New independent research, commissioned by Comptel Corporation reveals that nearly 60% of fixed, mobile and cable telecom service providers are planning to invest in third party OSS software in the next 12 months. In one of the most comprehensive studies conducted on the OSS market in recent years, independent analyst firm Frost and Sullivan (led by its Stratecast division) polled mediation, inventory management, and provisioning experts at 74 global service providers in 42 countries across North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle-East, Africa and Asia Pacific.

The research, commissioned by Comptel, as part of its 20 year anniversary celebrations, focused on the role that OSS plays in supporting service provider needs in an ever-changing global telecommunications environment. The survey found that service providers overwhelmingly favoured using OSS solutions provided by independent software vendors (ISVs), with only 7% of respondents using exclusively developed in-house solutions. Of those currently using ISV solutions for mediation, inventory management or provisioning, 52% favoured Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) solutions, with little or no customisation. However, the vast majority of service providers (81%) still preferred running these software systems, COTS or otherwise, in-house rather than outsourcing their OSS operations in any way.

When asked to rank the benefits of using ISV solutions, the service providers questioned said the most important one was access to specialised vendor expertise and state-of-the-art software, which they felt was hard to develop in-house - 41% ranked this benefit first and 74% put it in their top 3. Other benefits identified were the faster deployment of new OSS software (30% and 65% respectively) and the faster launch of new services (12% and 46%).
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