OSS Line

iCloud and The Death of the Asynchronous Network Model

Something else to blame on the over-the-top service providers (yes, those guys who actually make money from comms). New Cloud services are breaking the content-consumption model that ADSL, and network planning in general, is predicated on.

iCloud is not the first Cloud service to be sold to consumers. But, like so many things from Apple, it may well be the first to be adopted en masse, changing the way a large number of broadband subscribers use their bandwidth.

Various flavours of ADSL exist, supplying different levels of bandwidths to users. What they have in common is that they are asynchronous (The A in ADSL) providing significantly more download bandwidth to the customer compared with upload bandwidth to the Internet. This ratio can be quite large; a modern ADSL service from my UK-based supplier is 40Mbs down, 2Mbs up.

That’s great when you spend most of your time browsing the web or downloading video-on-demand. Until recently, uploading data was pretty rare; Just a few Word docs attached to emails or a few dozen photos uploaded to Flickr.

Cloud services, particularly back-up or file-sharing services like iCloud or Dropbox, make much greater demands on the upload bandwidth. The moment someone buys iCloud or Dropbox a heck of a lot of files need to be upload to ‘the Cloud’ for storage/back-up/sharing. All those MP3s, home-made videos, big PowerPoint slides... ADSL isn’t great at offering the customer good upload speeds, which may be something of a disappointment. More critically to the telco, their entire model for understanding customer bandwidth demand and their resultant network architecture breaks.

The network has been architected around ADSL. Recent investment in new architectures, like CDN, are aimed at alleviating performance and capacity issues for the old data-consumption usage pattern.

When iCloud takes off, pretty much every file, of every customer, will need to be uploaded to The Cloud. If 20% of your customers buy iCloud at the same time, thanks to an Apple marketing push, would your network be ready? Do you meter or charge for upload traffic? Do you have a service plan for consumers who sync a lot of data?

Remember how much of a hassle illegal peer-to-peer file sharing was for telcos a few years back? iCloud is about to legitimise comparable file-transfer traffic loads, with none of the efficiencies inherent in P2P, promoted by millions of marketing dollars...

Top-10 People in OSS, Telco and Tech to Follow in 2011

It’s the end of 2010, and legally all bloggers must post a top-10 list.

Rather than a run-down of the news, I want to pick out a few of the guys you should be following in the OSS software, technology and tech business. These are some of the small band of people in our industry embracing social media; Follow them and learn from them...

In no particular order, these are all Twitters unless otherwise linked:

@Celonamigrate and Tony Sceales at the Celona Blog. One of the early adopters of blogging and social media in OSS, Tony can be found on the company blog as well as contributing to community sites such as TMF Forums.

Billing and OSS World blogs. While these can come across as a little corporate they are still a great collection of insights from guest bloggers. Find out what the industry is selling you this year…

@Telesperience @Teresacottam and @Darranclem have had a great 2010, firmly establishing themselves in the OSS analyst constellation. Big tweeters, bloggers, podcasters and recently added a Wiki to their social media portfolio.

@Arianetworks. Ok, full disclosure: This is my other blog, shared with the Aria exec team. Check it out for a new look at OSS analytics, planning and optimisation.

@Brisbourne has been blogging and Tweeting for ages on the trends and changes in venture capital, with a big emphasis on technology business. You should care because this has a direct influence on innovation and growth in the OSS industry.

@Amdocsinc, @Givoly et al. First of the big boys (and girls) to really go-for-it social-wise. And after that slightly uncomfortable start they now have genuine, open network that engages their customers and staff.

For prolific tweeting on the telco industry, with a mobile slant, check out @Joeweinman. Ex-of AT&T and big on the speaking circuit, his dry wit makes the dullest subjects palatable. A rare talent.

The only guy you need to know if you’re working with Oracle databases is Tom Kyte. Answering your questions for many years, his Ask Tom page probably has answers to any question you might have, and his Oracle books have to be the first thing you read before designing any back-end system.

For some great wrap-ups of the latest telco and OSS news the Telco 2.0 guys do a great job of sorting the news from the PR.

Martin Geddes hasn’t blogged much lately but you can still follow his views on telco and IT on @Martingeddes, and there’s a promise of an all new blog coming soon in 2011.

 

The Definition of OSS and BSS

What is OSS and BSS? Getting back-to-basics can be a challenge at times. How to explain what OSS and BSS mean? Concisely. Accurately. There’s always been debate and opinion on their respective roles. And people can’t even agree what OSS stands for. OSS Line shines a light on this thorny but fundamental topic…

What does OSS and BSS stand for?

OSS is either Operational Support System or Operations Support System.

