Industry insiders say two of the regional Bells, most likely Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) and BellSouth Corp. (NYSE: BLS), have issued a request for information (RFI), which may be followed by a request for proposal (RFP) later this year, for optical network management software.

Whoopdee-do, we hear you say. Who cares?

Well, Telcordia Technologies Inc. mainly, as -- since time began -- the RBOCs have relied on Telcordia for the majority of OSS and management software.

In fact, the RBOCs are so reliant on Telcordia’s OSS software, that any network kit must be compliant with Telcordia's OSS before it can even be considered by the Bell operators. The compliance procedure, run and charged for by Telcordia on a monopoly basis, is called the Osmine process (see Telcordia's Osmine Gold Mine).

Whether or not Osmine is good for RBOCs, or the telecom industry as a whole, is questionable. The first dozen or so votes in a poll on the topic on Boardwatch indicates that Osmine isn't wildly popular. In fact, most respondents don't think it's worth service providers insisting on Osmine compliance. They acknowledge that it reduces systems integration work by "a fair amount" but say it bumps up equipment prices considerably and stifles use of innovative technologies.

Overall, 77 percent of respondents say Osmine doesn't benefit the telecom industry and 66 percent of respondents think the whole process should be subjected to an antitrust investigation.

To read more about the poll results so far, please click on this link.

To read the rest of the Boardwatch story about the RBOCs' possible plans to adopt non-Osmine-compliant management software, please click on this link.

— Jo Maitland, Senior Editor, Boardwatch