Many service providers today are marketing managed services as a way for their business customers to free themselves from the upfront and ongoing costs of equipping and running their own networks. At the same time, many carriers themselves are moving to outsource parts of their own network operations. The argument for outsourcing in both cases has to do with cost savings and the ability to offload non-core operations so they can focus what they’re really good at – or at least on what they think can make them the most money.

In fact, just this week, India-basedtelecom giant Reliance Communications and Alcatel-Lucent formed a global joint venture to offer outsourced managed network services to telcos, with an initial focus on CDMA and GSM network operators.

Several of the exhibitors I met with at the recent Billing & OSS World Conference & Expo in Chicago talked about this growing trend in the communications service provider space. In fact, one gentleman I spoke with, Gautam Saha, vice president-BPO at HCL America Inc., said he expects some of North America’s largest telcos and cablecos to outsource BSS/OSS operations in the next 12 to 16 months. Outsourcing these operations, he said, can free up service providers to put more investment and time into better creating and marketing their services, he said.

“I think companies are looking to outsource more and more,” said Patrick Murtha, vice president and general manager of network operations at Harris Stratex, which sells the popular line of NetBoss and NetBoss XT network management software. He added that Harris Stratex is exploring adding more managed network operations center (NOC) services to its portfolio and that it already has responded to several requests for proposals (RFPs) from service providers who are looking to outsource.

CustomCall Data Systems, which sells billing, OSS and business process management solutions to service providers of all stripes, was early to recognize the outsourcing trend and has for some time delivered a hosted billing solution, its core offer. Brian Hall, a marketing management at the company, said many of its customers are CLECs.

While it might seem that outsourcing back office operations would be most appealing to small or medium service providers, or other businesses, with relatively small budgets and IT staff, xchange’s sources indicate that several large carriers also are considering or going this route. For example, Murtha said a GSM operator in the Middle East that has several million subscribers is looking at the outsourcing option.