OSS shortcomings tipped to trip up triple players

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 14 September 2005 16:50

Business IT - Technology

According to a new study, from US research firm, Dittberner Associates, "OSS Systems for triple play services", operational support system (OSS) problems may delay the deployment of triple play services by large US carriers such as BellSouth and SBC. "Triple play is set to deploy in a matter of months, but the OSS systems that need to support them are still in R&D mode," claimed Dan Baker, research director of Dittberner's OSS/BSS KnowledgeBase. "It's a divide and conquer strategy. No OSS vendor can deliver a complete solution, so the carriers are divvying out portions of the problem to their trusted OSS suppliers. However, considerable synchronisation and testing will be needed to glue all those pieces into a system that's sufficiently bulletproof."
Among the tough triple play OSS issues Dittberner's report cites are: quality of service and trouble management; service activation; build vs buy; interconnect assurance: video set top monitoring and network inventory management.