Sigma Systems was a thought leader in the telecom software space at the height of the Internet, telecom and competitive carrier investment craze. Its leaders were fixtures at industry events, discussing CLEC success stories. But times changed and so did Sigma. Now times have changed again.

When the market bottomed out, Sigma decided to focus its operations support system (OSS) solutions on the cable industry and has continued selling them there ever since. But perhaps the best decision the company made was not to modify its systems specifically for the cable industry. For although cable and telecom are fierce competitors in video and voice, when it comes to OSS, they have found common ground.

“We didn't change because the processes are the same,” said Brian Cappellani, chief technology officer for Sigma. “We are nobody's silo; we have proved that our platform works across industries.” He added that the Sigma platform was built for multivendor environments — and cable and telecom networks are as multivendor as you can get.

Last year, Time Warner Cable joined the TeleManagement Forum. Since then, a half-dozen more cable providers have joined, and the TM Forum has created a cable interest group to address their unique requirements. This should provide Sigma the opportunity to regain its thought leadership position.

In fact, the company wasted no time in doing so. Cappellani joined Arthur Musgrove, director of network operations systems for Telus, in a presentation at the TM Forum about the competitive and cooperative potential between cable and telecom providers.

Cappellani said these providers can unite against a common fear: being relegated to pipe providers by new market entrants. Musgrove said that because OSS models and manages the network, it is the center of the transformation these providers need to make from a network-centric to a service-centric business.