Collaboration for Business Excellence

IS FEB
SU 20
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http://www.huawei.com/en/about-huawei/publications/huawei-service/index.htm
Collaboration for Business Excellence
Truly managing customer experience has begun
6 steps to Operational Excellence
Integration for the evolving network
ICT certifications -- Align employees career development life cycle
Cover Story: Telefonica Latin America
A step to increase efficiency operations by Managed Services
Huawei Professional Services attended Managed Services World Congress 2011 in Berlin, Germany
Huawei Awarded with Global Growth and Innovation in
Telecom Managed Services Award by Frost & Sullivan
Huawei SmartCare Awarded with the Excellence in Customer
Perception of Service Quality Award by Frost & Sullivan
To Readers
Collaboration for Business
Excellence
Sponsor:
Global Technical Service Department of
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd
Consultant:
LiangHua, Leroy G. Blimegger Jr, Dong Gang, Ma Haixu,
Victor Li, Han Xiao, Raymond Luan, Fu Shiguang,
Chief Editor:
Frank Yao
Executive Chief Editor:
Yang Dong, Graham Willis
Editorial Members:
Cai Wei, Yaser AL Khateeb, Tony Chen
E-mail: Huawei_service@huawei.com
Tel: +86 755 28787912
Fax: +86 755 28788835
Address: B1, Huawei Base, Bantian, Longgang, Shenzhen,
China 518129
Publication registration No.: Yue B No. 1163
The information contained in this document is fore reference purpose only,
and is subject to change or withdrawal according to specific customer
requirement and conditions.
Copyright © Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2012. All rights reserved.
No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by
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The boom in development of information technology has challenged
and reshaped the traditional network rollout and O&M systems. It is
now transforming from network KPI model to a full-network, full-service
operation system, focused on service applications and customer experience.
Huawei is dedicated to collaborating with customer in four areas; smooth
modernization, satisfied end-user experience, operational excellence and
revenue enhancement. We are devoted to providing efficient and innovative
service solutions and new business models, helping customer for business
excellence through E2E operational optimization and innovation.
Intelligent Evolution
Along with the complexity of network technologies, large number of interface
protocols, and business transformation to IT & CT Convergence, the traditional
network deployment model is evolving to prime integration which can support
cross-network services, multiple modes, multiple vendors, and multiple services.
This is also the only way in which the network will evolve with the trends of
“Connected•Possibilities”. Through our consulting , design, migration, and
integration capabilities, Huawei provides efficient, accurate, and safe end-to-end
integration services, thus helping customers maximize the value chain integration.
Satisfied Experience
Truly managing customer experience has begun.
In the mobile broadband era, HUAWEI SmartCare service solutions can truly
manage the customer experience by associating the end-user QoE modeling
and aggregated per service per user (PSPU) service quality management with
multi-vendor network optimization to deliver superior experience and connectivity.
Operation Consolidation/Operation Innovation
With the trends of “Connected Possibilities”, Huawei provides end-to-end
managed services. As a long-term strategy, Huawei will continuously invest in
developing our global managed services business. Huawei managed services
can effectively improves O&M efficiency by consolidating global resources and
delivery platforms and making innovations in O&M. It also enhances the network
quality, enables visible O&M, and helps customers reduce their costs by 20%.
Revenue Enhancement
Huawei provides end-to-end Managed VAS & Managed BSS solutions
for revenue enhancement. In these solutions, standard managed services
processes are developed based on the understanding of products and
customer management processes, in order to reduce the Time-To-Market,
improve user experience, and realize stable revenue growth.
CONTENTS
Collaboration for
Business Excellence
FEB 2012 ISSUE 31
Perspective
P02Truly managing customer experience has begun
P046 steps to Operational Excellence
P06Integration for the evolving network
Solution
P08E2E Managed Services for Better Business Value
P12Focusing on integration to build green data center in
the cloud-computing era
P14ICT certifications -- Align employees career
development life cycle
Success Story
P16Telefonica Latin America
A step to increase efficiency operations by Managed Services
P20VIVA Kuwait
Operational Excellence through MSUP
P24China Mobile (Guangdong)
Learning by innovation
P28China Mobile (Guiyang)
Building top-quality GSM network and improving user
perception
P32Telenor Norway
The fastest ever and top quality GSM/UMTS network migration
in Europe
01 <
Perspective
Truly managing customer
experience has begun
By Trevor Cheung
Director of HUAWEI SmartCare service solutions marketing
Today’s challenge for building a profitable
mobile broadband business is to increase
capacity and improve end-user satisfaction.
Increasing capacity is straightforward -we all know how to play that game. But
improving end-user satisfaction requires a
> 02
shift in thinking.
Today, most operators use Service Quality
Management (SQM) to measure customer
satisfaction. But the Telecommunications
Management Forum (TMF) is redefining
SQM. SQM is great for monitoring the
network from an operator point-of-view,
but comes up short against the challenge
of assuring end-user satisfaction. TMF
is evolving SQM to Managed Customer
Experience (MCE). This is more than a name
FEB 2012 ISSUE 31
change. This is a fundamentally different
approach to managing customer satisfaction
-- a user centric approach.
What is a User Centric
Approach?
A user-centric approach is a disciplined
measurement solution for building profitable
and stable customer relationships -- at
an individual level. Today’s SQM is quite
effective for assessing aggregated customer
data. But it is not able to maximize customer
satisfaction for individual users. The new
approach is like practicing medicine by
looking at the health of individual cells.
The benefit to operators is obvious. The
benefit to users is that the network works as
expected, every time.
How does a User Centric
Approach Work?
To an operator, aggregated network service
levels may seem okay. But while overall
network reliability is fine, an end-user may
have dropped calls due to a device problem,
a service area issue, etc., “For me, it’s just
not working. My web browsing on my iPad
at my home works, but email on my Droid
does not.” Pinpointing problems will rapidly
improve network performance and of course
solving customer satisfaction issues and in
most cases before they happen. Previously,
operators used traditional, subjective enduser satisfaction measures. Today’s user
centric approaches enable operators to
use additional objective indicators to
assess satisfaction by correlating the true
association between end-user context QoE
modeling, PSPU service quality management
and multi-technology, multi-vendor network
performance optimization to deliver (a)
precise Customer Experience Indicator (CEI)
calculation (b) Aggregated Per Service Per
User-oriented Quality Management and (c)
Targeted Business Value Analysis which shall
ensure superior customer experience.
Bits and pieces of data are useful only
if they create value for the customer or
shareholders. Providing PSPU data to a data
miner not only produces quick network
fixes, but more importantly, it can provide
information for proactive and predictive
measures. Additionally, the data can be used
to produce a Customer Experience Indicator
(CEI) score. This is a patented measure of
customer satisfaction using an algorithm of
PSPU data and survey results.
What are the Key Considerations
for Selecting a User Centric
Solution?
A user centric solution requires a significant
investment of operator time and money.
Choosing the right partner is of paramount
importance. A great partner can:
Provide a total product portfolio that
covers the entire requirement for multivendor, multi-technology networks. To
manage complex multi-layered services there
is a need to adapt to growing and changing
network requirements for managing Next
Generation Networks in combination with
legacy systems. In many cases to determine
the root cause there may be a need to
correlate the aggregated indications from
multiple sources i.e. applications, devices,
to view the total interactive process flow
for a particular session. The collection and
interpretation of these indicators require the
understanding of all components in today’s
multi vendor/technology environment.
A highly trained and experienced field
support group is not only capable of
performing the required testing but also
skilled in accurately interpreting the results
and recommending the optimum solution.
The entire exercise of gathering data and
conducting surveys is worthless unless the
results can be properly evaluated, correlated,
and analyzed to produce meaningful results.
These results must be accurate and reliable
since they form the cornerstone for the
entire exercise and there is no room for error.
Once the results have been analyzed and the
service impacting issues have been identified
an action plan can be implemented. The
success of any project relies heavily on
the partner having a highly trained and
knowledgeable field support group.
Willingness to commit to a true
partnership as this process can only be
successful with a collaborated effort with
mutually beneficial goals and results. A
user centric solution is a long term detailed
process requiring a joint commitment
from both parties to ensure success. The
partner must be capable of demonstrating
a strong, long term, corporate and finance
commitment.
As a result, the user centric approach
is uniquely positioned to link the KPI
monitoring with Per Service Per User KQI
assessment to enable User Centric Context
Modeling and result in the collaboration for
business excellence.
