CSOBS is an acronym for Centralized Service Order Bureau System developed by Bell Laboratories during the early 1970s. CSOBS is an Operations Support System

Operations support system

Operations support systems are computer systems used by telecommunications service providers. The term OSS most frequently describes "network systems" dealing with the telecom network itself, supporting processes such as maintaining network inventory, provisioning services, configuring network...

 (OSS) created for use in Bell System

Bell System

The Bell System was the American Bell Telephone Company and then, subsequently, AT&T led system which provided telephone services to much of the United States and Canada from 1877 to 1984, at various times as a monopoly. In 1984, the company was broken up into separate companies, by a U.S...

 business offices for customer service representatives to take orders for telephone service from customers. This is one of many OSS systems deployed by Bell during the 1970s. The CSOBS system provided automation for the Service Order process.

The final document created by CSOBS was the Universal Service Order that was distributed by teletypewriters to many departments within telephone companies. CSOBS documented the customer name, address, type of service ordered, dates for disconnect or installation, telephone numbers, wiring points, plug-in equipment, and many more details. Many of these items were assigned a Universal Service Order Code or USOC that is still in use today in the United States. See the Bell System Technical Journal

Bell System Technical Journal

The Bell System Technical Journal was the in-house scientific journal of Bell Labs that was published from 1922 to 1983.- Notable papers :...

published during the early 1970s for more information.