stories / concepts (well, hopefully they’re coherent). I always welcome feedback and corrections because it helps to round out my understanding of concepts relating to OSS. Feedback from you, dear readers, is highly […]
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 […]
As you may have noticed, we recently launched a new report, “The Future of AIOps: A Definitive Guide.” In the rapidly evolving landscape of carrier networks, Operations was and still is, the linchpin of business stability. It’s effectively every telco’s insurance policy. With the complexity of systems and the demand for instant resolution of issues, […]
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 […]
Let me tell you a story. A love story. A story about data. A story about AIR. On my first OSS project, all the way back in 2000, I was brought in as a network SME. But it was only after getting involved in the data modelling and data migration activities that I really became […]
Our motto at Passionate About OSS is, “Removing complexity from OSS.” Sadly, we’re awash with complexity in our industry. If most OSS were represented as a board game, they’d look something like this: Image sourced from https://technabob.com Would you know how to play this game without instructions? Even if you had instructions, it could take […]
Yesterday’s release of Apple’s Vision Pro virtual reality headsets [actually, they’re not quite here like the headline says yet – apparently they’re becoming available in early 2024] provides just one more piece of evidence that our ways of interacting, communicating and working in telco are set for a transformative shift. Not just in telco, but […]
In a recent blog series, we described the potential for OSS to help drive entirely new revenue / business-models that leverage the many strengths that telcos retain – Telco’s burning exchange moment – a playbook of fixes. Today’s article will take a closer look at one of the ideas under Playbook #7 – They have […]
Earlier in the week, I shared a really exciting video from EnterpriseWeb (in collaboration with KX and Microsoft in particular). Clearly others have been just as impressed with that video as I was. That one video alone has triggered a wave of discussions. I suspect that’s because it provides a line-of-sight to what network operations […]
Over the last year, I’ve been assisting a consortium that includes a number of iconic brands such as Intel, RedHat, Fortinet, Keysight and TechMahindra. More importantly, those elements are underpinned by a powerful closed-loop engine formed by EnterpriseWeb and KX that stands up, observes and optimises a 5G RAN testbed. You can view the test-bed […]
As some of you will have spotted in past articles, I’ve spent the last couple of years working with solutions at the intersection of OSS/BSS (data) and AR/VR for visualisations and new ways of working. A couple of animated GIFs from that work are shown below. An interactive 3D model with assets identified from OSS […]
Of all technological advancements, smartphones have had one of the most profound impacts on humanity in recent history. They have ingeniously monetised “idle time,” the brief intermissions between our important tasks, often filling our idle moments with a plethora of addictive apps, content and social media. However, as technology has evolved, these “idle time” tasks […]
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 […]
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.
