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By
Sanjay Mewada
The Communications Industry is focused on the race to roll out 4G and LTE, but in the bigger picture this is just the first step into a “gigabit society.” Successive generations of higher capacity wireless broadband services are before us in which customers will expect high-quality, on-demand services delivered on devices that meet pop culture’s image-driven demands. OSS/BSS strategy is increasingly critical in this intense environment because of the many roles it plays in new service delivery, customer experience, costs, partnerships, and revenue generation.
Pain and Pressure
Operators will compete to be the first
to deliver each successive advance. As
soon as they’ve completed one wave,
they will have to start working on the
next next-generation of networks and
services. At the same time, their
business models are shifting from
being pure communications providers
to becoming vertical-specific solution
suppliers. The speed of this market,
coupled with increasing customer
expectations, means the need to
monetize technology investments
immediately has never been more
intense; there has never been less
room for inefficiency; and everyone
must do more with fewer resources in
less time under greater price pressure.
The increasing bandwidth that operators are delivering for customers requires massive capital outlays, and not just for the Radio Access Networks. More capacity in wireless connectivity also means more demands on, and capacity needed in, backhaul and core networks. With essentially no time to ramp and transition (the time between tech generations is too short), the challenge is to figure out not only how to monetize new capacity, but how to do so profitably with a sustainable economy of scale in operations.
Driving profitability means seizing and
keeping market share from one
generation to the next, but it also
means keeping costs down amidst increasing price competition. Most
organizations face continuous budget
pressure as a result, which means
resources are more constrained and
there is little to no room for error,
waste, or inefficiency in building new
infrastructure and launching new
services and partnerships.
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"In the midst of all this pain and pressure, OSS/BSS can’t hide in the back office anymore." |
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A relatively new variable that plays a radical role in this market is the intense public pressure operators face to consistently deliver new and more attractive technology. Wireless is in the spotlight. It’s a huge part of pop culture and lifestyle right now. Public commitments are aggressive and must be met, or there’s a big price to pay in the social media-driven court of public opinion. The downside of that public opinion is harsh and translates into losses in market share and revenue.
In the midst of all this pain and pressure, OSS/BSS can’t hide in the back office anymore. It now has too great an impact on speed, profitability, and public image. OSS/BSS is directly involved in: delivering new technology; governing customer experience; dictating underlying costs; enabling on-ramps for new partners and services; and providing the basis for revenue generation in terms of pricing, billing, and payments. In other words, OSS/BSS is central to any operators’ overall success, not just today, but for the next several generations of mobile and broadband services.
Acceleration and Explosion
In the present, LTE and 4G are used more as marketing terms than technical terms, but their use is raising expectations among customers for more capacity, functionality, and access, as well as increasingly functional devices to come. With each new advance in network and device technology come explosive responses from subscribers, evident in some clear growth metrics.
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