Telecommunications

REPORT Vol. 13, No. 9—May 1998

Carriers and OSS Solutions: Buy, then Build

Executive Summary
The last ten years have seen a revolution in thinking about the build vs. buy decision
for applications software. In competitive industries, companies are more likely to
buy application solutions than at any time in the history of computing. Operational
support systems (OSSs) in telecommunications carriers have largely remained the
province of internal development organizations. The market for third-party
application software in telecommunications companies has developed more slowly
than the market for third-party application software in other markets. Carriers
believe that custom solutions are indispensable to the establishment of competitive
advantage. Consequently, carriers are more likely to develop solutions using in-
house resources or external services organizations. The benefits of customization are
believed to outweigh the disadvantages of higher cost and longer lead times. This
Report discusses the effects of competition and new technologies on investment in
OSS solutions. The total market for OSS solutions is estimated in Exhibit 1. It
compares the market for OSS solutions to the general market for packaged
applications in order to show that the telecommunications market has more legacy
issues than other markets. It also uses billing products as an example of an OSS that
requires significant customization.

Exhibit 1
The Operational Support System Market
Source: the Yankee Group, 1998

7.48 0.84
60 18.19 Market
4.29 4.79 Management
6.64
16.12
7.48 0.84
3.83 Order
50 5.90
14.30
6.64 18.19 Management
5.24 3.43 16.12
12.67
3.07 5.90 Network
11.23 14.30 18.36
40 Management
5.24 16.56
12.67
14.94 18.36
11.23 Customer
13.48
30 12.16 16.56 Management
14.94
13.48 Business
12.16 16.96
15.35 Management
20 13.89
11.38 12.57
16.96
15.35
13.89
10 11.38 12.57

0
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

Copyright 1998, the Yankee Group

 Telecommunications

Table of Contents

I. Regulation Affects OSS Vendors as Well as the Carriers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

II. Purchased Applications Take Off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
III. . . . Except in the Telecommunications Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
IV. OSS Solutions Are Not Software Based . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
V. Anatomy of a Billing Product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
VI. External Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

I. Regulation Affects OSS Vendors as Well as the Carriers

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 created the potential for the largest revenue
opportunity for OSS product and service vendors since divestiture. The Act directed
incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) to open their markets to competing carriers.
In exchange for the loss of monopoly status in local access and exchange services, the
Bell Operating Companies (BOCs) were to be allowed entry to the in-region long-
distance market. The Act envisioned a local market where consumers and businesses
could choose from as many different telecommunications service providers as there are
brands of soda pop. The carriers with the best overall offerings would be handsomely
rewarded by the market. The bane of the long distance and wireless carrier’s existence,
churn, would descend upon the panoply of local carriers.
The raucous market for telecommunications services envisioned by Congress is, in many
ways, nirvana for OSS vendors. Where today, there are a relatively small number of
ILECs there will ultimately be any number of companies competing for local customers.
These competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) will be an admixture of large and
small, specialized and generalized, facilities-based and non–facilities-based. The
important concept for OSS vendors is that a competitive local market means that there
will be a larger number of carriers seeking OSS solutions. Moreover, all carriers in a
competitive market will have interconnected both their telephony networks and their
OSSs. Not only is this required under the Act but any carrier interested in capturing
other carrier’s customers will have achieved this level of interconnection if it intends to
attract its competitors customers.
The Yankee Group believes that in a freely competitive telecommunications market
churn will be a significant driver of demand for new OSS solutions. A corollary to this
is that churn among residential customers will be the principal driver of transactions on
existing OSSs as well as generating most of the demand for new OSSs. Exhibit 2
provides the Yankee Group’s estimation of churn factors in the major segments of the
long-distance market. We believe that these churn rates are a reasonable indicator of the
potential for churn in a fully competitive local market.
The Yankee Group has further estimated the number of potential orders for service
changes from one carrier to another over the next several years. This estimate is given
in Exhibit 3. This forecast assumes that the long-distance churn rates identified in
Exhibit 2 will be lower in local markets and that churn among business customers will
be lower still. However, it also assumes that residential customers have a significant
degree of choice among several competitors.

2 Copyright 1998, the Yankee Group. All rights reserved.

 May 1998—Vol. 13, No. 9

Exhibit 2
Long Distance Churn and the Local Markets
Source: the Yankee Group, 1998

Long Distance Local Access Lines Potential Annual Line Changes

Market Churn Rate (Thousands) (Thousands)
Residential 27% 106,000 28,620
Small
Business 15–20% 30,000* 4,500–6,000

Medium
Business 5–6% 10,000* 5,000–6,000

Large
Business 3% 10,000* 300

* Estimates–Do not use as a planning assumption.

