The Billing & OSS World Expo Blog

By Tim McElligott

If $300 doesn’t mean much to you, then you must still be living high off that IPO from 1999. But if you’re like the rest of us who need to justify what we spend, where we spend it and why, you might be hard pressed to explain to your boss (small b, no slash) why you tossed $300 off the back of the train by waiting too long to register for the 2010 B/OSS Conference & Expo on June 9-11, especially when discounts were flying since January.

Registration for B/OSS opened this week and the 300 bucks is on the table for those registering before the show. It’s not just about the money you’ll save by registering now. It’s really about the quality of the conference agenda and the opportunities for professional networking. But still, think of the things you or your company can do with $300:

• $300 more than covers that average cost of a roundtrip flight from anywhere in the U.S. to Washington DC. So signing up now basically gets you free airfare.
• $300 is the price of a new Nokia Booklet 3G. Your own laptop for cry-eye.
• $300 is more than the Pennsylvania Assembly paid for the Liberty Bell. Sure that’s in Philly, but close enough.
• $300 can get you 303 iTunes downloads, many of which you can listen to on your way to Washington. But please, no Neil Diamond. No Bono.
• $300 can get you 435 shares of new General Motors stock.
• You and three friends, whom you may meet at B/OSS, can take the Segway tour of Washington — and have $20 left over for a slice or two of cherry pie or a nice falafel.

You get the picture, early registration means discounts. But why break your procrastination habit only halfway? When you register, follow through and make your hotel reservations for the Gaylord. If you’ve been to Washington lately then you know $249 is a good rate, especially for a brand-spankin’ new hotel and convention center. But after May 17, we can’t hold that price. You don’t want to save $300 on your registration only to lose half of it to the hotel — no matter how nice it is.

Service providers can spend all the money they want on commercials about maps, but we all know that what makes a network different and better, besides proper, creative engineering, is the back office. Business and operations support systems are the drivers of differentiation and the tools that turn telecom into a competitive powerhouse for the Internet age. And learning about the latest BSS/OSS developments and meeting with the companies that are improving the way networks and services perform and with peers that are seeing it happen are the reasons for attending B/OSS in the first place.

At B/OSS you will find a well-balanced agenda offering case studies, panel discussion and executive keynote addresses that are part of a conference experience you won’t get anywhere else. From the most stubborn issues around billing to the emerging challenges around policy management, deep-packet inspection, customer data management, partnership management, real-time charging, service assurance and the vigilance required for proper revenue management, B/OSS attendees, exhibitors and subject matter experts can engage in the kind of open and productive dialogue that leads to solutions.

And to be honest, your registering early helps us plan for and produce the best show we can. That’s why we offer you the $300. Because you’re worth it.