Random Thoughts on B/OSS by Jack Handy and Tim McElligott

It never ceases to amaze me that with all the hot topics being bandied about in telecom software these days – policy management, real-time charging, personalization, to name a few – that one of the most popular topics is e-billing.  More specifically, it is about how you get folks to adopt it.

There is no shortage of ways to entice people to go electronic, but it appears the customer will transition when they’re good and ready and not a moment sooner.

And another thing. Perhaps it is high time that service providers begin to adopt the Barack Obama School of Business Management. Because if nothing else, my man Barack is a multi-tasker. And it is becoming clear that many service providers –Tier 1 and 2 in particular – are having a hard time doing too many things at once. Case in point: In a panel on use cases driving real-world policy management at the B/OSS Conference Wednesday, the question was asked where the friction was. In other words, with all the good reasons compelling service providers to adopt more policy-based controls for them and their customers, why do all the cases so far tend to be more network-focused than customer-driven? Most deployed policy management solutions address bandwidth management issues. Few are customer-focused policy management deployments. Why? Service providers are too busy with the former.

And who is not outsourcing their print and mail functions? If it is you … can you send me a note explaining why not? What’s up with that?

E-mail me at heyBOSS@vpico.com.