Recently, Hugh Bradlow, CTO of Australian carrier Telstra made the observation that, when operators begin to move en masse to a new generation of technology, it is generally the radio access network that grabs all of the headlines. Often overlooked, he said, is the ecosystem of back-end infrastructure, including billing and OSS kit, that has been deployed over time and forms a key part of carrier operations. "All those things are carried forward from generation to generation," he said, "and those are the things that make network deployment difficult." No doubt Bradlow is right. But within his observation lies one of the biggest headaches that operators have to deal with in the back office-and that is the sheer number of legacy billing and OSS systems they have to manage. These systems have indeed been carried forward from generation to generation, with individual systems historically often deployed for single applications. The number of applications and services offered by operators today compared to the early years of GSM is enormous. And, say the billing specialists, the number of support systems is comparable.
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