Huge market research figures on telecom operations support systems (OSS) persist. The latest to surface, from research firm Dittberner Associates Inc. (DAI), puts worldwide revenues for 2002 at a whopping $44.4 billion (see Survey: OSS/BSS Is Hot and OSS Revenues Top $11.9B).

That's even bigger than the $33.6 billion cited by RHK Inc. last year – a figure that gave rise to some hilarity in the Light Reading camp at the time (see RHK's Fat OSS).

The huge figures, and the disparity between DAI and RHK's statistics, demonstrate a key point. The term OSS applies to everything that goes into the applications to run carrier networks, including billing, order entry, provisioning, and the actual management and configuration of network devices. It also includes big systems integration bills for making new software packages work with existing OSS systems. What is or isn't part of the OSS market is open to interpretation.

The overlap of software, hardware, and consulting that's required to keep customized OSSs running in carrier nets worldwide favors systems integrators, according to DAI president Donald Dittberner. Integrators took home $17.5 billion in 2002, compared with $12 billion for software vendors and $14.9 billion for hardware providers.

Dittberner says there's no sign that the market is getting any smaller, at least from his perspective: "Right now, carriers are very happy to pay [on OSSs]... it saves them costs in other areas and enables new services. They'll be spending more every year." Ultimately, he says, carriers are aiming to have systems that run themselves, without manual intervention.

Here are some other highlights cited by DAI:

— Mary Jander, Senior Editor, Light Reading