03 <
Perspective
6 steps to Operational Excellence
By Jay R Blanc Selva
Operational Challenges
Process KPI architecture
Networks form the backbone of operator
infrastructure consisting of various elements
and nodes which can be multi-technology
and supplied from different vendors. This has
resulted in increased complexity and higher
costs when it comes to network operations.
Time
CMDB
Process KPI
Efficiency
Quality
to Fault Restoration, % Successful Network
Activation, % CR Caused Fault, Mean Time
to Alarm Response etc.
to have a methodological approach by
implementing the lifecycle management
through the 6 steps shown in the diagram.
Whilst the SLA defines key targets at a high
level, the Process KPI goes into a much
deeper granularity and shows the impact on
time, quality and effectiveness which give
the operators a top down analysis on the
overall operational performance.
1. Process Optimization
t
Pr
De oces
fin s K
itio PI
n
6. Improvemen
The 6 Steps
Global MAI team
ori
ng
5.
nc
Be
Today operators are prioritizing operational
efficiency and Huawei believes that the
critical success factor to achieving this is
2.
s
ces n
Pro tio
1. imiza
t
Op
nit
Complementing the Process KPIs is an
expert team in operations who can diagnose
operational problems and come up with an
improvement program. For a continuous
improvement program this expert team
can “Monitor, Analyze and Improve” (MAI)
and through benchmarking is able to work
towards higher operational efficiency.
Create a process framework based on
industry standards and best practices such
as TM Forum, ITIL and QMS. Unifying these
methodologies ensure a common language
between IT and network and so reduce
ng
> 04
OPS
ITIL
Localize
Resource
Trouble
rki
Operators are increasingly utilizing the
Process KPIs which cover all areas of network
operation. It measures key indicators for
operational efficiency such as Mean Time
eTOM
Track & Manage
Resource Trouble
Close Resource
Tbl Report
3. OSS Alignm
ent
Addressing this challenge may vary from one
operator to the next, but what all approaches
have in common is the realization that
optimized processes with an expert team
to execute and manage it is of paramount
importance. Having the right tools, processes
and people in place is the first step towards
removing waste and increasing efficiency.
Create Trouble
Report
Correct & Recover
Resource Trouble
hm
a
Solution
Survey
&
Analyze
Mo
As operators aspire to improve their operations
they need to have the right tools, processes
and people in place to manage the complex
and dynamic environment. They need to find
ways to reduce waste, increase efficiency,
ensure alignment between the OSS platform
and processes, develop a common language
between IT and network and increase their
operational maturity level to cater for the next
generation convergent services.
OLA
4.
Meanwhile, mobile operators are in the
midst of launching a range of new services
including ICT and cloud, offering significant
growth opportunities. But with the demands
of these services, operators are facing
increased operational challenges as they need
to offer high network quality and availability
together with better customer experience.
SLA
FEB 2012 ISSUE 31
“Jay R Blanc Selva has been working in the telecom industry for over 15 years and is currently the Operational Excellence & TQM director of Huawei
Global Technical Service(GTS). In this capacity, Jay is responsible for design and development of business transformation and operational excellence.
complexity, duplication and will ensure
easier integration across all organization.
2. Process KPI Definition
With Operational Level Agreements
(OLAs) it becomes possible to develop
Process KPIs which are specifically aligned
to the objectives of the wider business
strategy and the appropriate maturity
level of the operations. In particular, they
allow a certain amount of intelligent
triage to be carried out when deciding
what should be prioritized – cost savings,
service quality or efficiency.
3. OSS Alignment
Here, the optimized processes are
embedded into the OSS workflow in
order to integrate the Process KPIs
into the wider platform and define the
management dashboards to be used
for the monitoring of operations. By
comparing process flows with the IT
flows, it becomes possible to detect
errors that are impacting performance
and move more smoothly towards a fully
automated, flow-through environment.
4. Monitoring
Measurement of the process KPIs is done
via the near real time dashboard to identify
problems proactively. An expert team can
perform monitoring on a monthly basis for
continuous improvement.
5. Benchmarking
Based on comparable maturity levels,
scale, geographical location and other
principles, benchmarking with other
internal operations or with other
companies through an organization like
the TM Forum is a vital discipline that can
help ensure that your performance equals
or even exceeds your contemporaries.
6. Improvement
Through monitoring and benchmarking,
solutions can be quickly implemented to
overcome operational bottlenecks. Establish
and ensure adherence to continuous
improvement plan through the expert team
and senior executive oversight.
These 6 steps were recently applied to the
operations of a global operator. The OSS
platform was enhanced and integrated with
7 major customized O&M processes across
various functions such as network surveillance,
fault management, performance management,
change management etc. Continuous
measurements of Process KPIs showed
the following remarkable improvements in
operational efficiency and effectiveness:
••FLE First Time resolution rate improved by
40%;
•• Back Office Escalation rate reduced by 80%;
••Average Fault MTTR reduced by more than
50%;
••MTTR for customer complaints resolution
reduced by at least 60% with >60%
complaints resolved on the same day;
••100% Change Requests logged and
approved through on-line CR Management
system; unwanted network accidents
during change implementation has
reduced to zero level.
The improvements made confirm the
significant achievements that are possible
when standardized processes and the OSS
are in alignment. To ensure that these major
gains are maintained after completion
of the project, a Continual Improvement
Program (CIP) was initiated with the NOC
team continually monitoring, analyzing and
identifying improvement areas.
Benefits
This innovative efficiency management allows
operators to measure and quantify operational
efficiency and analyze problems across the
dimensions of time, quality and effectiveness.
Furthermore the solution has the capability to
measure, benchmark, standardize, compare and
analyze across the organization’s infrastructure
and processes to achieve transparency for
informed decision making and management.
Formalizing and adherence to the 6 steps
will improve operational processes and
streamline network operations which allow
continuous improvements, bringing the
following benefits:
••Reducing complexity by aligning processes
and tools will reduce cost and improve quality;
••Improved customer satisfaction through
improved quality and the use of best practice;
••Common language across the organization
allows clear and transparent communications;
••Support a converged service strategy with
new service innovations.
05 <
Perspective
Integration for the evolving
network
By Keith Taylor,
Principal Consultant, Network Integration Services Dept., Huawei
New Business Models
This business has changed beyond all
recognition in the last few years. When the
3G licenses were first issued the industry
was looking for a killer-app. Thin overlay
networks were built using existing sites.
However, it wasn’t an application that took
us all by surprise, but instead a new kind of
device, the smartphone. Like a slow motion
car crash, the Telco’s watched as customers
bypassed their portals and went direct to
the content providers taking all that value
with them. What is more operators are being
forced to dimension their networks to cater
for a tidal wave of data demand. So they are
caught in a trap; on one side there is the ever
present need to retain customer loyalty
by preserving positive customer
experience, on the other
> 06
there is a disconnection between revenue
models and the amount of data consumed.
The evolving Telco
Changes in the demand for data are
disrupting Telco’s business models. Linking
the network build and operation to revenue
streams is not trivial. What needs to be
done is to find new ways of competing in
the market and delivering value by changing
the operating and business model. Some
are now calling this Telco 2.0. Progressively
it looks like large parts of the operator’s
business are being delivered into the hands
of the vendors to manage, so that Telco’s
can get on with better serving customers.
At Huawei, we’ve been grappling with
the hard task of understanding how to
integrate and evolve networks along several
dimensions. It’s easy to be seduced by
the utopian view of an LTE network being
served by an evolved packet core (EPC)
where all devices are LTE enabled. But the
reality is much tougher. We’re working
across multiple layers, with multiple vendors’
equipment. What is more the underlying
telecoms operations support system (OSS)
is being integrated as one component of a
suite of tools that will support new services
and a new relationship with the customer.
This change forces us to look across
the platforms and into the processes,
delivering ever greater network
intelligence.
FEB 2012 ISSUE 31
tin
sul
De
sig
n
n
Co
g
Integration
Scenarios
Re-farming and network
consolidation
A Consultative Approach
The consequence of these changes is a
constant dialogue between operators and
vendors. At the heart of this is a deep
understanding of the underlying technology,
its economics and delivery. Value is created
by understanding the interplay between the
operator’s need to deliver results and the
demands of its customers. The questions
this poses can seem almost endless; how do
we compete in this market? When should
we introduce LTE? How much and how fast?
How much spectrum should we re-farm?
When do we move to all-IP? How do we
integrate a new OSS? When will 2G decline?
Every day we are delivering integration
services globally that are the product of such
thinking which has enabled us to build an
almost unique set of capabilities in this field.
Network Evolution
A
We have developed a set of services and
intellectual capital orientated around refarming. The challenge is to preserve
network quality both during and after a refarming exercise. This takes experience and
first rate tools. Our experience has been
hard won.
