For years, operations support systems (OSS) has been the red-haired stepchild of the telecom industry, but now that operators are embracing NFV, there's a makeover opportunity looming for OSS.
Over the years, operators have bolted on additional OSS components as they've added new services, but that resulted in a tangle of OSS systems. OSS has been further compromised by the wave of consolidation in the telecom industry, according to a report by James Crawshaw, senior analyst of OSS/BSS Transformation at Heavy Reading.
Tier 1 operators are making progress with virtualization, but the reality is that they will be operating hybrid networks for the foreseeable future, according to Crawshaw. Hybrid networks using NFV need OSS, cloud management, data center management and better orchestration and management to provide operators with a clear view of all of the network elements.
While some experts have said that NFV will lead to the demise of OSS, Crawshaw writes that virtualization provides an opportunity to reinvent it. With the business case for NFV shifting from capex to opex, improved OSS is key to the NFV use case.
For a deeper dive into NFV and OSS, register for tomorrow's Telco Transformation radio show, which features Crawshaw as the guest.
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— Mike Robuck, Editor, Telco Transformation