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The Opportunities
These emerging wireless sectors present an opening for several groups of technology vendors. However, current circumstances present OSS/BSS providers with excellent opportunities. We've watched first-hand as other telecom sectors go through similar growth cycles. Most have cursed the day they decided to develop back office systems in-house. Disparate spreadsheets and home-grown databases managing various parts of carriers' operations can quickly became albatrosses round the necks of these firms, hindering growth, creating customer care challenges and generally wreaking havoc with their brands as well as their reputations for providing competent service.
The evolution of emerging wireless providers presents three opportunities for Operational and Business Support System developers:
- Diversifying product sets. Early stage emerging wireless providers typically offer a single service, internet access, at one speed with the same basic features to all its customers. For a rural WISP selling shared Wi-Fi service to perhaps a hundred residential customers, either as a community service or hobby, that is all that's necessary. Likewise, fixed wireless providers delivered cookie-cutter services to early adopters, using the same gear for all deployments.
- As more ambitious emerging wireless providers increase their market penetration and target more varied segments, especially different-sized businesses and industry verticals, they must satisfy more diverse customer
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Spreadsheets and standard bookkeeping packages may have handled customer tracking well in the past, but come apart at the seams when pushed too far. |
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- needs. Broadband wireless providers are introducing more flavors of data service, adding voice and even video so as to operate more as full-fledged telecommunications competitors, rather than just bare-bones access providers.
- Fixed wireless companies now partner with multiple equipment vendors to provision scalable bandwidth and specialized services, with equipment pairings customized to customers' needs. Moreover, many broadband and fixed wireless companies must sort out blended product portfolios and hardware platforms resulting from acquisitions, a necessary hurdle for every growing technology sector.
- Existing systems often prove inadequate at handling this increased complexity. Spreadsheets and standard bookkeeping packages may have handled customer tracking well in the past, but come apart at the seams when pushed too far. Robust OSS platforms can handle multiservice portfolios with ease, making room for vendors to enter the space in a big way.
- Establishing scalable sales and provisioning platforms. The sector is growing, but emerging wireless providers have been through the wringer enough times and have experienced more than a round or two of growing pains. At least in fixed wireless, many key players were in some form or other a party to the precipitous collapse of their sector when the telecoms bubble burst. The survivors, who either have good memories or sufficient foresight, will recognize that increased sales activity cannot be thought of as an extraordinary event: it must be planned for, and the successful firms will be those ready to take advantage of the situation when it happens.
- High growth may be in these companies' future, and they want to be prepared. OSS/BSS platforms that scale easily as providers grow would be the very definition of a competitive advantage.
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