The greatest challenge has been achieving
this whilst conducting another exercise such
as swapping equipment or consolidating
networks. This complicates the task hugely
and the risks cannot be underestimated.
What we have achieved is to retain a mature
network performance whilst changing the
structure and resources in the network.
Design
Whilst evolving networks, we have learnt
that a simple focus on one part of the
network is insufficient to deliver competitive
performance and so, instead, we take an
New network
Design
Legacy networks
We have developed a set of tools and
services to help. Network evolution is
concerned with developing the network
to cater for a data dominated world,
whilst preserving investments in legacy
voice infrastructure. We need to balance
investments in spectral resources, knowing
exactly how much must be retained for 2G
voice, whilst maximising that available to
more spectrally efficient technologies.
Migrate
Optimize
B
KPI A
KPI B
Performance
Very tight timescales
end-to-end view throughout migration and
evolution activities. One of the greatest
challenges in many networks is collecting
and validating data. We help in not only this
task, but also recreating information where
it is absent.
Migration
Within our evolution service we offer a scenario
based approach to model service ensuring
that business benefits are delivered. This helps
operators understand what factors are the
most sensitive to change and what the critical
steps are during the evolution or migration.
Once these issues are fully appreciated and
agreed there is a basis for action.
All-IP
An all IP network represents an attractive
proposition for operators as data becomes
king. However evolving the network is not
so simple. Unless care is taken, technical
risks; routing errors and traffic bottle-necks
or commercial risks; escalating costs and
loss of business benefits can sabotage well
laid plans. One innovation that we have
developed is a shared point code migration.
This allows a single PC to be used for a swap
which speeds up migration and makes it
simpler and reliable.
Parameter mapping
Of course, much of our work is refreshing
networks with our world-class single-RAN.
It is universally true, that good equipment
configured poorly, performs poorly. So we
have taken the time to understand how best
to translate parameters from one vendor’s
equipment to another. This experience has
allowed us to extend our mapping capability
across the network, from air-interface to
access network to core network.
We are taking a leading role, building
capabilities that respond to real world
problems encountered in evolving networks.
Through this work we are developing a
set of tools and delivering desired business
outcomes whilst preserving and enhancing
end-users experience.
07 <
Solution
E2E Managed Services
for Better Business
Value
By Richard Huang & Giles Vincent
Managed services is entering the
mainstream
This requires industry-wide evolution that
encompasses the cloud, pipe, and device.
Managed services (MS) has seen remarkable
growth in the telecom sector over the last
few years. The key market drivers for its
adoption vary by region, but OPEX reduction,
network complexity, customer satisfaction,
and time-to-market are often involved.
Furthermore, subscriber acquisition &
retention costs are increasing while revenues
are declining, as more and more service
providers are competing and vying for the
end user’s attention.
In mature markets such as Europe, where
mobile penetration exceeds 100%, operators
need to reduce costs to improve their bottom
line. With economic and budgetary crises
complicating the matter, outsourcing of
peripheral functions has become imperative.
In emerging markets such as India, time-tomarket (TTM) is a key factor, as operators
lack the resources needed for timely rollout
in these high-growth territories.
However, all operators are challenged by
telecom-IT convergence (which has the
potential to greatly impact future growth
areas such as ICT and cloud service) as
subscribers now demand a consistent
experience regardless of the terminal involved.
> 08
To address these challenges, operators are
increasingly turning to managed services.
Growth, innovation &
partnership
Huawei fully comprehends the challenges
that operators face. We aim to function as a
transformation enabler that helps them cope
with the dynamics of the industry’s valuechain evolution, which means that Huawei
has also had to transform from a traditional
to a next-gen MS provider. This has involved
Huawei shifting its focus from mere network
metrics (KPIs) to the end-user experience
(KQIs); no easy task considering our hardcore engineering background. We have
evolved our focus from traditional network
MS to ICT MS, which equates to valuechain evolution rather than mere technology
evolution, culminating in clear improvements
in revenue and margin, customer experience,
and operational efficiency for operators.
Huawei has invested in and continues to
invest in organizations, business platforms,
and tools related to MS. Out of its 22,000
professional services staff members, over
6,000 work in managed services. MS
represents the turning over of a key element
of any operator’s future growth to a third
party, meaning that trust counts under these
circumstances as much as skill; but Huawei
partnerships are open and transparent.
Operators will retain full network visibility
through Huawei’s tailored customer
interface, while also maintaining control over
their own business and network strategy;
through these portals, operators can view
their network from end to end.
Huawei’s primary MS offerings fall under EOT
(establish, operate & transfer), outsourcing,
and hosting (Fig. 1). EOT ensures rapid TTM,
FEB 2012 ISSUE 31
As a next-generation managed services provider, Huawei’s end-to-end managed services promises operators gains in both revenue & margin, as
well as enhanced operational efficiency and improved end-user experience.
particularly for green fielders, while network
outsourcing reduces OPEX and simplifies
internal processes along with O&M. Hosting
simplifies the business model, allowing
operators to test and launch new services in
a very short time at minimal risk.
Huawei has pioneered a wealth of
innovations to support its customers. Our TM
Forum-certified MS Unified Platform (MSUP)
is based on the eTOM and ITIL standards for
ICT convergence management. Huawei has
also been a significant contributor to the TM
Forum and is currently participating in their
innovation program, known as Catalyst,
where Huawei, together with other service
providers, vendors, and partners, have
launched a project to study suitable eTOM
and ITIL implementation methods for service
assurance, which will prove vital as it enables
a comprehensive view of the network,
application, and business layers.
Huawei’s state-of-the-art OSS tool (E-iNOC),
which is integrated with the MSUP
framework, has both service quality and
multi-vendor management capabilities, which
are some of the key reasons why operators
are increasingly partnering with Huawei, as
is the fact that the employees that transfer
to Huawei will have a great opportunity
to advance themselves at a fast-growing
global Fortune 500 company. As of the end
of 2011, Huawei has signed over 250 MS
contracts in over 60 countries, accounting
for over a quarter of a billion subscribers;
this helped prompt Frost & Sullivan to
bestow upon Huawei its Global Growth and
Innovation in Telecom Managed Services
award in November of that year.
Better business value
Huawei offers a full E2E managed services suite,
enabling the following benefits for the operator.
Operational excellence
Huawei leverages its standardized Managed
Services Unified Platform (MSUP), which
covers processes, tools, and overall
organization, as an enabler of operational
transformation. E-iNOC, which falls under
this platform, features a variety of TM Forumcertified processes that play an important role
in the platform’s support of service delivery,
while enhancing operational efficiency.
••GNOC for synergy & efficiency
Huawei GNOCs facilitate customer
operations by scaling down the resources,
tools and processes needed to keep the
network running. Each GNOC includes
E-iNOC, which further leverages synergies
with GTAC, GNAC and GSRC to resolve
network issues faster and provide endto-end services such as performance
benchmarking, optimization, design, and
customer support, resulting in improved
overall value for customers.
••Field management innovation
To optimize field operations, E-iNOC
features an Internet-enabled field workforce
management system that schedules resource
allocation optimally, while automating mapbased dispatching, wireless communications,
and mobile computing. The advanced
intelligent scheduling application utilizes
a patented heuristic-based optimization
algorithm that enables the scheduling
of a full spectrum of work, ranging from
routine customer service and installation
calls to more complex activities such as
network planning, engineering, design, and
construction associated with projects of any
duration required, resulting in significantly
improved field operational efficiency. Network
interruptions are reduced, both in number
and duration, through improved maintenance
(preventative & corrective). Thanks to Huawei
MS, a certain global operator based in Europe
09 <
Solution
now enjoys a nearly 30% improvement in
field efficiency at 20% less manpower, while
trouble ticket-handling capabilities are also
improved by roughly 20%, helping lead to a
significant reduction in OPEX.
••NOC efficiency management
Operators today are under enormous
pressure to tighten their belts through
increased efficiency, reduced waste,
ensured alignment between the operational
support platform & processes, IT & network
compatibility, and operational maturation
that can enhance the delivery of convergent
next-gen services.
Huawei has an innovative set of process KPIs
and employs an expert MS team to manage
and execute them. Huawei’s MSUP-based
“Process KPI”’ system covers the full range
of NOC activities, where said KPIs represent
key elements of operational efficiency such
as Mean Time to Trouble Ticket Response
(MTTR), Mean Time to Alarm Response,
and Front Office/Back Office efficiency.
