Operational Support Systems, or OSS for short, are found at all communication service providers – wireline telephone companies, mobile network providers, cable operators and the like. The term refers to the multiple systems that perform management, inventory, engineering, planning, and repair functions for their networks.

The OSS is used by many parts of the organisation including:

• network planners and engineers to build out new equipment and expand capacity
• operations teams to deal with faults, equipment failures and other outages so they can identify the root cause and prioritise repairs
• capacity planners to track network performance, equipment utilisation and service quality

It is also linked to other systems, such as Customer Management to allow services to be added, blocked or changed. Self-service webpages, dealer terminals and customer care representatives all interact with the OSS in different ways.

The OSS does not deal with billing or customer management functions directly, which are within the scope of the BSS (Billing Support Systems). Close co-operation between BSS and OSS is important for efficient operation and great customer service.

Essential for success

The OSS supports network planning, network provisioning, service fulfillment, and service assurance from a common core of service and resource management. OSS solutions aim to not only improve the efficiency of planning and operations teams, but they also contribute significant financial benefits to a company’s overall CAPEX and OPEX network equipment budgets.

This means that the benefits of OSS investments typically far outweigh the staff costs of those who use them.

Incremental Development

Often, service providers have simply added a new OSS system for each new technology or service to meet the short term needs and launch quickly. Over a period of time, this leads to large numbers of different and often disconnected systems which become difficult and expensive to maintain. Further changes, introducing new services or technologies, then become more and more difficult and time consuming.

This creates a strong case to streamline and evolve the OSS through OSS transformation