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The need for
fraud protection, increasing and maintaining QoS and convergence to
enable greater uptake of technologies like WiMax, are fueling the
industry.
Market
overview
The global market for OSS/BSS has been growing at a
CAGR of 6-7 percent for the past five years. The Indian market for
OSS/BSS is growing at a faster rate and market sales were an
estimated Rs 5,600 crore in 2007-08. Under the categorization of OSS
and BSS, the OSS element - Network Management and Provisioning,
account for 60 percent of the bulk globally. Within the BSS category,
CRM and Billing account for the vast bulk of the segment,
contributing 75 percent globally.
The OSS/BSS market in India is poised to witness
immense growth. Many new players are expected to enter the telecom
industry which will result in the mushrooming of domestic and global
OSS/BSS players. In the future, the industry would be able to cater
to fixed mobile convergence, which can scale and accommodate all new
generation services. TRAI and DOT, both play a major role in
mandating new services and mechanisms of fair-play, increasing the
pressure on operators to migrate to new OSS/BSS.
High quality applications give an edge to Indian
vendors and the reputation that the country has, for being a premium
provider of innovative services, gives the industry a boost to expand
more in the telecom sector.
As new networks move toward 3G/4G, VoIP, WiMax, etc
(the focus being toward Next Generation) and other
standardizations across the integration layers, converged offerings
will be the focus, as they contributes to directly reducing ownership
costs for operators.
We see a change in the operator and subscribers
relationship in which retail transactions such as VAS will be
constantly used. This will compel the service providers to focus and
have more emphasis on each subscriber. The solution to the
customization and the understanding of the customer lie in the hands
of the OSS/BSS vendors. These vendors can actually find out a
particular person in a place and trace his usage of the telecom
services where he makes limited voice calls and more SMS, or another
person who uses more voice services rather than sending an SMS. The
services which the vendors roll out can be used to communicate and
send out more information on the services of the telco. This applies
from the time the customer subscribes to products and services of the
operator, to the time they call the contact center for inquiries,
till the time they leave the operator.
The players are working on
solutions, which support migration to NGN platform, simplify OSS
complexity, a single solution for pre- and post-paid services and
that supports multiple services, technologies, geographies, and
customer types. The new and flexible systems will only make the
business more competitive and the industry grow.
Growth
drivers
Robust growth in the mobility of a large portion of
population, increased broadband penetration, and pre-paid's rich
content service are some of the factors driving the industry. With
increasing number of subscribers and market players, the telecom
industry is growing at a breakneck pace and is surpassing other
sectors. The telecom deregulation is leading the market to stiffen
competition and is driving the growth. The need for fraud protection,
increasing, and maintaining QoS and convergence to enable greater
uptake of technologies like WiMax are also fueling the industry.
Challenges
The most prominent task that lies ahead of the
OSS/BSS vendors is the need for a convergent architecture, a single
data model, single product catalogue, single database, and interface
for customer management both for prepaid and postpaid services and
customers.
As 3G is waiting to be rolled out, many players would
be implementing all the applications and this would involve
simplified and new services that would foster the growth of
technology. The billing system for all these services would be
intricate systems which the OSS/BSS players are all waiting to solve
and roll out the solutions. The solutions have to be basic models
which the service providers can use for all the services they roll
out for 3G technology. The players are working on product innovations
and offerings with new features.
There are other challenges in particular like solving
the international roaming fraud. The international roaming fraud is a
setback for every operator. Operators rely on a High Usage Report for
the roaming fraud. The data interchange process between the services
of the visited and home operators provides an opportunity for
fraudsters causing significant revenue loss to operators. The new
system would need to dramatically reduce roaming subscriber record
exchange time, make fraud detection, and make control quick and
simple.
Prospects
The market for VAS is predicted to be enormous enough
to surpass any segment of services available in the sector. The
global VAS market is projected to cross USD 30 billion by 2010. The
service providers would try to add more volume and attract all the
new generation users by providing VAS. But, it is also predicted that
there will be a steady decline in VAS costs due to the robust growth
in the segment. In order to support the market, the OSS/BSS will also
mature and develop into a market compatible for the NGN. WiMax will
also leverage the market following the trails of VAS. The first
vendors to provide solutions to all the intricate services available,
when 3G comes along, are going to win more business than ever before.
So, companies with multiple assets that will suit an NGN environment
would be able to support the VAS and WiMax market.
The Indian OSS/BSS market is growing much faster than
the global CAGR with stiff competition and a growing subscriber base.
Major
Players
Some of the major players are Agilent Technologies,
Amdocs, Aricent, Convergys, Elitecore Technologies, HP, Intec
Telecom, Infozech, Lifetree Convergence, Microsense, Oracle
Communications, Suntec, TCS, Wipro technologies, and Xalted among
others
Elitecore Technologies, based in Ahmedabad, bagged
orders from MTNL, Aksh Optifibre, BSNL, and Spice. HP's major
revenues from this segment came from Bharti, BSNL, BPL, and Reliance.
