Reshaping Telecom BSS
The 5G BSS Platform has the potential of changing the telecom market in a way that previous technologies couldn’t. With of 5g services increased bandwidth and low latency, it’s in the perfect position to provide solid roots for IoT. This increases the OSS and BSS challenge for communication service providers across the globe.
Telecom Digital BSS Platforms are increasingly using technologies like the Internet of things (IoT), AR and VR, AI/ML and more, confronting CSPs to make changes to their core business models.
5G services within the Digital BSS Platform don’t result in only a superior speed. Bringing together these 2 technologies creates quality service, faster transmissions, and a better consumer experience. Industry-specific targets will be created by CSPs that collaborate with their partners to create a unique service for their customers across markets.
According to Ericsson’s latest Mobility Report, mobile data traffic was 67 exabytes (EB) a month at the end of 2021 and will grow by a factor of 4.2 over the next five years. With the increase in popularity of 5G, The global monthly average usage per smartphone was 12GB by the end of 2021 and is forecast to reach 40GB by the end of 2027. Telecom Digital BSS Platforms need to incorporate this evolution by rearranging their BSS strategies accordingly.
Prominent Evolutionary Changes with the Telecom Digital BSS Solution
Communication Service Provider to Digital Signal Processing
Traditional communication service providers’ BSS and OSS models have started becoming obsolete. Staying with the older approach to consumer satisfaction does not correlate with the current and upcoming technological advents. A large part of it is evolving into a digital service provider. This enables CSPs to cater to the escalating demand for real-time digital services for both consumers at retail and enterprise levels.
Digital Transformation will also allow telecom providers to fulfill the needs of an IoT market. And while deploying all this might be the OSS domain, developing a related product, effective monetization, and a more comprehensive real-time charging falls under the umbrella of BSS. Not adapting to the changes in 5G, Sales and distribution systems, mobile financial services, billing mediation services and customer value management will result in losing revenue to more agile competitors.
5G Network Slicing
5G network slicing can be defined as a configuration tool that allows multiple networks to be created on an already existing physical network. Here, each “slice” can be customized to the consumer’s preferences. This technological advancement has the power to radically change how telecoms and broadcasters transmit data in real-time.
4G has already reached its limit when it comes to bandwidth and latency. Today even LTE can’t cover the range of consumers’ expectations and demands for new digital products. 5G BSS Platforms will absorb the enormity of data that is expected to arrive with IoT. 5G network slicing eradicates this problem as operators will now be able to offer different slices of their network to different consumer groups.
For example, mobile data users will use a different slice compared to a machine-to-machine (M2M) application user. From a BSS perspective, this will require complete overhauling and expansion. In general, CSPs are essentially dealing with only one slice, by providing the same networking products to match most of their consumer needs. But handling a variety of slices, each with different variables and tailor-made for a specific consumer type, will require expansion. Pricing for different latencies is just one of its example.
BSS must change across all four of its key tenets: Customer, product, order, and revenue management, to reap the benefits offered by network slicing. This level of overhauling of current OSS and BSS to deploy network slicing efficiently may slow down the speed.
A relatively unorthodox solution to this was provided in the form of a “dumb slice.” In this solution, the network operator will offer the underlying resources, like VNF and a slice management automation suite. The consumer will be responsible for managing that slice themselves. This allows the BSS of a CSP to cater to a wide variety of consumers, instead of becoming limited by the specific slices they have designed.
IoT and the Fourth Industrial Revolution
5G might be the key to the successful deployment of IoT by dealing with a wider variety of connected objects, each of which handles data differently. With it may also come many BSS challenges. For example, a subscription service for a completely automated kitchen that includes several interconnected devices that uses a tiny amount of data but instead depends more on its latency.
Similarly, the complete integration of artificial intelligence into the industry and next-gen automation will require products that are completely different from what the telcos are used to offering right now. Apart from this, order management and revenue generation will also be tackled differently. Perhaps the most critical change that network operators will be making to their existing BSS is how fast they can create and deploy products to different consumers. Fleet management, drone operations, traffic safety, smart supply chains, remote plants, self-driving cars, medical sensors, retail stores, and a plethora of other systems will require different 5G services.
Where is this Next Generation Evolution Heading?
5G is forcing the Digital Business Support Systems of CSP and its operators to evolve at a much faster pace. This is also in line with the data handling changes that are already taking place like migrating from in-house servers to the cloud (public or private). A smart move for CSPs would be to take some of these changes off their plate and focus on their goals and their USPs.
The inevitable changes that are needed for 5G services can be outsourced to professional companies which specialize in OSS, and BSS, and are more agile than telcos and operators as well as more future driven.