From this data, the Yankee Group concludes that churn-based orders from residential
customers will be a primary driver of OSS transactions. A secondary, but significant,
driver will be simple growth in residential lines. These events include orders that
involve CLECs providing service to customers through resale and unbundled network
elements (UNE) as well as through their own facilities. For orders to move customers to
a CLEC that involve resale or unbundled network elements, there will be a fairly
substantial set of intercarrier transactions. Moreover, each service-related event will
spawn a variety of OSS transactions that span carrier boundaries. For facilities-based
CLECs, each order will involve the initial transfer of the customer and little or no
subsequent intercarrier OSS transactions. The OSS transactions spawned by these
orders will execute on new OSSs installed by the newer entrants and modified OSSs in
the ILECs.

Exhibit 3
Forecast of Orders for Service Changes
Source: the Yankee Group, 1998

Residential

13.53
Business–Less
20 than 25 Lines

Business–25
8.70 Lines or More
15
6.14
Orders to
Change
Local Service 10
1.75
Provider
.56 2.18
.27
1.68
.77 1.16
5 .30 .48

.01
.02 .04 .06 .08 .10

0
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

Copyright 1998, the Yankee Group. All rights reserved. 3

 Telecommunications

Intercarrier residential orders also represent better automation candidates than business
orders. Residential orders invariably involve fewer lines and less complex combinations
of features than business orders. This difference has flow-through implications. Most
carriers want 100% of orders to flow through their OSSs without manual intervention in
order to minimize cost and avoid delay in the provisioning process. BellSouth claimed
in its Louisiana long-distance application that 97% of its residential orders flowed
through its OSSs without manual intervention. However, 81% of its business orders
flowed through without manual intervention. Presumably, the intricacies of business
orders exceeded the functional capabilities of BellSouth’s existing OSSs. The Yankee
Group suggests that investment in OSS for residential markets can provide a better
return for carriers. A carrier that achieves a 1% increase in flow-through for residential
orders will save more than if it achieves a 10% improvement in flow-through rates for
business orders. Growth in OSS investment will be a function of growth in residential
transactions within and across carriers. For the foregoing reasons OSS vendors should
be interested in the development of healthy competition in local residential markets.
Regulation continues to have a profound effect on the way that the RBOCs think about
and use their OSSs. Currently, the New York State Public Service Commission is
conducting a study of Bell Atlantic-New York’s (BANY) OSS interfaces for new
entrants. This study will test whether BANY can provide access to its OSSs for CLECs
that is comparable to the access it provides its own retail operation. This effort is seen
as a roadmap for other BOCs seeking to enter the long-distance business. One certain
outcome of this effort is that BANY will have to modify its OSSs, perhaps significantly.
The extent of these modifications will be a harbinger of the opportunity for new OSS
solutions in the ILECs.

II. Purchased Applications Take Off . . .

Before we begin discussing the expanding role of purchased OSS software, it is useful
to examine how purchased application software has fared outside the
telecommunications industry. Since the beginning of computerization in the 1950s,
companies have considered whether to build application software or buy it from a
software vendor. Through the 1980s custom in-house development was the rule at most
large companies as IT organizations swelled and CIOs consolidated their domains. As
large development projects faltered under their own weight, many companies
reconsidered their commitment to roll-your-own application solutions.
Outside the telecommunications industry, packaged application software vendors have
had fantastic success in recent years. For example, SAP/AG has evolved from being an
obscure European manufacturing requirements planning (MRP) vendor to one of the
largest suppliers of software in the world. Similar success has been enjoyed by
companies like PeopleSoft and BAAN. Over the last five years, software license
revenues for enterprise application vendors have grown between 35 and 40 percent per
year.
Packaged application vendors have prospered for several reasons. Companies have
sought to avoid the ongoing and often exorbitant maintenance costs of internally
developed application software by investing in packaged applications. The demand for
new applications has not abated. Companies face the daunting political challenge of
allocating finite resources between maintenance of existing applications and

4 Copyright 1998, the Yankee Group. All rights reserved.

 May 1998—Vol. 13, No. 9

development of new applications. Senior management in many industries now realize

that their company’s requirements are not sufficiently unique to demand highly
customized solutions.
The popularity of business process re-engineering (BPR) as an agent of cost elimination
also helped make packaged application software more acceptable. Prior to the
emergence of BPR, conventional wisdom dictated that business applications should
mirror business processes. BPR turned that maxim on its head. “Process engineers”
demanded that a company’s procedures be changed in order to wring every advantage
from IT investments. Processes should be tied to and depend upon the way computer
applications are designed. Applications that mirror efficient business processes, BPR
advocates reason, allow fewer people to do more work. In the final analysis, recent
years have seen a revolution in the way companies think about sourcing application
software . . .