By utilizing the E-iNOC dashboard, which
shows real-time SLA, OLA, and process KPIs,
this system gives a top-down analysis of
overall performance, meaning that the NOC
operations team can utilize Huawei archives
to determine problems and streamline
processes. Huawei has gone a step further
by setting up a global team to create a
culture of continuous improvement. The
team’s sole job is monitoring, analysis, and
improvement (MAI), based on Huawei’s
vast MS experience, to ensure operational
excellence.
With Huawei, operators can measure and
quantify operational efficiency and analyze
problems in terms of time, quality, and
effectiveness. Furthermore, the MAI team can
measure, benchmark, standardize, compare
and analyze an organization’s infrastructure
and processes for continuous improvement.
After implementation with a Middle Eastern
operator, the First Time Fault Resolution
rate improved by over 40%, while customer
complaint MTTR declined by nearly 60%.
Revenue enhancement
EOT
EOM
To help operators exploit growth
opportunities and improve their bottom line,
Huawei has developed a number of revenue
enhancement solutions.
••Revenue assurance
Loss of revenue due to billing & charging
complexity, inaccurate data input, invalid
correction & discount control, ineffective
payment collection, and bad debt
management remain a major challenge for
operators The primary causes of revenue
leakage include network configuration
changes, tariff configurations, and poor system
integration during the CDR processing cycle.
Huawei, through its understanding of the
revenue cycle, can help operators reduce the
potential impact and risk of revenue leakage
through its revenue assurance processes,
tools, and expertise. Our methodology is
based on statistical sampling derived from
its global experiences in detecting revenue
losses, enabling close monitoring of revenue
performance in key areas such as ARPU,
subscriber growth, fraud, and revenue loss.
Outsourcing
Hosting
Network
IT
Managed VAS
Managed BSS
Go-to-market Strategy
Business Process Operation
Business Process Design
Product Design
Content Management
CP/SP Management
Service Integration
Service Assurance
Service Quality Improvement
Service Quality Management
Product & Marketing Management
Customer Management
Resources Management
Billing & Revenue Management
Application Management
SQM
Managed Network
Application Maintenance
Application Enhancement
Infrastructure Management
NOC Operation
Spare Parts Management
Network Performance Management
Field Maintenance
Managed Site Energy
All-IP Network Management
Server/Storage
Management
OS/DB Management
Disaster Recovery
Deployment & Modernization
Consulting
Planning & Design
Rollout & Swap
Integration
Managed Services Unified Platform (MSUP)
GTAC/ GNAC
GNOC
MS Center of Excellence
Figure 1 Huawei E2E Managed Services Offerings
> 10
Hosting Center
FEB 2012 ISSUE 31
Huawei personnel will conduct management
interviews and analyze findings across
various control points to identify and isolate
root causes, after which proven remedies are
implemented. Huawei was able to improve
the billing accuracy for a certain African
operator from approximately 70% to 90%,
leading to fewer customer complaints.
••Revenue generation
Huawei is the only leading telecom
equipment vendor to address both the
enterprise segment and devices, making
it uniquely suited to address the revenue
enhancement needs of its customers.
Huawei can comprehensively enhance
the subscriber experience by assuring
system availability and designing profitable
applications suitable for any market.
Huawei’s MS team works closely with the
operator’s marketing team to understand
customer behavior through analysis of usage
patterns and market conditions. We will
then create a suitable ecosystem by bringing
in SPs and CPs, through our inTouch
partnership program, and jointly designing
the appropriate pricing/marketing strategy,
as Huawei’s SDP creates a platform for the
CPs/SPs to reach the market base quickly
and easily.
With our large network of partners and
cloud infrastructure, Huawei can offer
sustainable growth opportunities to its
customers. For a certain global operator
that was struggling with service TTM
and network integration complexities,
Huawei deployed a multi-regional, layered
SDP architecture that connected thirteen
countries, thus creating a standard managed
platform for service launch. Huawei provided
an E2E MS solution where the scope of work
encompassed service planning, marketing
operations support, partner management,
application customization, and SDP platform
O&M. Huawei’s MS team also helped the
operator aggregate over 300 CP/SP partners.
The results were quite noticeable, as the
customer’s service TTM dropped from
about 6 months to 5-6 weeks, while VAS
penetration increased significantly.
In addition, Huawei offers an innovative and
flexible business model to meet the needs
of a variety of scenarios. Hosting services
reduce the need for capital investment by
customers, allowing them to float outsidethe-box ideas at minimal risk and CAPEX.
Using Huawei’s hosted SDP, a South Asian
operator increased its ARPU by around 25%,
while shortening its TTM from seven weeks
to less than five days.
Customer satisfaction
The subscriber is an operator’s most
important asset, as even the most efficient
network in the world will do nothing to
reduce churn. Over the last two years,
Huawei has been looking at ways to improve
the end-user experience. This has involved
a holistic approach, where alarms and
performance thresholds are monitored at
the network level, while the service level has
encompassed dropped call rates and web
browsing delays. This comprehensiveness
allows Huawei to identify areas requiring
capacity or coverage expansion; troubleshoot
latent issues before customers complain;
address user complaints with network
performance reports; and optimize the
overall network and operational processes.
For operators who want to take the end-user
experience to the next level, which includes
the complete end-to-end system covering
devices, network, services infrastructure etc,
Huawei has invested over USD35 million to
develop a range of solutions under the brand
name of HUAWEI SmartCare. This service
functions as a supplement to MS, and is a
tailored solution identified and agreed upon
with each operator after in-depth analysis
and discussion. It might involve extensive
customer surveys, where Huawei ascertains
service applications and how they are used,
after which said surveys are analyzed using
proprietary Huawei algorithms. Huawei
has already carried this out in various Asian
markets, reducing the number of customers
complaining about bad experiences for a
certain operator in the region by roughly
28%. Through this service, operators are
taking the first steps in transforming their
O&M processes from KPI to QoE orientation.
Through our business platforms, processes
and tools, Huawei has developed a range of
managed services delivery capabilities which
refine network process for the operator
and enhance service quality for the end
user. Huawei will continue to invest in all
aspects of MS in order to deliver the highest
business value to our customers.
11 <
Solution
Focusing on integration
to build green data center
in the cloud-computing era
By Liu Zhonglin, Fu Tao, Ding Chunming
Complex Data Center Building
and O&M
High-speed Internet, Web 2.0, and
information explosion have facilitated the
beginning of the cloud-computing era. As
all kinds of cloud devices and cloud services
emerge, the cloud-computing data center has
become the foundation for promoting ICT
convergence and deploying cloud services.
Market transformations are creating demands
to build cloud-computing data centers.
It is becoming increasingly difficult for the
traditional DC infrastructure to meet the
elastic demands brought about by cloud
computing and virtualization technology,
as they (traditional DC) cannot address the
capacity expansion pressures caused by rapid
business development to enterprises and
governments.
In cloud-computing data centers, the
coexistence of equipment of different
vendors is inevitable. How can we ensure
that the software systems of different
vendors can be integrated into one operable
cloud-computing platform? How to ensure
the reliability and quick deployment of crosshardware equipment of the cloud platform
under heterogeneous systems? How to
ensure the data security and automatic
service assurance under the multi-tenancy
mode? The multi-service & cross-product
> 12
integration environment has
increased the complexity of
data center operations.
How to make data centers
more flexible and economic? How to
reduce the power consumption and OPEX
of data centers? How to deploy quick
implementation to put green, reliable,
high-efficiency data centers into operation
and generate benefits? These issues have
become critical questions faced by operators
in the development of data centers.
Advanced Design Philosophy
Is the Foundation – Designing
Flexible, Mixed, and Modular
Green Data Center
To help customers transform from
traditional DCs to cloud data centers,
Huawei conducted in-depth research in
new information technologies like cloud
computing, cloud storage, and virtualization.
Drawing upon practical experience from
dozens of cloud data centers around the
world, Huawei developed a DC solution
featuring a flexible, mixed, and modular
design philosophy. The solution is used
to build green DCs that adapt to cloud
computing for customers, to strike an
optimal balance between the total cost of
ownership (TCO) and the DC's availability,
security, flexibility, and scalability.
Flexible: Dynamically adapting to cloud
computing and virtualization
The flexible DC solution can implement
intelligent facilities management,
environment adaptive cooling, and coldenergy dynamic adjustment, easily realize
dynamic collaboration between the
infrastructure and these IT systems, and
quickly respond to the dynamic adjustment
of IT resources by cloud computing and
virtualization. Compared with a traditional
DC, the green cloud DC dramatically
improves energy efficiency, effectively
cuts operating cost, and reduces carbon
emissions.
