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Mick McCluskey, Enghouse Networks Limited
The impact of digital transformation on OSS
The opinions expressed within this article are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of TM Forum.
Digital transformation has been one of the most hyped phrases in years, but this does not take away from the fact that it is happening all around us. It’s part of the seismic shift in technological change.
This is especially true for the telecom industry, where today’s digital transformation investments will be felt for generations. Communication Service Providers (CSPs) are both rolling out their own digital services as well as enabling others to do so. This requires fast changing and adaptive operational support systems (OSS) that leverage machine learning, artificial intelligence, and automation. These solutions must be able to rapidly adapt for the needs of the various services being delivered.
The GSMA estimates that by 2025, 5G is expected to cover one-third of the world’s population. Use cases already include immersive in-store environments, remote healthcare diagnostics, traffic management, smart campuses, ports and factories, industrial robotics, and improved gaming and e-sports.
In 2030 6G will begin its roll out, introducing a whole new realm that Marcus Weldon of Nokia Bell Labs says will be a “sixth sense experience for humans and machines,” where biology meets AI. Early use cases include self-driving (or flying) autonomous vehicles, virtual and augmented reality, digital twins, and even space exploration.
It’s an exciting world. The rate of new services being introduced, the number and diversity of devices and endpoints to manage, and the business agility needed to track network performance and service level agreements at scale and in real time, will all continue to climb exponentially. Meanwhile, operators will be managing multiple existing technology generations while planning for and rolling out future ones.
What does this mean for CSPs?
The need for massive scalability, automation, and agility.
With data traffic expected to grow four-fold between 2022 and 2028, (GSMA Intelligence, Global Mobile Trends 2023) today’s networks, and the decades-old OSS systems that support them, simply won’t be able to keep up. Telecom networks are evolving, becoming more complex and moving closer to the enterprise edge to deliver specialized solutions where and when they’re needed. Today’s operational support systems (OSS) need to be dynamic and agile, providing real-time analytical insights and enabling automation through machine learning and AI. Scalability, automation, and agility are more than buzzwords. They have become the foundation for operators that want to achieve their business goals over the next decade, which brings us to the second point…
The need to maximize how networks are monetized.
Over the last five years, Western European telcos have been spending increasingly more on capital expense, investing heavily in 5G spectrum and networks. Typically, around 90% of these capital expenditures are invested into the network infrastructure. After years of investment, operators now need to maximize how their networks are monetized, but this can be easier said than done.
Most operator networks are massive and highly complex - managing billions of network transactions every day. But in today’s market, CSPs often need to behave a bit more like a scrappy startup, with the capability to create and experiment with new business models and services on the fly.
The future looks bright – but are you ready?
U.S. businessman Jack Welch famously said, “Change before you have to.” That’s sage advice for any organization that wants to stay ahead of the game. But when it comes to operators continuing to rely upon OSS systems that were built for telecom networks of thirty or forty years ago, time has run out. You’re playing OSS Russian Roulette with your network. Here’s why.
Legacy OSS systems are simply ‘not enough’:
OSS must empower growth and success.
There’s a tremendous amount of growth opportunity in the years ahead. OSS solutions need to be built with the next generation of networking in mind, leveraging advanced AI technologies that deliver greater operational efficiencies and an improved customer experience. They must support the way networks really are - with both traditional and disaggregated components, and designed to automatically detect, analyze, and respond to network issues and events. And much of this, of course, will be enabled by open APIs and industry standards championed by groups like TM Forum. It’s through these efforts, paired with the right tools and technology, that knowledge-sharing and innovation will continue to thrive.