III. . . . Except in the Telecommunications Industry

The adoption of packaged applications in telecommunications has proceeded along
different lines. Carriers are willing to buy packaged software in areas unrelated to core
business processes. PeopleSoft and SAP/AG have had success selling financial and
human resources products to carriers in all segments of the industry. In fact, the SAP
system is the foundation of an accounts receivable system at Deutsche Telekom that
supports 40 million customers.
On the other hand, carriers are divided on the advisability of buying packaged OSS
software. There are a variety of reasons for this reluctance. First, the business
processes that underlie OSS are unique to the telecommunications industry. Second, the
established carriers have inventories of legacy OSS. These legacy systems are a pastiche
of application development efforts stretching back more than 30 years. Carriers
introduce change to these environments in a slow and highly controlled way in order to
guarantee service levels. Third, cultural biases within established carriers also
discourage the use of third-party software. The not-invented-here syndrome is still alive
and well throughout the industry. Finally, large established carriers have IT
organizations that are well-equipped and qualified to develop complex custom
applications.
Many carriers believe that strategic advantage over competition can be achieved through
custom developed customer care computer systems. Carriers reason that custom
solutions will allow them to differentiate their offerings in the eyes of the customer. The
most notable example of this was the MCI Friends and Family™ program. This
marketing program resulted in a sudden change in market share between MCI and
AT&T. Friends and Family was made possible through a billing and customer care
system that could capture the information provided by MCI customers about the people
they called most frequently. This information was in turn used by MCI’s telemarketing
organization to sign up dramatic numbers of new subscriber by offering favorable long-
distance rates. At the time, this example was rightly and loudly touted across all
industries as an example of using IT for strategic advantage. Without MCI’s billing
system, market share gains would never have happened. It is worthwhile to note that
this occurred approximately ten years ago. It has been a long time since any carrier has
used application software against its competition to achieve a master stroke on this

Copyright 1998, the Yankee Group. All rights reserved. 5

Telecommunications

scale. Notwithstanding the antiquity of the Friends and Family anecdote, faith in
custom developed solutions is unshaken.
The lesson of Friends and Family is not only that information technology can enable
effective marketing campaigns, it also teaches that information technology can prevent
timely implementation of new marketing campaigns. MCI’s competitors would have
introduced a similar program immediately but their billing system could not be changed,
tested and deployed quickly enough. Part of the motivation for carrier’s preference for
custom developed OSS solutions is the belief that these solutions are more flexible than
purchased solutions. This belief persists in spite of the lack of reliable evidence to
prove or disprove it.

IV. OSS Solutions Are Not Software Based

Exhibit 4 shows some of the differences between enterprise application vendors and
telco applications vendors. In general, telco application vendors spend less on product
development and sales and marketing than the enterprise application vendors. In
addition, telco application vendors sell less software and more services per revenue
dollar than the enterprise application vendors.
OSS application providers are service providers rather than software providers.
Moreover, the software products they provide are not complete software products in the
same way that enterprise application products are complete software products. When a
carrier decides to buy an OSS application, it has elected to outsource application
development.
To illustrate this we will talk about the segment of the OSS business that has garnered
the most attention from vendors: billing and customer care. This segment represents the
largest discrete OSS opportunity for third-party providers. It consists of the back end
systems used to render Call Detail Records (CDRs) into printed bills ready for the
mailbox and the front-end systems used for interactions with customers. Exhibit 5
shows the Yankee Group’s estimate of the market potential for billing solutions over the
next several years.
Exhibit 5 provides a worldwide estimate of the market for billing software and
professional services. The category entitled “Outsource” is a combination of billing
solutions provided through service bureaus and facilities management arrangements.

