As the industry moves from 3G to LTE (News - Alert), real-time BSS (business support systems) are gaining greater significance; market conditions require agile BSS systems to enable mobile operators to provide service diversity and faster time to market. An Openet (News - Alert) research study landscapes the operator scenario as far as BSS choices and their BSS plans for the future goes.
According to the study, mobile operators found that their need for BSS solutions is better addressed through specialist vendors rather than offerings from network equipment providers (NEPs). This is because, NEPs tend to bundle BSS software with the infrastructure purchase. These solutions pale before the best-in-breed solutions offered by BSS specialist vendors.
"As operators meet the opportunities emerging within the digital economy, they are increasingly looking to specialist BSS vendors, noted Chris Hoover, general vice president of marketing at Openet.
BSS refers to all telecoms software solutions that are used to support customers – from product design management and billing to reporting and analytics.
Highlighting the key benefits of working with specialist BSS vendors, 72 percent of surveyed operators noted that specialist providers enabled a faster time to market for new pricing models, while 75 percent observed that they enabled better service and pricing innovation. 76 percent indicated that these specialist vendors provided greater system flexibility.
"Our recent research found that operators around the globe understand the important role best-of-breed BSS solutions play in enabling business growth," said Hoover.
Many of the network operators surveyed agreed that the agility of operators is directly proportional to the agility of the BSS they rely on. But legacy systems in their BSS environments limit their agility. Specialist BSS vendors can overcome these limitations. So it’s really not very surprising that bundled solutions from NEPs are found to be less effective and efficient. Also, operators don’t seem to be too keen to perform their own integration of BSS software.
According to Peter Dykes, senior analyst at Informa (News - Alert) Telecoms & Media, operators are increasingly seeing the opportunities that real-time BSS data can enable and "Flexibility and a fast time-to-market strategy are more important than ever for operators.”
All this makes the case for specialist BSS vendors stronger. They can combine functionally rich software with the skills of system integrators to provide best of breed solutions.
Edited by Maurice Nagle