Quigley spells out NBN Co's BSS/OSS challenge

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 10 December 2009 07:23

Business IT - Networking

One of the most important aspects of the NBN - around which there has been almost no public discussion - will be business and operational support systems that will enable NBN Co to manage the network, provision and configure services and bill its wholesale customers.

Business support systems (BSS) support processes such as sales activities, customer interactions, taking orders and processing bills. Operational support systems (OSS) support network processes such as maintaining network inventory, provisioning services, configuring network components and managing faults.

The design of the BSS/OSS is likely to be one of the most difficult and important of the whole NBN design process. Not only will this system have to manage the operation, provisioning of services etc on the NBN it will have to provide automated interfacing to the systems of multiple retail service providers enabling them to manage their customers on the NBN and to be billed for the NBN services those customers use.

Speaking at the Government's "Realising our broadband future" forum in Sydney today, NBN Co CEO, Mike Quigley said that the company planned to build "a low-touch, self-serve, business and operational support environment and intended to keep the network simple so as to minimise the cost and complexity of its BSS/OSS systems.

"Because we are a startup and building a new network we have no legacy systems constraining our design. [So] we are also doing everything we can to keep both the wholesale product suite and network as simple as possible. This reduces the complexity of designing and building the OSS and BSS, which as we all know is one of the complex challenges all telcos face."

He said that goals for the BSS/OS included: being able to cope with high transaction volumes with variable peaks; providing transparent processes and automated systems for ordering, provisioning, assurance and billing; ensuring equivalence of access for service providers regardless of size and capabilities; providing seamless interworking to access seekers so they can add, delete or modify services as simply as possible.

Quigley said: "We will, of course, be discussing these and other requirements, and their implementation, with potential access seekers."