Exhibit 4
Comparison of Enterprise Applications Vendors and OSS Applications Vendors
Source: the Yankee Group, 1998

Enterprise OSS
Application Application
Criterion Vendor Vendor
R&D Expenditure as a Percent of Total Expense 10–20% 5–15%
Sales and Marketing as a Percent of Total Expense 20–35% 5–15%
Services as Percent of Total Revenue 20–45% 75–85%

6 Copyright 1998, the Yankee Group. All rights reserved.

 May 1998—Vol. 13, No. 9

Exhibit 5
Market for Billing Solutions
Source: the Yankee Group, 1998

6 Outsource
1.17

Services
5 1.14
3.14
1.12 Software
Revenue 4 3.14
Mix for Billing 1.10 2.51
Spending 1.00
(in Thousands) 3 2.01 2.51

1.61
2.01
1.34
2
1.61
1.34 0.93
0.62
1 0.31 0.43
0.24 0.93
0.62
0.43
0.25 0.31
0
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

V. Anatomy of a Billing Product

At an architectural level, most billing products are similar. Exhibit 6 provides an
architectural view of a typical third-party billing product. The product receives CDRs
from a switch or mediation device and passes them off to an appropriate “rating engine.”
The rating engine applies a rate to each call in order to determine the charge for that
telephone call. Most billing products can also process rated data. Once the charges are
calculated, the billing product assembles the bill and prints it.
Billing products often use three databases. The product database typically contains all
the discrete products and product bundles offered by a carrier. This database will
frequently contain discount structures and rate information. Billing vendors usually
claim that their product is “table driven.” This means that the vendor provides a front
end that allows the carrier to maintain its product set. This allows the carrier to add,
delete or change products or product bundles quickly in response to changing market
conditions.
The customer database contains all the information about each customer and the
relationships that exist in that customer organization that are relevant to the carrier. For
instance, the customer database can reflect complex organizational relationship in cases
where a corporate customer’s headquarters pays (for example, bills for its sales offices).
The customer database is usually the largest database and requires the most attention
from database administrators. The design and contents of a customer database will vary
significantly by market. Business customers will have a more complex data model than
residential customers.

Copyright 1998, the Yankee Group. All rights reserved. 7

Telecommunications

Exhibit 6
Billing Products Architecture
Source: the Yankee Group, 1998

Rating Billing Print

Engine Engine Engine

Customer Product Bill

Call Database Database Database
Detail Bills
Records

Account Package/ Bill

Bundle

Service Feature/ CDR

Location Price Bill Images

Services

The bill database is a record of bills and billable events. This database will often
contain CDRs and a complete history of billing activity for each customer. It is also
frequently used by customer service representatives in their interactions with customers.
Billing solutions derive their flexibility from their data model. To the extent that a
vendor can provide a flexible data model, the vendor can provide a flexible billing
solution. Customization for each carrier is accomplished by modifying the data model
and by modifying the business rules. While the ability to customize the way service
offerings are reflected in a billing system is a desirable characteristic, the billing system
is but one part of rolling out new services. First the carrier must recognize a market
need. A billing system can help carriers identify unmet needs by providing a
comprehensive record of interactions with customers over time. However, the carrier’s
marketing organization must be market focused and attuned to customer requirements
and competitive offerings. Few large carriers possess these characteristics or have any
incentive to develop them. Wireless carriers or facilities-based CLECs, on the other
hand, possess the proper market focus and are more likely to exploit this advantage.
Second, the carrier must have the network infrastructure to support changes in its service
offerings from a functionality and performance perspective. The carrier’s network must
be able to deliver the new products and it must be able to perform acceptably. While we
agree with many billing vendors that rapid implementation of new products in the
billing system is a great feature, this enthusiasm must be tempered by the fact that many
large carriers have fundamental impediments to successful usage of such a feature.
The most important characteristics of a billing system are scalability, accuracy of
finished bills, and throughput. A billing solution should be able to scale to large bill
volumes without disproportionate resource requirements. For instance, the databases

8 Copyright 1998, the Yankee Group. All rights reserved.

 May 1998—Vol. 13, No. 9

should be able to accommodate a growing customer base. Splitting the workload among
multiple systems adds administrative overhead. The accuracy of the finished product,
the bill, is always a paramount concern. Finally, the product should be able to create the
required number of bills in the time allotted.
Billing products are not “packaged applications” in the same sense that the term is used
by enterprise application vendors. The customization provided by either the billing
system vendor, a systems integrator or an internal development staff is so significant that
it dwarfs the investment in the software. Exhibit 7 gives the Yankee Group’s estimate of
the breakdown of external spending on billing solutions. This exhibit does not include
the costs of internal development organizations.
The significant customization performed by internal or external development resources
can result in a complex mix of internally developed and externally supplied software.
Carriers who invest in billing systems should approach the acquisition differently than
other kinds of application acquisitions. The Yankee Group recommends that no carrier
purchase a billing system from a vendor who does not provide source code and ongoing
source support. We believe that the absence of source support will create obstacles to
effective maintenance.

