OSS transformation is a topic that has been on the tips of telecom industry tongues for many years, though precious little real progress seemed to have been made until recently. It was probably around 1994 that I first heard carrier and vendors talk about the importance of "streamlining" their OSS and back office structures. Essentially, the industry was still having the same conversation earlier this decade, though "streamlining" gave way to "integration" and "transformation" as carriers began acquiring one another and launching news services so fast that new back office support had to be built on the fly. Now, as Telephony notes in coverage of the Billing & OSS World conference in Chicago this week, carriers such as Level 3 Communications, Sprint Nextel and Embarq are beginning to make real progress with their OSS transformation projects. For Level 3, that progress comes none too soon, as the integration challenges related to the company's acquisition binge already to a hiccup in service ordering and activation processes. Read this report at Telephony