Mixed: Striking an optimal balance
between availability and TCO
Not only does the mixed DC deployment
solution support the mix of different power
densities to address high-density deployment
and hotspot drift, it also supports mix of
different tiers. Determining availability
FEB 2012 ISSUE 31
requirements according to business types,
the solution avoids excessive investment,
thereby striking an optimal balance between
availability and TCO.
Modular: On-demand deployment,
efficient expansion
Allowing for on-demand deployment and
efficient expansion, Huawei DC solution can
flexibly meet fast-growing demands, and
effectively improve the utilization rate of
equipment and returns on investment (ROI)
through phased investment.
Full-Life-Cycle Integration
Implementation Is the Core –
Building Fast and High-Quality
Data Center
Huawei's DC integration service provides
comprehensive integration solution
covering physical infrastructure, network
platform, and business application. The
solution provides E2E professional services
for data centers such as planning, design,
construction implementation, project
management, and data migration at
different levels, as well as customized
turnkey engineering services.
Huawei is in possession of industrial experts
who have been working in the domain for
over 20 years and a total of over 20,000
professional service engineers in the cloudcomputing domain, and has partnered
with over 30 mainstream data center
hardware suppliers across the globe. With
the best practices generated by the 16
cloud-computing centers, experience and
knowledge summarized from over 210 data
center projects, and the localized delivery
organizations across the globe, Huawei is
able to offer customers with high-quality
data center integration services.
As per experience data, with Huawei's
data center integration service, customers
can significantly reduce the data center
construction period. On average, the
construction period is reduced by 20%-30%
while the service provisioning efficiency of
data centers increased by 65% and related
investment reduced by 30%. In some areas,
Huawei is able to design super energy-
saving data center with a PUE rating of less
than 1.3, which can dramatically reduce
OPEX, increase customer revenue, and give
customers extra competitive edges.
E2E Security Integration Is the
Key – Gaining User Trust and
Strengthening Brand
As we enter the cloud-computing era, some
well-known data centers have been caught
up with security accidents. The security issue
has become one of the customers’ major
concerns. Huawei's data center security
integration service provides customers
with customized security solutions that are
specially designed according to the features
of the cloud-computing data center. The
service covers the E2E lifecycle of the data
center including planning & consultation,
system construction & integration, and
operation & maintenance. In the planning
& consultation phase, Huawei analyzes the
customer's security requirements from the
perspectives of strategy & architecture, risk
analysis & finding, operation compliance, and
formulates development plans of the security
system that mitigates cloud-computing
security risks. In the system construction
& integration phase, Huawei helps the
customer build an optimized security defense
system at the physical infrastructure, IT
infrastructure, and application & data layers,
and ensures the security of applications
and data of the information system in
the generation, transmission, utilization,
and storage processes. In the operation &
maintenance phase, Huawei provides the
security monitoring and analysis, security
compliance monitoring and report, and
security response and audit services, which
can sufficiently ensure the long-term secured
operation of data centers.
Smooth Application Data
Migration Ensures the Leap –
Transforming from Traditional
Platforms to Cloud Platforms
Application data migration refers to the
operations of migrating existing application
systems from the traditional physical PC
servers to the cloud platform. Application
data migration aims to replace all traditional
servers with the cloud platform.
With in-depth survey and analysis beforehand,
Huawei is able to sufficiently understand the
types of application software and operating
system, data volume, system topology, status
of network, server, and storage systems,
and acceptable service outage duration,
and design the data migration solution
accordingly. The content of the data migration
solution includes the designs of data migration
network, application migration solution,
emergent rollback plan, and data migration
tool deployment plan. By developing detailed
service migration plan (including migration
tool mastery time, data uploading time, and
final synchronization time), Huawei can assist
customers in migrating services as planned
and ensure that the services can be switched
over to the cloud-computing platform within
the shortest period of time.
ITIL-based High-efficiency O&M
Management Is the Foundation
of Sustainable Profit-Winning –
Maintaining High User Satisfaction
Huawei's DC operation management
integration service uses professional planning
& design and implementation to effectively
reduce faulty rate, advanced architecture and
design to make future expansion easier, and
advanced monitoring system and automated
management tools to locate faults quickly.
With these measures, Huawei's DC operation
management integration service is able to
reduce MTTR, provide customers with the
latest ITIL-based operation management
service and realize high-efficiency and
standardized operation. By establishing
centralized event management platform,
knowledge sharing platform, and change
control platform, Huawei can effectively
improve the accident and problem handling
efficiency, reduce risks, improve service
quality and user satisfaction, and ensure the
sustainable profitability of customers.
Huawei's DC integration service solution
is leading the ICT industry in terms of
planning consultation, design, integration
implementation, and O&M management.
The solution focuses on customizing green
cloud-computing data centers with lowest
cost and highest efficiency for customers.
13 <
Solution
ICT certifications
-- Align employees career
development life cycle
By Liu Ping Sun
Coupling with the ceaseless development
of telecommunication technology, there is
a growing convergence between IT and CT.
The boundaries among operators, enterprises
and consumer markets are fading. The use of
the leading innovative technologies, including
cloud computing, internet and mobile
broadband, will bring about substantial
advanced opportunities to ICT products.
to fill. Concurrently, the growth of ICT
technology implies the explicit demand for
ICT practitioners who are equipped with
integrated knowledge and skills to meet
the challenges of new products and service
requirements. Huawei’s comprehensive
technology certification system is the unique
system in the industry that blends IP, CT and
IT competencies in a seamless way.
2) Specialized Certifications for Huawei’s
partners:
These certifications are offered to
employees of Huawei’s partners who would
prefer to acquire specialized marketing and
technical knowledge and skills of Huawei’s
technologies on IP, Transmission Network,
LTE and Cloud Computing, etc.
Competent human resources are critical
for the expansion of an organization.
Simultaneously, the evolution of technology
means higher quality requirements on the
related professionals. For ICT practitioners, they
are benchmarked by the concept of “Integrated
Knowledge with Cross-disciplinary Skills”.
Based on the solid foundation in developing
technological knowledge and skills and in
matching with the industry’s characteristics,
Huawei’s certification system embraces the
markets of operator, energy, government,
finance, and corporations, etc.
Solutions for Career Developmental
Life Cycle of ICT Talents
It has two key directions:
Based on our years of experience in nurturing
ICT talents and profound understanding
on the growth of this industry, Huawei
introduces an innovative proposal to cultivate
quality all-rounded ICT talents. Pacing
with the career development process, the
proposal starts the training from educational
institutions. For practitioners who have
already engaged in the industry, the
motivation to continuing develop themselves
professionally is reinforced by a series of
progressive career technology certifications
which shall help to nourish and sustain ICT
talents for affirming quality of services.
The Integral ICT Competence
Certifications
The existing technical certifications in the
market are for IT or IP practitioners. There
is an obvious gap for CT certifications
> 14
1) A holistic career certification system:
It focuses on the professional technology
of IP, IT and CT industries. Drawing on
results from investigations and intensive
analysis of role related tasks, a quality
assurance model called Competence
Element Library is established as the
foundation of the certification system.
The three levels of certification, Associate,
Professional and Expert, provide a clear
picture for enterprises to anchor the career
development path for their employees. In
return, the enterprises will benefit from
the enhanced pool of human resource.
The first batch of certifications to be
offered is: IP (Routing and Switching),
LTE, Transmission, and Cloud Computing
Certifications. It will be succeeded by the
introduction of WLAN, Security, Server and
Storage Certifications in the coming years.
Huawei certification is not only the unique
certification system that embraces a wide
spectrum of technological domains, but also
provides compatible solutions to confront
the ICT talent career development life cycle.
1) Career Certification:
Its three-level certification model is tailormade to satisfy divergent needs from new
employees to technical experts.
A. Associate Level Certification: It is an
entry level certification which is preliminarily
intended for new employees or junior
engineers to enhance the basic knowledge
and skill required for the position.
B. Professional Level Certification: It is
an intermediate level certification which is
designed for senior engineers to enhance
the professional knowledge and specialized
skills on different technology domains.
C. Expert Level Certification: It is an
advanced level certification and mainly
intended for the technical experts to
enhance the capability on complex
FEB 2012 ISSUE 31
technology and solution design.
2) E
mployment Education: Huawei
believes that ICT talents could better be
cultivated through advancing the training
to educational institutions. With strong
cooperation between school and industry,
students’ employability will be promoted
and talents for the industries can be evolved.
