tales from the mvno project

The launch of MVNO at Gadu-Gadu was by far the most difficult project I have overseen to date. It wasn't difficult because of its complexity but because so many people, departments and companies were involved - half of which from my current perspective were unnecessary. Of course the technical bits and pieces along with integrational aspects were not easy and the business offer was not just plain per minute tariffs - but the hardest part of the whole project was to coordinate the whole thing. The hardest task was to exchange information across all teams and later verify that what was to be implemented was implemented in the way it was intended to be implemented :) And what was nearly impossible was to get the marketing guys to decide and spell out what it is that they actually want..

Looking at the purely technical aspects of the project, I'd say that the complexity grows exponentially (to infinity) when you look at the architecture components moving up the osi model. All the network and transmission releted staff is ..well - easy. Core network and ss7 singalling is manage'able in a relatively short period of time - once you get the network all planned out its just configuration. The intelligence in the services - IN / Camel is where it gets hard, implementing service and related tariffs is doable - ok, but once you start verifying the logic, its integrity and stability of platforms you start to have doubts if it can ever be grasped. But then when you get to oss/bss and applications - you start loosing hope ! :)

It's now nearly two weeks after tha launch and I think today is the first day that most of the technical teams involved can safely say - I think the beast is under control. We have nearly cut to zero the 'manual adapters' and bugfixed all the major issues...