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Operational support systems (OSS) are best understood from the inside—by those who use them everyday. With this in mind, Current OSS offers you an insider's view of OSSs from BCE Nexxia, a Canadian telecommunications service provider offering broadband and IT services both nationally and internationally. Recently, our editorial staff sat down with two BCE Nexxia employees, Bill Eason, Senior Consultant, and Dave Drapeau, Enterprise IS/IT Architect. Our conversation touched on many OSS issues: assessing value, upgrading and choosing a vendor, to name but a few. The following are excerpts from the interview. Current OSS: In order to put your views of OSS in context, can you describe BCE Nexxia's immediate and long-term business plans? Bill Eason: BCE Nexxia is a full-service, national provider of integrated communications. We offer business solutions for emerging broadband and IP services and traditional voice and data services to Canada's major enterprises. With a North American footprint and alliances to provide seamless services globally, BCE Nexxia aims to be the provider of choice for the high-end business market and other carriers on a wholesale basis.
Current OSS: How important are OSSs to your overall business plan? Dave Drapeau: Critical. If you don't have them, you don't have a viable company. They form the computing infrastructure for the services we're trying to deliver. It's also our way of differentiating ourselves from the competition in terms of capability and internal efficiencies.
The OSSs you put in the company and how well they communicate with one another are going to determine things, such as the speed at which you can put a new product in service, the turnaround time for an order, and the speed at which you can resolve trouble. OSSs have a great impact on how flexible your company can be and how quickly you can respond to marketing and customer requests. Current OSS: A lot of confusion surrounds the term OSS. How would you define OSS? Dave Drapeau: Many people refer to OSS in its singular form, but it's really a collection of applications. I usually refer to OSSs as those operational support systems that are specific to a telecommunication company, as opposed to generic back-office software. For example, systems which we use for network management, surveillance, service activation or account management for billing—all of these are OSSs. Current OSS: What priority do you place on specific parts of an overall OSS environment? DD: First, a company has to get the basic OSS infrastructure required to run a telecommunications company in place. Since this is not a discretionary item, the priority becomes getting the best OSS infrastructure, at the best price as soon as possible. Once the base infrastructure is in place, future enhancement choices have to be driven by two main factors: how well the investment improves customer service, and how well it improves speed to market of new products and services.  Current OSS: Time to market is a big buzzword in the OSS industry these days. Do you think it should be such a critical issue for OSS vendors? DD: Yes. This poses a special challenge for OSS vendors who support a large installed base of legacy applications, such as those found in the traditional RBOC and IXC environments. These legacy environments are complex and actually inhibit speed to market.
Vendors that target "green field" startup companies, such as CLECs and ISPs have an easier time of it, since they are typically not dealing with an installed base. These companies have an edge, in that they can introduce new and innovative services and pricing structures faster because of their new operating infrastructure. Ultimately, however, they will encounter problems of scale, and will have to choose their OSS partner wisely to ensure that their OSSs can grow with their business. Current OSS: Do you think the same situation will exist in two or three years? Bill Eason: Definitely. A major challenge for OSS vendors will be accommodating technologies that have not yet been invented. Their customer base-telecommunication service providers will likely fall into three camps. There will be those that are not quick to market; those that are quick to market but have a frail delivery system and, perhaps, built-in inefficiencies; and those with efficient systems that offer quick, innovative solutions. Companies that lack the infrastructure to keep up the delivery pace and, consequently, fail to provide customer satisfaction, or lose money with every product they sell, will not remain in business very long. Customers will always demand more, quicker and cheaper.
Current OSS: So, are you saying that companies should build their OSS infrastructure now? Dave Drapeau: Yes. It's best to build your OSS infrastructure
now, but be prepared to continually upgrade it. You can never, never
be satisfied with what you've got, because of the extraordinary
pace of change in the telecommunications industry.
From Current OSS, Winter 2000, Vol. 1, No. 2. Published by Eftia OSS Solutions. |