A. Authorized Network Academy:
Cooperation with educational institutions
to develop ICT talents through Teaching
Laboratory Solution, University Curriculum
Authorization Solution, Train-The-Trainer
Solution and Student Certification
Solution. These cooperation opportunities
allow institutions obtaining the frontier
ICT technology courses with laboratory
environment for advancing students’
knowledge and skills in practice. As a
result, the ICT industry will have a pool of
qualified talents.
Case for Reference:
The HR Department faces a real challenge to
establish innovative mechanism to nurture
competent human resource for overcoming the
competing markets and evolution of enterprises
in the era of rapid development of ICT industry.
Through adopting the Solution, the operator
could establish the competency of new staff
within a short period of time and support the
demands of its departments. The success of the
Solution has demonstrated the effectiveness
and efficiency of this innovative mechanism
for staff training and development.
To address the issue, the operator selected
40 candidates from school to undergo
Huawei’s tailor-made training courses which
are developed after investigation into the
existing tasks requirements of the posts.
Vertical Industry
tor
era
Op
e
rgy
anc
Fin
Ene
ent
rnm
ve
Go
n
tio
rta
po
ns
Tra
ion
cat
Edu
rise
erp
Ent
……
st
iali ion
c
e
Sp ificat hing:
t
n
tc
Cer Swi lutio
Career Certification
IP
&
So
ting ialist les
Rou Spec er-sa
ft
es
Sal ialist A
c t
e
p
S ialis
es
Sal
c
Spe ssion: n
i
g
i
nsm es les
Tra ialist D er-sa
ft
c
Spe ialist A
c t
e
p
S ialis
c
Spe
Routing & Switching
WLAN
Expert
LTE
Transmission
CT
Security
Professional
Cloud Computing
Server
IT
Associate
Storage
……
Competence Element Library
ICT Practitioner
Huawei Certification Portfolio
Career Development Life Cycle
CT
Technical Expert
Enhance the capability on complex
technology and solution design
Senior Engineer
Enhance the professional knowledge
and specialized skill
New employee /
Junior Engineer
Enhance the basic knowledge and skill
IT
IP
Expert Level Certification
Professional Level Certification
Associate Level Certification
Industry
University
Student
Attain the career certification,
increase the employability
Employment Education
One of the operators in China has a huge
demand for human resource in network
optimization and maintenance, data and
internet technologies. In view of the fact
that it takes extended time to cultivate suitable
talents for meeting post requirements from the
traditional manpower development cycle, the
Human Resource Department faces urgent need
After receiving six-month of lectures on
knowledge and practical training, the
trainees have proven mastery on technology
knowledge and skills, and most important,
they have the proper attitude at work.
Career Certification
B. Targeted Pre-career Solution: This is an
innovative cooperation model for operators
to develop their new employees. It advances
the on-the-job training of students to the
final year of university studies. According to
the demands of operators and professional
requirements, Huawei selects the capable
students from qualified institutions for
the employing units. Subsequent to
the screening, a six-month customized
training programme will be offered to
the chosen candidates. Upon completion
of the training programme and passing
the written and oral examinations, those
successful candidates can be recommended
for employment in the corresponding units.
This solution targets to reducing costs in
recruiting and training new employees. It
will be a key direction for new staff training
of ICT industry in a predictable future.
The posts include Internet, Core Network,
Transmission and IP, etc.
to upgrade the capability of the post-related
skills.To its dismay, the newly employed fresh
graduates have problems of lacking of required
knowledge and skills of the employed industry.
Huawei Authorized
Network Academy
Huawei Targeted
Pre-career Solution
15 <
Success Story
Telefonica Latin America
A step to increase efficiency
operations by Managed Services
By Wu Baotong
> 16
FEB 2012 ISSUE 31
In March 2010, Telefonica Group
unveiled its three-year "Bravo!"
strategy program. Telefonica will put
all its strengths in the deployment of
Bravo initiative including the 14 Latin
America countries where Telefonica
has operations. One of the focal points
of the strategy in the service domain
is to get efficiencies for the network
maintenance, that is the managed
services.
Launching Managed Service in
Full Scale
As one of the world's top five operators,
Telefonica Group is present in 25 countries,
with a total of more than 295 million
accesses worldwide . In 2010, it reported
operating revenue of €60.7 billion. In Latin
America alone, Telefonica has 14 mobile
subsidiaries.
In recent years, with the rapid network
development, the network maintenance
of subsidiaries of Telefonica Latin America,
especially the network field maintenance,
has become more complex because of
the rising maintenance costs and the large
number of maintenance staff.
In March 2010, Telefonica Group unveiled
its three-year "Bravo!" strategy. "Bravo" is
a Spanish word meaning brave. One of the
focal points of the strategy in the service
domain is to get efficiencies for the network
maintenance, that is the managed services.
In mid-2010, Telefonica Latin America
launched a bid for a series of service
outsourcing projects, including site
construction, network optimization, field
maintenance, spare parts management, and
NOC (in same countries). Among which,
field maintenance was the top priority. Due
to the importance of the project, major
equipment vendors have proactively taken
part in the bidding. Also, some qualified
local vendors also reply to the bid for some
specific countries.
Selecting a Strategic Partner
As so many vendors take part in the bidding,
Telefonica Latin America needed to figure
out which one could truly help it reduce
OPEX, which one could help it achieve
sustainable development and focus on its
core business, and which one would make a
Highlights
Market Demand
•• The sustainable development of
the network was hindered by rising
maintenance costs and the large
number of maintenance staff.
•• OPEX is hard to control.
•• Network operation stability is more
difficult to guarantee and could affect
large-scale network construction.
Huawei Actions
•• Multi-vendor managed service
provided on the shared platform
•• Committed to long-term cooperation
•• Gained efficiency via scale effect
Customer Benefits
•• Gained efficiencies
•• Getting a long-term, stable, and
trustworthy partner
•• Focusing on core business, and
improving customer satisfaction
17 <
Success Story
About Telefonica
Telefónica is one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world in terms of market
capitalisation. Its activities are centered mainly on the fixed and mobile telephony businesses
with broadband as the key tool for the development of both. The company has a significant
presence in 25 countries and a customer base that amounts 295 million accesses around
the world. Telefonica has a strong presence in Spain, rest of Europe and Latin America, where
the company focuses an important part of its growth strategy.
Telefónica is a 100% listed company, with more than 1.5 million direct shareholders. Its share
capital currently comprises 4.563.996.485 ordinary shares traded on the Spanish Stock Market
(Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao and Valencia) and on those in London, Tokyo, New York, Lima and
Buenos Aires.
Website: www.telefonica.com
stable, reliable long-term strategic partner.
to the company. The details are as follows:
After carefully evaluating the managed
service solutions submitted by the vendors,
Telefonica Latin America found Huawei's
solution competitive and able to bring value
Shared service platform: Huawei is one of
the key equipment suppliers of Telefonica
Latin America. In Telefonica Latin America's
subsidiaries, Huawei ranked the second in
> 18
terms of the share of wireless equipment.
Huawei's wireless equipment is now being
sold in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile,
Venezuela, Colombia, Centro America and
Peru. In these countries and regions, Huawei
has an optimized delivery and network
FEB 2012 ISSUE 31
maintenance platform prepared specifically
for the accounts of Telefonica Latin America.
The resources in the platform can be shared
among all the countries in Latin America.
With the utilization of this platform, Huawei
is able to set up field maintenance teams
with minimum O&M costs and maximum
efficiency.
Scale effect: Huawei proposed the full use
of the effect of scale economy to reduce
the OPEX as MS projects are to be delivered
in more than 10 countries. As Telefonica
established partnership with Huawei, the
company can use Huawei's shared service
platform to share experience, resources, and
tools. In this way, the company will be able
for a scale effect easily and further reduce
the OPEX.
Multi-vendor service model: Telefonica
Latin America's network was based on
complex equipment, with a large quantity of
outsourcing equipment. Therefore, to reduce
maintenance cost, the service provider
must have multi-vendor service capability.
After years of observation, Telefonica found
that Huawei had sufficient experience in
providing multi-vendor maintenance service
on main equipment, towers, diesel engines,
and air-conditioners, covering all equipment
on Telefonica Latin America's networks.
Long-term partnership: Considering the
importance and irreplaceability of network
maintenance, Telefonica found it necessary
to establish a long-term partnership with
the MS service provider. To avoid extra
investment caused by frequent changes of
MS service providers, Telefonica signed a
5-year MS contract with Huawei.
Telefonica found that Huawei's solution
fully meets its requirements for Latin
America. Therefore, Telefonica handed over
the field maintenance of its multi-vendor
wireless networks in all or some areas of
Argentina, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, Centro
America and Colombia to Huawei. The
networks took up 50% of the project share.
