Day: November 19, 2013

Operator Loyalty Reward Programs: Are OSS/BSS Suppliers Missing a Great Opportunity?

by Ron Westfall, posted in OSS/BSS/CEM

Ron Westfall
Ron Westfall
Summary Bullets:

  • OSS/BSS suppliers are in position to drive innovation of operator loyalty and reward programs.
  • Mobile marketing specialists have recently grabbed the marketing spotlight in stimulating operator loyalty program efforts.

Network operators of all types face the constant challenge of maintaining the loyalty of their customers.  Reducing customer churn consistently ranks as one of the key challenges operators identify as a top priority that keeps their decision makers up at night.  As a result, operators have invested a great deal to incentivize customers and prospects to choose their service including subsidies for mobile devices and discounts for switching operator services. Continue reading “Operator Loyalty Reward Programs: Are OSS/BSS Suppliers Missing a Great Opportunity?” →

Big Data Transport Enters the Service Provider Vocabulary in a Monstrous Way

by Glen Hunt, posted in Net Transformation, OSS/BSS/CEM, SDN/NFV

Glenn Hunt
Glenn Hunt
Summary Bullets:

  • Big data/analytics have arrived, to help deliver on high user and service provider expectations.
  • New database technologies and open source software form the basis for effective solutions.

Now that SDN and NFV seem to have gone from novel concept to a foregone conclusion, the telecom market’s never ending quest for the ‘next big thing’ has settled, appropriately, on big data and its counterpart big data analytics as the topic on everyone’s mind.  Okay, so maybe SDN and NFV have some time left on the hype train, but today, let’s ponder the question as to why the industry has shifted its focus from selectively collecting barely enough data to feed the billing cycle and provide SLA assurance to collecting so much data that some predict the amount of data being processed by big data analytics engines will exceed the amount of traffic on the network itself. Continue reading “Big Data Transport Enters the Service Provider Vocabulary in a Monstrous Way” →

Will NEPs Block NFV Like Carriers Tried to Block OTTs?

by David Snow, posted in Net Transformation, OSS/BSS/CEM, SDN/NFV, Vendor Transformation

David Snow
David Snow
Summary Bullets:

  • NFV poses a threat to established NEPs which is analogous to carriers’ OTT challenge.
  • While the NFV debate currently rages around performance, it is easing NFV management issues that will make vendors ‘carrier-friendly.’

The thirteen operators which fired the starting pistol for the networks functions virtualization (NFV) initiative in October 2012 can certainly be credited with starting a revolution.  Just over one year into this race, every network equipment provider (NEP) has been compelled to have an official ‘NFV story.’  In truth, NFV is not really a new concept and has been in use in IT and telecom service layer products over many years.  However, what is new is the way in which ‘commercial off-the-shelf’ (COTS) hardware is increasingly able to support processing workloads at the network layer, previously the sole domain of specialized telecom hardware.  This it is what fuels the more ‘revolutionary’ dimension of NFV among both operators and vendors.  Continue reading “Will NEPs Block NFV Like Carriers Tried to Block OTTs?” →