ZTE wins OSS/BSS contract for Singapore NBN

 By Mary Lennighan, Total Telecom, in SingaporeWednesday 22 June 2011Chinese vendor to roll out common OSS/BSS platforms for national broadband network; regulator sees operators using shared systems by year-end.ZTE announced on Wednesday that it has won a contract to build the common OSS and BSS platforms for Singapore's next-generation nationwide broadband network (NBN).The Chinese vendor will roll out the platforms in conjunction with Nucleus Connect, the company responsible for operating the broadband network. Retail service providers, including the country's major telecom operators SingTel and StarHub, offer services over the network and will share the operational and business support systems.“This is playing fair games to all the operators. There is no monopoly,” Zheng Bang, president, Asia-Pacific region, at ZTE told Total Telecom ahead of the announcement at CommunicAsia. If the retail providers were allowed to use their own systems, that would give an advantage to the bigger players, he explained.Speaking at a conference session earlier on Tuesday, Phillip Heah, senior director for next-generation infrastructure at IDA, Singapore's telecoms regulatory body, highlighted the importance of the common OSS/BSS platforms, although he admitted that it is a complex undertaking.“By the end of this year they should have their OSS/BSS systems integrated,” he said.ZTE is already working on the BSS/OSS. “Next month they are officially going to announce the commercial launch, Zheng said.He added that ZTE took part in a lengthy beauty contest in order to win the deal, Zheng said, although he did not name its rivals in the process. “In the [OSS/BSS] system there are a lot of customisation jobs,” he said. “ZTE engineers can provide the service better than any others.”Read Online for More Information