You have too much time on your hands if you want to argue over which is the ‘correct’ definition. Historically, I’ve used Operational, but I acknowledge that Operations sort of makes more sense when you think about it…

BSS stands for Business Support Systems. Simple. No debate.

What are Operational Support Systems?

Software (occasionally hardware) applications that support back-office activities which operate a telco’s network, provision and maintain customer services.

OSS is traditionally used by network planners, service designers, operations, architects, support, and engineering teams in the service provider. Increasingly product managers and senior staff under the CTO or COO may also use or rely on OSS to some extent.

What are Business Support Systems?

Software applications that support customer-facing activities. Billing, order management, customer relationship management, call centre automation, are all BSS applications.

BSS may also encompass the customer-facing veneer of OSS application such as trouble-ticketing and service assurance – these are back-office activities but initiated directly by contact with the customer.

This basic relationship between OSS and BSS, where OSS is passed service orders and supplies service assurance information to the BSS layer is often referred to as 'Orders Down, Faults Up'.

above. Super simple relationship between OSS and BSS

Is the separation between OSS and BSS clear?

In the past, OSS/BSS had a clearer separation. A common job like capturing a customer order and provisioning it required a simple BSS-to-OSS interface. “Deliver product X to customer Y”. BSS would capture the order, set-up the billing and pass the order to OSS for fulfillment.

Now, networks and services are more complicated, more flexible, and telcos offer a range of differentiated products. OSS and BSS must liaise over what could be ordered by the customer, based on what service they already had, based on the network they would use, based on current available resources, based on how far they were from the telephone exchange… and so on. Offering a customer a service is now a negotiation between the commercial products managed by BSS and the ability of OSS (and the local network) to deliver certain products.

As a result, a number of systems now straddle OSS/BSS:

• Service Assurance systems are now integrated across OSS/BSS in order to track service performance and ensure customer service-level agreements (SLA) are met. Service Assurance may also pro-actively identify network failures, initiating resolution action and notifying high-priority customers.
• Service Catalogs (a.k.a. Product Catalogs) give the telco one place to list products offered to customers and define what network resources can be used to deliver the service. Service Catalogs offer product managers a tool that joins-up the service offering and fulfillment processes across BSS and OSS.
• Service Management applications allow greater interaction between OSS and BSS processes when the service order and fulfillment process is complex. If a service order comprises multiple technical resources, which are delivered by multiple OSS systems, Service Management is responsible for orchestrating the fulfilment process and keeping the customer-facing team informed about progress, changes or deliver issues.

There’s now less debate about what these cross-OSS/BSS systems do, but still plenty of uncertainty about who’s budget the implementation project comes out of…

Gartner Forecasts Telco IT Spending

In a Gartner report that covers the wider IT world, spending growth is expected in 2010, but not as much as was originally expected due to on-going exchange rate pressures and reductions in public-sector spending.

Telco IT spending is expected to grow by 3.4% in 2010, after a drop of -3.5% last year.

More detail here.

Dropbox – For Confused and Forgetful Mobile Workers

Off topic, but it’s very rare that I recommend a product on this blog. This one has really impressed me.

I work on a lot of files in a lot of different places, and it confuses me.

I work in an office, at home, in the coffee shop and on the road. At each of those location I might be using a different PC or laptop. As a result I have relied on USB keys to keep my latest files with me. But I always have sync issue (which is my latest copy? can I delete files to make space on my USB key? did I just edit the wrong version?). And I don’t always remember my portable storage.

I’ve been looking for an online solution to this problem and my file backup needs.

Dropbox seems to be the one. This isn’t simply online storage of files like, say, MS Office Live. Dropbox syncs files between PCs via online services and keeps an online copy ready for access from any Pc. And saves up to 30 days of versions in case you delete something you didn’t mean to!

Ticks all the boxes. Sync, back-up, online access, online sharing.

Use this link to check out the free 2GB version and get an extra 250MB for using my ‘introduction’ link (I get an extra 250MB too!).

Get Dropbox 2GB and an upgrade of 250MB, free,  here.

Well worth a look for the mobile OSS professional.

Mr Pullen Goes to Aria Networks

I blog about what I know and what I like. So, in the interest of transparency you may like to know that I am now working with the network planning and optimization start-up, Aria Networks. And I’m really getting in to it. Such an OSS geek…

I am starting to understand the subtleties of the cool technology Aria’s products are based on, and that means more blogging on this part of the OSS industry.

What I am finding interesting so far is the difference in core technical approach, compared to CrAmdocs/Telcordia/Netcracker.

The Big OSS companies have products based on inventory and process automation. In developing product or offering solutions the first question they ask is ‘how do we leverage our inventory data?’, the second being ‘what process shall we build around checking and updating this inventory?’.