VI. External Factors

Three external factors have the ability to have a significant affect on OSS investment
over the next five years. They are voice over Internet Protocol (IP), wireless local loop,
and consolidation of the RBOC’s position as dominant supplier of both local and long-
distance services. The first two factors involve technological alternatives to
conventional telephony services. There is tremendous interest in both technologies and
some believe that one or both will ultimately replace much of the existing public
network. If a newer carrier can rapidly take market share from an established carrier,
the established carriers will have to compete to survive. If this happens, the opportunity
for vendors of OSS solutions will expand. The established carriers will be compelled to

Exhibit 7
Billing Systems Spending Mix–1997
Source: the Yankee Group, 1998
Software - 8%

Service Bureau
Facilities Management - 35% Professional
Services - 57%

Copyright 1998, the Yankee Group. All rights reserved. 9

Telecommunications

compete by moving traffic from the existing network infrastructure to more efficient
wireless or IP networks. Established carriers will have to replace existing OSSs in order
to compete. The new carriers will have to install more capacity. The last factor could
actually contract the market for new OSS solutions.
In the first section of this piece, we talked about the importance of competition and
churn to OSS vendors. Many industry observers, including the Yankee Group, believe
that Bell Atlantic will be allowed to enter the in-region long-distance market in New
York State in late 1998 or early 1999. Other BOC long-distance applications will likely
be approved soon after. The Yankee Group believes that this will have negative
implications for software and service providers. Recent testimony before the FCC by
the United States Telecommunications Association (USTA) and the Association for
Local Telecommunications Services (ALTS), lobbying organizations for the ILECs and
CLECs respectively, suggests that competition in local markets is flourishing. The facts
belie this testimony. The justification for stating that competition exists in local markets
is based on the presence of a fairly small number of facilities-based CLECs that cater to
business customers. In residential markets, there is virtually no competition. Other
factors undoubtedly motivate both USTA’s and ALTS’s belief in the existence of
competition in local markets.
The Yankee Group suggests approval of BOC long-distance applications before the
development of viable competition for residential local service will strengthen the hand
of the incumbents. Incumbents will be able to leverage their very strong brands with
consumers to sell local, long distance and wireless bundles. This will create obstacles to
successful penetration of residential markets for CLECs. Lively competition for
residential customers will consequently develop over decades rather than the several
years envisioned by Congress in 1996. CLECs that become established in business
markets will gain market share in residential markets over a prolonged period.
The consequences of ILEC entrenchment go beyond diminished consumer choice and
higher consumer prices. It will result in a smaller total addressable market for vendors
of software and services for OSS. First, barriers to entry of residential markets will
mean fewer CLECs will achieve sufficient revenue to make large investments in OSS
product and services. In other words, there will be fewer buyers. Second, entrenched
ILECs will have no incentive to change existing OSSs; without competition there is no
need to innovate. The absence of competition will also favor using internal resources
for maintenance of existing OSS portfolios rather than buying third-party solutions.
Third, with fewer carriers competing for customers there will be a diminished need for
OSS interconnection solutions.
From a software and service provider perspective, the principal benefit of local
competition is the establishment of more carriers willing to use third-party solutions.
Software and service providers will not benefit from the opportunities presented by
competition in the local market until that market is completely open.

10 Copyright 1998, the Yankee Group. All rights reserved.

 May 1998—Vol. 13, No. 9

Further Reading
Analytical Applications and the Integrated Carrier, Yankee Group Report,
Telecommunications, May 1998.
“Unbundling and Interconnection of the PSTN: Attending the Infrastructure Dance,”
Yankee Watch Telecommunications, Vol. 12, No. 6, August 1997.
Convergence Billing Systems, Yankee Group Consumer Communications Planning
Service Report, November 1996.

Copyright 1998, the Yankee Group. All rights reserved. 11

 Yankee Group Planning Services
Asia-Pacific Communications EuroScope Communications Network Solutions
Canadian Market Strategies Internet Computing Strategies Small and Medium Business
Competitive Operator Strategies Internet Market Strategies Communications
Consumer Communications Latin American and Telecommunications
Data Communications Caribbean Communications Wireless/Mobile Communications Global
Energy Communications Management Strategies Wireless/Mobile Communications
Enterprise Applications Media & Entertainment Strategies North America

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