Apart from the field maintenance service,
in Venezuela and Ecuador, Telefonica
subcontracted national NOCs to Huawei
together with the project.
In the second half of 2010, Telefonica Latin
America's MS project had been deployed
quickly. By far, most countries have passed
the transition phase and entered the stable
phase.
A step toward efficiency
Telefonica now has established a long-term,
stable, and trustworthy strategic partnership
with Huawei. The successful completion of
the project, helped Telefonica gain efficiency
and successfully complete the first phase of
its "Bravo!" service strategy.
The outsourcing of network O&M allows
Telefonica to focus on its core business,
roll out new services more quickly, improve
customer perception, and increase revenue,
thereby boosting its market competitiveness.
In the next years, with the implementation
of a host of service outsourcing projects,
Telefonica will become an even more
dynamic and competitive force in the Latin
American telecom market.
19 <
Success Story
VIVA Kuwait
Operational Excellence through MSUP
By Mahmudul Alam
> 20
FEB 2012 ISSUE 31
Customer Challenge
Solution
In 2008 VIVA was the newest entrant in the
mobile market of the oil rich gulf country
Kuwait. With two entrenched operators in
the market for more than a decade, Kuwait
had a very high mobile phone penetration
rate. Viva’s initial plan was to launch an IP
based 2G and 3G network in the shortest
time possible and selected Huawei as
its partner to plan, design, operate and
maintain the network. This complex network
was completed in a record 9 months
resulting in VIVA gaining a major market
share in a space of 3 months.
The Huawei Managed Services team worked
closely with VIVA to come up with a two
prong approach – enhance the existing
OSS platform and develop a customized
Operation & Maintenance process. This, if
successfully implemented would offer VIVA
the following benefits:
a. Best customer care to improve end user
satisfaction
b. Highest services quality to ensure
excellent subscriber experience
After the initial success in this highly
competitive market, VIVA’s strategy was
to offer an innovative range of advanced
products and services to further boost its
customer base. However underpinning these
services, VIVA wanted to offer the best
customer care and network quality through
enhanced and superior O&M services. This
was to be the cornerstone of differentiating
VIVA from the competition in order to win
and retain new subscribers and to avoid
churn. VIVA once again turned to Huawei to
address these challenges.
By working in close partnership, VIVA and
Huawei were able to leverage on their
strengths. VIVA had a great network with wide
coverage and reliability. Huawei had developed
a Managed Services Unified Platform (MSUP)
which encompasses three areas - people,
process and tools. Huawei’s tool was based
on its next generation OSS platform to
deliver operational excellence, improve
network quality, lower total cost of ownership
and increase customer satisfaction. The process
it uses is based on eTOM, ITIL and TL 9000
which Huawei has developed under the MSUP
umbrella and will be customized for VIVA’s
unique needs; the first of its kind in the world.
21 <
Success Story
About VIVA
VIVA is the newest, most advanced mobile telecommunications service provider in Kuwait.
VIVA has rapidly established itself in the market through customer and employee-centric
approach.
With the objective of providing shareholders value, and return on investment, VIVA is focusing
on corporate governance activities in the following key areas: Strategic Guidance, Active
Monitoring, Strategic Management, Active Auditing and Organization and Human Resources
to meet business requirements.
VIVA offers superior Internet speed due to the implementation of the most advanced 3G and
High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) network in Kuwait resulting in high network
performance.
The company continues to take a considerable share of the market by offering an innovative
range of advanced products and services, a state of the art network, and access to a worldclass service.
The foundation of Huawei’s solution was
predicated on 3 factors:
1. P
eople – to implement the project, the
Huawei team had seasoned experts in
Managed Services process and OSS with
dedicated support from headquarters.
2. P
rocess – MSUP was certified as TM
Forum Conformance and currently
recognized by major operators as the
best-in-class for Managed Services
3. T
ools – Huawei’s OSS platform is the
> 22
indispensable tool for the delivery of
Managed Services with end-to-end
capabilities
Implementation
In order to develop customized level 4
process for the MS operations and enhance
the OSS platform, Huawei had to implement
seven major O&M processes based on MSUP
and the corresponding SOPs.
Process Implementation
The major milestone tasks included
••Detailed gap analysis.
••Design customized Level-4 processes
based on the identified gap.
••Utilizing Huawei’s tools the process flow
and process documents were developed.
••Agreeing each customized process with
FEB 2012 ISSUE 31
the MS team.
••Identify required SOPs related with the
customized process and provide guidelines
to develop the SOPs by the MS team.
••Process KPIs related with each process.
These KPIs are to be measured and
monitored at regular intervals to
see the improvements achieved in
the MS Operations after the process
implementation.
••Preparing a detailed OSS functional
requirements list from process
implementation needs perspective. This
list is an important base for customized
OSS implementation.
system; unwanted network accidents
during change implementation has
reduced to zero level.
The improvements made confirm the
significant achievements that are possible
when standardized processes and the OSS
are in alignment. To ensure that these major
gains are maintained after completion of
the project, Huawei set up a Continual
Improvement Program. The global expert
team at headquarters will work closely with
the local MS team by continually monitoring,
analyzing and identify any improvement areas.
OSS Implementation
Customer Benefits
The OSS platform was enhanced by
implementing the selected Huawei OSS
tools with functional customization of the
products in order to meet the requirements
of the process team. With the support
from Huawei’s OSS R&D, the functional
requirements were addressed during the
implementation phase and level 4 processes
were customized in the following OSS
functions:
••Network surveillance
••Fault management
••Performance Management
••Change Management
••Help Desk
••Problem Management
The immediate benefit that Viva experienced
included:
1. Improved network quality through faster
fault resolution
2. Increased customer satisfaction through
first time and faster resolution of end user
complaints
3. Quicker recovery of network performance
degradations
4. Complete visibility and control of network
changes
5. Management in a proactive manner
These benefits have had a major impact and
helped Viva focus on their customer’s needs
resulting in increase retention and revenues
through happy and satisfied customers,
thus fulfilling their vision to offer enrich
communications and entertainment.
MSUP is Huawei’s platform for Managed
Services and the processes are proven to
effectively manage an operator’s network
and drive operational excellence with
improved service levels and customer
experience. This standard platform gives
Huawei the flexibility to offer a customized
solution for each operator’s unique needs,
thus allowing our customers to launch new
and innovative services.
Network Improvements
Continuous measurements of process KPIs
show that some remarkable improvements
have been achieved in operational efficiency
and effectiveness:
••FLE First Time resolution rate improved by
40%.
••Back Office Escalation rate reduced by
80%.
••Average Fault MTTR reduced by more than
50%.
••MTTR for Network Performance
Degradation problems reduced by more
than 90%.
••MTTR for customer complaints resolution
reduced by at least 60% with >60%
complaints resolved on the same day.
••100% Change Requests logged and
approved through on-line CR Management
23 <
Success Story
China Mobile (Guangdong)
Learning by innovation
By Fan Quanwen
> 24
FEB 2012 ISSUE 31
With social and economic development,
the number of subscribers of
Guangdong Mobile has reached 1/6 of
the country's total. The company's GSM
mobile network has been improving,
to effectively meet customers' voice
and data traffic needs, and has become
Guangdong Mobile's prized network
and main source of revenue. Meanwhile,
the complexity of networks, the intense
competition in the telecom market, and
the subscribers’ demands for better
services have also raised tremendous
challenges to the optimization of the
GSM network, the development of the
workforce, and the improvement of
their skills.
Working together, Guangdong Mobile
and Huawei have engaged in in-depth
cooperation in knowledge management and
competency building. The knowledge system
for the optimization and planning of the
GSM network including the curriculum, &
the learning paths of different positions are
all sorted out in accordance to the relevant
technical activities & tasks. By doing so, the
knowledge and skills required for different
positions are clear to provide guidance for
the employees to quickly improve their skills,
thereby effectively supporting the realization
of the objectives on GSM network
optimization.
Challenges in training the talents
for network optimization
With the rapid growth of Guangdong
Mobile's networks and customers, the
company's team in charge of GSM network
optimization faces new challenges in
technical activities/tasks as well as talent
training.
A unified knowledge system plan is needed.
With the continuous development of
services, the organizational structure has
been adjusted, and position setup has also
been adjusted accordingly. As a result,
the tasks or works taken by each person
have also changed, and different needs for
people's capabilities and knowledge ensue.
A complete knowledge system for GSM
network optimization can clearly point out
the skills required for people in different
positions as well as the courses they should
take, to help the employees quickly meet the
requirements of the new positions.