Aria Networks starts with a core, generic process: Routing. It is, after all, what managing and using a network is all about. This is then applied to a problem, such as bulk re-optimization of a network, where services are analyzed concurrently for optimal network use, QoS and resilience.

The upshot of this approach to OSS products is that you get the intelligence out of the box with Aria and can leverage existing inventory or network discovery products to feed the planning, optimization or forecasting  analysis.

CTOs of services providers and OSS vendors have been talking about unlocking the value of their data for a while now. It’s start-ups like Celona, Ontology and Aria Networks that are delivering innovative technology that makes the most of this data.

CommBat Christmas Party

Last night was par-tay-time at the inaugural CommBat Christmas shin-dig.

CommBat is an informal group comprising communication professionals living/working in and around Bath (get it? COMMunications BATh?). Conceived by Richard Mishra and Peter Briscoe a couple of months ago, it’s got a LinkedIn presence to go with the clever name.

I must admit I was enthusiastic when I heard about the formation of CommBat. I figured there’d be some opportunity for me to do talks, show lots of PowerPoint slides, argue about interface specifications… But turns out there’s not much emphasis on that. It’s predominantly social and a bit networky.

Indeed, that was very much the vibe last night. With the inevitably large proportion of current and ex-CrAmdocs folk (and their partners) turning up, it had the atmosphere of a reunion. Once a few drinks had been drunk, there was plenty of opportunity to network: Many ex-Cramerites are still in the OSS industry. I spotted people (often pretty senior in their respective OSS divisions)  from:

• Amdocs (well, obviously)
• Telcordia
• Sidonis (event, root-cause, impact analysis start-up in Bath)
• Aria Networks (planning, optimization start-up in Chippenham)
• Alcatel-Lucent
• Vodafone Group
• CACI

Hats-off to Richard and Pete for organizing it. I was lucky enough to have a great office party the day before too (big week!), but with social budgets shrinking and partners rarely getting an invite any more, it was great to have an inclusive event with old-friends.

Search for the CommBat LinkedIn group, sign up, and come along to the next event.

More pictures of the night at the CommBat Flickr group.

Merry Crimbo and happy New Year!

UK Telco Stagnant in 2008

The perfect story for a damp gray December day.

UK regulator OFCOM has published their Communications Market Report 2009, putting everyone in a terribly bad mood by pointing out that, for the first time since they started collecting statistics in 1992, the industry experienced virtually zero annual growth.

This is, I guess, no great surprise to any of you. OSS projects have been limited to small scale efforts to reduce cost-of-ownership and a few already committed big ‘transformations’. BSS has had a little bit more focus, mainly in an effort to make some money out of the latest shiny objects like app stores.

In late 2009, things seem to be picking up a bit, but we could all do with a boost.

Of course, the biggest factor impacting our industry is the lack of a true successor to The Crazy Frog. I mean, come on, that was back in 2005. We need more artistic innovation like that to drive mobile downloads and save telco.

Surely there’s a gap in the market here? What with the trend to re-hash retro favourites on screen, stage and mobile-device, surely we could resurrect a popular British icon to front a few ring tones, novelty apps, and flash games? An icon of joy and light-entertainment to cheer us all up?

Noel Edmonds. How much for exclusive mobile rights to Mr Blobby?

More analysis on OFCOM’s report at the always excellent Telecom TV.

How Web 2.0 is the OSS Industry?

What your peers are doing on the web…

I’ve been blogging for just ten months. Facebooking for a couple of years. Twittering, well, I’m still working out why.

I am not the lone late-adopter in this industry. Most people in the OSS industry are late adopters of commercial or professional ‘social’ networking.

For example, if you’re one of the six OSS professional who Twitter, check out the #BSSOSS hash tag. There’s stuff there, but its no cacophony of tweets.

above. Tweet!

It is starting to pick up though.

Start-ups and small consultancies are using blogs, in particular, to drive traffic and openly discuss the issues they help solve.

Large OSS/BSS organizations are starting to use blogs, where once webcasts would have been used, to create ‘thought leadership’, and to jack up their PR.

Thinking about being more socially-networked for business purposes? Consider some of these approaches…

Big Business Blogs

Adan Pope, Telcordia chief strategy officer, has become a guest blogger on the magazine-style B/OSS Insider blog. Check out Adan’s first blog here. He eases himself in to this new role with a bit of gentle positivity. I expect plenty of thought leadership and slightly controversial opinions in the future though.

I also here that Amdocs is setting up an ‘elite’ blog site, bringing together their most brilliant minds. Haven’t seen it yet, but when it’s out there I’m sure I’ll comment.

Amdocs have a few other outlets like marketing blogs, podcasts and micro-sites. They are one of the few big OSS companies actively Twittering, which is great, because their tweets actually add value by being a single source for update alerts across all their news streams.

