The National Broadband Network Company will late on Friday afternoon call for submissions from technology vendors interested in supplying the core IT systems for the national roll-out.
In a statement posted on its website, the company said it would make documents associated with a request for capability statement for business and operational support systems and services available at 5pm that day. News of the plans was first reported by ZDNet.com.au.
BSS/OSS refers to the core billing, customer management, network management and provisioning systems — even extending to fault management — that telcos rely upon for their daily business. Several of Australia’s major telcos — notably Telstra, Optus and AAPT — have refreshed their systems over the past years in an effort to become more agile and get a more integrated view of their customers.
“At this time we want to receive capability statements from experienced business and operational support systems and services (BSS/OSS) software vendors, development houses and integrators to support the build, implementation and ongoing maintenance of the BSS/OSS required to operate the National Broadband Network,” said the NBN Company on its site.
The OSS/BSS effort is only one part of the NBN Co’s ongoing procurement efforts.
It has recently sought similar request for capability statements from telcos for satellite network services, and it is currently finalising a shortlist of network equipment vendors.
“Over the coming months NBN Co will seek a variety of capability statements so we can fairly select the right partners,” the company’s site stated.
Image credit: Flavio Takemoto, royalty free