Survey: OSS/BSS Is Hot

BETHESDA, Md. -- Dittberner Associates, an international management consultancy and premier market research firm has just completed a comprehensive study of over 170 OSS/BSS (Operations Support Systems/ Business Support Systems) vendors and their software offerings. The report, available now, surveys virtually every known supplier of software, hardware sub-system and integration services, constituting the specialized OSS/BSS industry. This software is used by every service provider for applications like billing, customer care, service assurance, network management and others. While considered a backwater of the telecom industry in the past, OSS systems and functionality have taken on a crucial and growing role as service providers look for greater efficiencies, adding more value to existing services, as well as meeting real time user demands for innovative services. This has led to wholesale growth of carrier external spending attributable to OSS products and is one of the very few bright growth spots in the recently troubled carrier industry. Combined global revenues for all related OSS/BSS activities generated in excess of $44 billion, significantly larger than had been previously estimated. "Attempting to be the low cost provider or competing on price in an over capacity environment is a margin killer and losing game", said Donald Dittberner, president of Dittberner Associates. "Instead, service providers must be able to provision service on the fly, add bandwidth, bill for content, insure revenue capture and audit and meet new demands for wireless Internet services. The next generation of OSS/BSS products and vendor support is crucial to service innovation and customer retention." Dittberner Associates Inc.