The hype of 5G has been around for a few years now. Given the amount of investment that carriers have made into uplifting their networks to 5G, the first phase of the hype has been successful. But we’re now deep enough into the global 5G network rollout that we have to start judging whether the second phase of the hype has been successful. That is, whether there’s going to be a valuable return on the initial investment in 5G.
Telcos deal with complex technology. They also deal with customers by the thousands. It’s the telcos’ ability to keep customers at arms-length from the technology complexity that helps them to win customers. It helps keep the services simple enough for customers to use and love. However, telcos also use complex technology as a mechanism to keep their customers at arms-length from operational staff, for reasons we’ll discuss shortly. It’s this enforced interaction with technology that often displeases customers.
The following quote from Raja Shah beautifully articulates why telecommunications providers are so essential.
“Telcos provide the fabric, the glue, that's enabling these digital experiences. From devices to networks, from stadiums to lounge rooms, and from content to broadcast and consumption, there hardly seems to be an industry out there that they don't in some way support or enable.
But for all the complicated advancements in technology, the role of each telco ultimately remains quite a simple one. They enable people to connect, communicate, interact and transact; things that the human race has been doing for thousands of years.”
“I feel the need. The need for speed.”
You’re probably already familiar with the link and quote above. This famous line comes from Tom Cruise’s character, Maverick, in the movie, Top Gun. However, the line also represents the sense of urgency that carriers expect from their modern OSS and BSS solutions. Speed is an important factor for telcos, whether relating to the network performance, the delivery of new products to market, the activation of customer services and more.
Have you ever had that experience where you have an annoying little stone in your shoe, but you keep on walking because it's more of a pain to stop and remove it? But it keeps on niggling you regardless?
Have you had a similar experience with your OSS and/or BSS? Have there been little things about your OSS / BSS that annoy you, but not enough for you to do anything about it? Not enough to initiate a change or worse, a transformation project?
Service fulfillment is one of the most vital workflows that exist for any telco. It’s the process that turns prospects into paying customers. It’s the process that gains a return on all that capital a telco has tied up in their network investments. It’s the process that ensures the telco makes a good first impression on the customer. It’s a process that is run many, many times each day so the efficiency of the process will have a significant impact on determining the efficiency of the entire organisation.
OSS and BSS solution architects go to great pains to design and build data ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) pipelines. There’s in-depth engineering that goes into it, from considering the various sources of data and the plumbing to move data around to wherever it’s needed in the overall solution.
Scott Carey, in his article on InfoWorld, poses the question, “Now, with many vendors focusing on managed services and abstraction, the pendulum appears to be swinging the other way. After the great fragmentation, are we due a great consolidation?”
