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What is Telecom OSS ?

Definition of OSS

Maybe the best thing to do is to start from scratch…Let’s explain what is sometimes the unexplainable and this blurry unexplainable for newbies is what on earth is OSS ? and what OSS is for ? if you are a guru in this space then this might be intuitive for you  but it’s OK this time you will get your dose in future post, but for now let’s spend sometime to explain the fundamentals.

OSS stands for Operations Support Systems and it is not a solution or it’s not one software stack but it is a set of systems connected together and to other IT and Network elements of a CSP (Communication Service Provider) in order to allow him to make sure that his operations are running smoothly: By operations we mean that his Network is up and running, that his mission critical systems are alive and are delivering what they are supposed to deliver, that his business processes are smoothly functioning  (we will post some articles in future about what is a business processes and why they are so important in today Telecom industry) and last but not least that his subscribers  are enjoying the service they are paying for and having the experience that make them satisfied and loyal to this CSP.

Very vague as definition no ? I know you newbie is still confused, but don’t worry because that’s the beauty of OSS, you will need more readings and leanings. Believe me, reading about OSS you will never get bored because you will discover new things with every article you read and you will understand the most important aspect of the Telecom Industry which is How a CSP Operations run? A website such as our is made for this purpose and the best maybe at this stage for you is to continue navigate the article and also check other post in our website and also subscribe to our newsletter (below or in the widget on the sidebar) to have the best of our brains straight into your inbox.

OSS by example

Let me give a daily example here to make things easy to digest: Imagine a Taxi is a CSP, the engine is the network, the taximeter can be part of the Taxi BSS  (used to count the service usage, collect the money, print the bill…) and all what you see in the dashboard are part of the taxi OSS and you are the driver so you need to make sure that the taxi runs perfectly at the right speed and that your customer is happy an comfortable is his seat and enjoying his ride. Now the customer complained that the temperature is too high so you immediately go back to your OSS system and check that the temperature is showing 18 degrees and you will say “this dude wants us to freeze” but customer is the king so you turn back again to your Taxi OSS and you calibrate the temperature and monitor your customer satisfaction indicator (a smile if he is gentleman or a sign if he is a xxx). Now imagine you are not driving a taxi but piloting a plane, a multiply the plane dashboard complexity by 1,000,000 (you don’t have an engine and 2 wings to manage but thousands of systems and multi-billion Network) and also add to that the fact that you are serving Millions of customer at the same time (not one) and add on top of that that there are a lot of other Companies trying to do better and maybe cheaper than what you do (fierce competitions) and the picture you have in mind now is nothing but the Telecom OSS. No this is not a monster, if you learn and use the best practices you will discover that Telecom OSS is a piece of cake. so keep reading.

What is OSS?
What is OSS?

I hope you enjoyed this little introductory post and I really would love to hear your comments.

In my next posts I will explain what are the functions that are part of the Telecom OSS, many.

Who needs OSS?

Many Parts of the CSP organizations are dealing with OSS, mainly the OSS systems are touching the following aspects:

Plan: This task is carried out by engineering team having the responsibility to plan the network equipment, capacities, expansions
Build: This task consists in building the network and expansion as per the planing done during the PLAN phase, this task can be manual or fully automated and various OSS systems are involved in this task like: fulfillment, work force management, order management…
Operate: Is an extremely important task in OSS space and the team working in the Operation and responsible of making sure that the Network work smoothly. They handles the monitoring of alarms, the prioritization of faults the troubleshooting. Relating to operation we work usually of NOC (Network Operation Centers) or SOC (Service Operation Centers) and we will post future articles to explain the difference between both. 
Optimize: This is a team that has the responsibility to make sure to use the Network capacity at its utmost. The importance of the Optimization team is increasing a lot because with the Data “revolution” (or we may called data tsunami) and also with the arrival of new business like M2M. The capacity is expected to grow drastically to cope with the demand, therefore Operators needs to make sure to invest Money in the capacity absolutely needed and make sure that they are using any available capacity efficiently. 

Some external ressources about OSS

A nice article in Wikipedia about what is OSS: Here

An excellent Video from Ericsson about What is OSS and BSS, below:

 

 

Above is my own definition of OSS, so beware if you want to use it in official documents, and if you think I missed something please comment so I can keep enhancing the post. 

 

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