OSS Software Integration

As indicated earlier, the best-of-breed approach prevailing in the service provider community
in respect to OSS has led to major software integration problems—problems for which, unfortunately,
no easy solution is in sight. Industry groups such as the Institute of Electrical and
Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) have
devoted tremendous efforts toward standardizing hardware and have achieved commendable
results, but such standardization deals only with the lowest layers of the network. It is certainly
an important first step toward providing an integrated, ready-to-deploy infrastructure for the
broadband wireless network operator, but it provides no real basis for managing the business
aspects of the network.
The relative immaturity OSS software sui generis, and especially the difficulty in integrating
various software modules, could plausibly be the most difficult problem facing the wireless
broadband operator today. And it is a problem for which only partial out-of-the-box solutions
are available. But difficult as such integration problems are, network operators must address
them. They simply have no choice.
That being the case, the following sections cover the options.