Explainer
BSS and OSS are the two families of systems that run a telecoms operator. Here is what each covers, how they fit together, where billing sits and why transformations of them so often overrun.
By Christopher Fagan, Managing Partner, PEF Consulting Partners
BSS, business support systems, run the customer and commercial side: products, orders, customer accounts, billing and revenue. OSS, operations support systems, run the network side: inventory, service activation, network monitoring and fault management. BSS answers what we sell and bill; OSS answers what we build, run and fix.
| BSS | OSS | |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | Customers, products and revenue | Network, services and resources |
| Typical functions | Product catalogue, CRM, order capture, billing, charging, revenue assurance, payments | Inventory, provisioning and activation, network monitoring, fault and performance management, field workforce |
| Main users | Sales, customer service, finance | Network operations, engineering, field teams |
| Main risk if it fails | Lost or wrong revenue and customer complaints | Outages and failed activations |
Orders flow from BSS to OSS for fulfilment, and usage and service events flow back from the network to BSS for charging and billing. The integration between the two, often defined with TM Forum standards and open APIs, is where many of the hardest problems sit.
Billing sits in the BSS. Modern telecom billing combines rating and charging, often in real time, with invoicing, payments, partner and interconnect settlement, and revenue assurance. Interconnect billing handles the charges between operators for traffic carried on each other’s networks.
They replace systems that carry every customer and every service, with data built up over decades, while the business keeps selling. Our article on why BSS and OSS transformations overrun covers the main causes and how to reduce the risk at cutover.
Platforms such as Kraken are now used in broadband and telecoms as well as energy and water, which is bringing utility style customer and billing platforms into the BSS space. See Kraken migration for telecoms and broadband.
Related reading: BSS and OSS transformation, telecoms consultancy, order to cash explained.
BSS supports the business and the customer, including orders, billing and revenue. OSS supports the network, including inventory, activation and fault management.
Business support systems: the product catalogue, CRM, ordering, billing, charging and revenue assurance systems that run the commercial side of an operator.
Network inventory, service activation and provisioning, network monitoring and fault management systems, and field workforce management.
The process and systems that rate and charge usage and services, produce invoices, take payments and settle with partners and other operators.
If a BSS or billing replacement is on your roadmap, the cutover and data plan deserve independent scrutiny early. We can provide it, or take on the full integration.