Intec's covergent billing product, SingleView at MTNL and Reliance
was enhanced. Oracle Communications have contracts from Bharti
Airtel, MTNL, Tata Teleservices, Vodafone, and VSNL. Players such as
FSS, Sanken, Suntec, TCS, and Tech Mahindra are more focused on their
international operations. SunTec's clients in India include BSNL,
HFCL, MTNL, and VSNL. While Tech Mahindra has an order for delivering
managed services to BSNL and Idea, Xalted has been working on fraud
management solution project for BSNL. The project is expected to
upgrade 49 million subscribers in next phase and grow to 142 million
subscribers by 2010. Moreover, Xalted delivered a convergent solution
to MTNL. Wipro Technolgies has been handling transformation deals for
Aircel and placed itself as a serious contender in the telecom
outsourcing space. Lifetree Convergence is also one of the upcoming
OSS/BSS vendors, where the company has customers in Africa and
Middle-East.
"Managing
billions of transactions"
 On
key needs and complexisities of the industry
Key
needs are around convergence of:
-
Prepaid and Postpaid
-
Voice and VAS
services
Due
to industry consolidation, service providers end up relying on 1 or 2
key vendors for their needs.
On
impact of OSS/BSS on QoS
Rapid
growth of new subscribers and new services.
On
billing and customer care requirements
Focus
on new services such as VAS, WiMax, and online payments.
On
challenges and opportunities
OSS
and BSS vendors need to take care of:
On
your plans for India
We
have one of the fastest transaction engines in the world which can do
over a billion transactions in four hours. This provides Indian
operators the ability to manage huge number of transactions ñ
none of the other players is even close to this. Internationally, we
are focusing on emerging markets in Middle East and Africa.
"Bill:
A medium for the operator to communicate with its customer base"
 On
2007 revenues and expectations from 2008
TCS
has achieved excellent performance and contributed 17.4 percent of
telecom revenue in 2007. OSS/BSS contributes around 66 percent of
telecom revenue. In FY 08, we are expecting overall growth in similar
pattern.
On
key growth drivers
The
Indian telecom industry continues to witness growth with the mobile
phone subscriber base. Indian carriers are continuously investing in
their networks to scale up with increased traffic volume. Factors
driving OSS/BSS market in India are:
On
challenges and opportunities
On
complexities
On
key factors for success of OSS/BSS vendors
On
consolidation of legacy systems
-
The key driver for
consolidating legacy systems is to roll out more complex or
innovative services ahead of competition.
-
Consolidation of
multiple legacy systems into a single platform is a complex process
and needs organization wide exposure.
-
Convergence of voice,
video, and data would encourage service providers to consolidate by
considering the demand of the customer base and the competitive
market.
-
Low operations and
maintenance cost.
On
impact of OSS/BSS on QoS
OSS/BSS
is a key tool in monitoring and managing the QoS. As users
increasingly rely on the new services for their lifestyle and work,
their expectations for high reliability and quality are bound to
rise. QoS is likely to become a major differentiator in a highly
competitive telecommunications market.
On
important role to retain customers
The
right billing system for a network operator, operating efficiently,
is key to customer retention and satisfaction. A bill is a medium for
the operator to communicate with its customer base on a regular
basis; it is a powerful tool for marketing and customer services.
On
basic requirements
-
Integrated view of
customer
-
Single window
customer services
-
Convergent bill
-
Flexibility in
tariff, rating and discounting
-
Audit trail and
analytics
-
Localization and
regulatory support
On
your companyís plans for India
India
is a large market for us. Indian telecom industry is witnessing rapid
changes and we would like to offer our full range of services
including but not limited to:
-
Consulting and
managing large SI engagements
-
Service and product
bundling
-
Next generation
network (NGN)/IP migration
-
Telecom product
engineering & conformance testing
-
Solutions around the
IMS ecosystems
-
Next generation
services: deployment capabilities
-
Broadband and
Value-added-services
-
Mobility (mobile
enterprise applications, mobile broadcasting)
-
VAS (mobile TV ,
speech technologies)
On
your offerings
The
key focus areas are:
Materials
management (e-Procurement)
Supplier/Partner
management
Enterprise
management
Customer
relationship management
Business
process outsourcing
Service
provisioning
Customer
care
Fault
and workforce management
Billing
(retail/wholesale/inter-carrier)
Advanced
payment systems
Network
management systems, network inventory systems, and mediation systems
Soft
switches
UMTS,
1xEVDV and other specialized protocols and stacks
Element
management systems
TCS
operates across more than 41 countries and has more than 155 offices
across the globe. We are working with leading service providers and
equipment vendors.
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