Start-Up Blogs

Celona. Doing 21st Century start-up right! Great website, useful content, and a blog that’s as good a source of data migration thinking as any out there.

Celona also make good use of guest-blogging to promote their messages, and drive traffic to related articles. Check out Tony Sceales, Celona CTO, posting about your favorite blog, OSS Line, on the TMF data migration blog.

RiverMuse are, if you can’t guess from the name, a network fault/alarm/event management start-up. So early stage are they, that they don’t really have much of a website. Instead, they generate interest through occasional updates and debate on their simple blog. Worth a look, especially over the next few weeks I believe…

Consultant and Enthusiast Blogs

This is where OSS Line lives. I use it to stay in touch with the industry, build network, generate traffic to my consultancy propositions, build an online professional brand, e.t.c.

MicroSperience, the blog of the TeleSperience guys, is a favorite of mine. It has regular updates and probably the most interesting articles of all my OSS related RSS streams. TeleSperience are Teresa Cottam and Darran Clemants, independent analysts. They draw attention with articles and useful tools, like the recently added Twitter directories, and in doing so build a philosophy, methodology and brand.

Telco 2.0, consultancy (as STL) branded as a new paradigm in telco business models. They have a though leadership blog which doesn’t just output PR, unlike larger organization blogs typically do. Indeed, the Telco 2.0 blog is a good source of news on business, regulation, transformation and plain old cool stuff. None the less, its primary purpose is in supporting and proving the concepts of the Telco 2.0 business model, and it does this well.

Start Getting Social

It’s easy to start blogging, tweeting and Facebooking.

It’s not easy to get it right and show a return on your invested time.

Learn from the examples above, and if you think it might help your business, dip your toe in. Guest blogging is an excellent first step. Many blogs welcome guest writers (OSS Line included) who can offer something other than their company PR.

Running a blog or Twitter account is a significant investment of your time. Consider who will contribute, how often posts are expected, what topics are valid, how reader comments will be moderated, e.t.c. Get it right from the outset or, like any poorly conceived web site, your audience will look once and never return.

Next, invest more time in the rest of the industry’s social networks. Commenting, referencing, and responding are essential to build up connections, SEO and site traffic.

And finally, loosen up. Your social network should not be constrained by your official corporate writing style. Show your personality. Let the readers in to your business culture. Create some sort of a connection between individuals.

Need advice and support in defining and setting up your company's OSS/BSS social networking strategy? Drop me a line!

Off Topic - Holodeck, Today

Check out this craziness…

http://www.baekdal.com/future/interaction-design/sketchup-2045-today/

Has to be the best thing in VR since those massive stereo helmets that promised so much in the mid-90s.

The Eon Reality 3D cube looks like a total mind-mess. Where can I try one?

Beautiful Graphs = Fascinating Data

Last week I was with an friend and ex-colleague, attending his leaving drinks, discussing what we both learnt while working for a large BSS/OSS company, compared to the start-up we had originally joined. One of my ‘learnings’ (urgh) was the significance of how data is presented differently to professional managers rather than start-up propeller-heads.

Propeller-heads crave detail, and have sufficient domain knowledge to interpret the data quickly.

When presenting well researched and validated data to busy execs you should not stick it in a table or spreadsheet. Execs have no time to interpret it. And even if they did, proposals are accepted more on the exec’s emotion and gut instinct than a careful review of your work. So, you have to display the data, show its trends, the  message, in a nice picture, graph or map.

Long ago, I realized this was true for presenting technical concepts outside of my organization, to customers and partners. Even though they are in the same industry as me, their reference points are subtly different, and I am also constrained by the duration of your meeting. That’s why I’m pretty handy with Visio and PowerPoint…

But not as handy as this guy:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8070000/8070108.stm

In this video Professor Hans Rosling takes some pretty mundane data (GDP, life expectancy, per country) and does a stunning job of illustrating it. I let out a ‘wow’ or ‘blimey’ a number of times.

How does he do it?

• He keeps it simple. We already understand GDP and life expectancy. We don’t have to learn any fundamentals before he makes his point.
• He visualizes change. Seeing the change is must more effective than being shown two figures or a static line on the graph.
• He has an outrageous European accent, which always sounds intelligent and compelling.

Guy Dubois on the Mach

Guy Dubois, ex-CEO of Cramer Systems and EVP at Amdocs has a new job with MACH. MACH offers stuff to allow operators to manage roaming, revenue and billing things. Check out his introductory memo here.

'Mobile Europe' Summary of BSS/OSS in 2008

Mobile Europe has a good summary of what’s been going on in BSS/OSS in the last year. There’s some speculation about what the 2009 global recession will bring to the industry but, inevitably, little certainty.