Clear classification of tasks and the
corresponding requirements of skills are
needed to guide outsourcing work. Based
on relevant requirements, some tasks can be
outsourced. However, clear references are
needed as to which part of GSM network
optimization can be outsourced and what
criteria should be applied to the capabilities
of the outsourcing parties.
The related curriculum should be formulated
based on business development. The
learning paths of the technical persons
should be specified. Only with clear business
needs and training requirements, can
the training service provider provide the
corresponding training courses to people
involved in GSM network optimization. A
well-defined curriculum and a clear learning
25 <
Success Story
map can help the technical persons improve
their skills continuously and effectively.
Huawei's solution for building a
knowledge system
With the preceding issues in mind,
Guangdong Mobile hopes to improve the
comprehensiveness, completeness, and
standardization of its knowledge system
regarding networking technologies by
building a knowledge system. For this
purpose, Huawei plans to put together the
existing results of Guangdong Mobile's
customer network technologies department
through the analysis of its customer business
development, organizational structure,
responsibilities of different positions,
and personal competency building, in
combination with Huawei's long-term
practices and experiences in GSM network
optimization. Huawei's approach is to break
the boundaries between different positions,
to make analysis centered on work, to sort
out the required activities in GSM network
optimization as well as the tasks included
in each activity, and to form a list of tasks.
Meanwhile, the solution aims to find out
what skills and knowledge are required
to carry out related tasks, and then forms
a skills model and a knowledge system.
On this basis, required knowledge is put
together to form courses, to become a
curriculum, and to work out a clear learning
map, thereby guiding people's learning and
driving their capability and competency
improvement. These can provide clear
roadmaps for people's future learning.
According to this solution, relevant technical
training will be also carried out in practice,
to lay the foundation for the certification of
people's skills.
analyzed their responsibilities, business
activities, and KPIs from three aspects
— business flow, different stages of the
network, and industry practices. They
also formulated a list of business activities
(including the activities carried out by the
operator or other companies in practice and
required for GSM network optimization)
from the perspective of the E2E process, to
form 72 technical activities and 114 tasks
in three categories — wireless network
planning, wireless network construction/
adjustment, and wireless network
optimization.
Make analysis focusing on the business,
and sort out the business-related
technical activities
Identify the technical capabilities and
knowledge required to carry out the
related technical activities, to build up
the technical skills model and knowledge
system
For the business of GSM network planning
and optimization, Huawei experts carried
out in-depth interactions with the
leaders, managers, and key employees
of Guangdong Mobile's networking
department, the provincial network
optimization center, as well as the three
branch companies of Dongguan, Jieyang,
and Huizhou, through in-depth interviews,
questionnaires, and workshops. They
Analysis of business flow
Analysis of business flow
Industry practice sharing
Development of learning map
Learning path
Job matching
Breakdown of activities/tasks
List of technical activities
List of technical tasks
Service solution
for building a
knowledge system
Curricula design
Curricula structure
Curricula combination
Building up of a skills model
Skills model
Standards for skill elements
Building up of a
knowledge system
Map of knowledge points
Classification of knowledge
> 26
Based on the results of breaking down the
activities earlier, Huawei's training experts
and network optimization experts worked
together with Guangdong Mobile's experts
to identify the technical skills required
for accomplishing different works. They
explained and classified these technical
skills, and then generalized the skills to
get the technical skills model containing
different dimensions and different levels as
well as the criteria for the elements of the
technical skills. Moreover, based on different
skills, they worked out the knowledge
for mastering these skills, and formed the
knowledge system required for network
optimization. The two parties identified a
total of 118 technical skills in five categories
— network planning, network testing,
network analysis, network optimization, and
complaint processing — as well as a total of
217 items of knowledge in three categories
— specialized basic knowledge, specialized
task-specific knowledge, and specialized
management knowledge.
Effectively organize knowledge to
design the curricula matching business
development and the learning map
meeting the requirements of different
positions
Based on the results of sorting out the
knowledge system, experts from Huawei
and Guangdong Mobile held a number of
workshops to discuss and work out the
FEB 2012 ISSUE 31
framework of the technical curricula and to
put each other's inputs together. They finally
formulated 103 courses in six categories on
this basis, including 72 specialized technical
courses and 31 specialized management
courses. They also designed the learning
map based on the five kinds of common
positions about GSM network optimization,
to present the learning path for the
personnel.
Project's results, customer's
benefits, and future application
In this project, Guangdong Mobile received
the following achievements:
1. The skills model and the knowledge
system, to be used as the reference
standards for future job responsibility
optimization and organizational
adjustment.
2. Clear classification of business activities,
to be used as the basis for future
outsourcing planning and evaluation.
3. The skills model and learning map, to be
used as the guide for employees' career
development, certification, and capacity
building.
4. The complete knowledge system, to
support the setting of organizational
performance goals, the grounds for
performance evaluation, and business
planning.
The application of the knowledge system for
GSM network optimization is very broad:
1. Grounds for job responsibility optimization
and organizational adjustment: Clear
breakdown and classification of activities/
tasks, detail-oriented skills model and
knowledge, to support the setting of
organizational performance goals, to serve
as the basis for performance evaluation,
and to be used as the reference for service
quality monitoring.
2. Reference for outsourcing planning: The
complete list of business activities/tasks,
to provide reference for outsourcing
planning.
3. Guide to specialized evaluation and
certification as well as competency
building: Describe the standards for skills
and key points of knowledge in detail.
Specify what capability and knowledge
are required for business activities. Identify
skills gap and carry out specific learning
for competency improvement through
the evaluation of technical skills for GSM
network optimization.
4. Diversified measures for delivering
training contents: For example, send the
knowledge points to the mobile phones
of related people through m-learning, to
effectively utilize the fragmented time for
learning.
27 <
Success Story
China Mobile (Guiyang)
Building top-quality GSM network and
improving user perception
By Zou Yizhi, Qu Chengfu, Shi Jianqiang
> 28
FEB 2012 ISSUE 31
By optimizing the GSM network,
Guiyang Mobile (a branch of China
Mobile) improved the network
quality, balances network load,
realized E2E optimization, realized fast
subscriber growth and user perception
improvement, and successfully built a
network based on customer perception.
Continuous Urban Development
Brings Opportunities for
Network Quality Improvement
With the implementation of Western China
Development, the city of Guiyang sees a
rapid development in economy, culture,
science & education, transportation, and
telecommunications fields. As the spearhead
of communication in Guizhou province,
Guiyang Mobile has also continuously
accelerated the construction of mobile
telecommunications networks and is
committed to improving services and
boosting corporate image.
Guiyang city is located at Karst hilly
areas featuring complex landforms and
the relative altitude difference in city
areas reaches 100 meters. Due to the
concentration of users in down town areas,
densely distributed sites, large number of
narrow alleys, multi-layer in-building service
(IBS) distributions, and dense residential
areas in urban areas, users raise increasingly
higher requirements for coverage. In
addition, the single coverage type cannot
satisfy the complex and changing urban
environment. Tariff policy adjustment
drives the rapid development of diversified
services, causing a sharp increase in traffic
volume in some areas. In this way, network
bearer capacity is facing great challenges
and network structure in some areas needs
to be optimized. The requirements for
network quality, capacity, and coverage are
increasingly higher. Therefore, forging a
top-quality GSM network is top priority for
Guiyang Mobile.
Network Optimization Based on
User Perception Improvement
To quickly improve the current network
status in Guiyang, Guiyang Mobile, together
with the SmartCare solution of Huawei,
proposed a principle of "Determining
Network Landscape, Eliminating Network
Quality Problems, and Improving User
Perception" to comprehensively improve
network quality after in-depth analysis
of networking, traffic, and geographical
conditions. In addition, Guiyang Mobile
adopted the following methods to realize
coordinated multi-product optimization,
29 <
Success Story
entering the phase of fully improving
network quality.
located the problem points through a
large number of routine tests, complaint
handling, traffic maps, and coverage
prediction. In this way, Guiyang Mobile sets
up sites in areas where coverage is required,
improving coverage depth. To share the
traffic load on GSM900 networks, Guiyang
Mobile accelerated the construction of
1. Integrating GSM 900 Networks with
DCS1800 Networks
In view of the development requirements
of dual-band networks, Guiyang Mobile
Tridimensional IBS
IBS1800M
Tridimensional coverage (over 15F)
Larger capacity
Higher speed
Continuouscoverage
of double plane
Plane1: 900M
Continuouscoverage
Larger capacity
Higher speed
Cover older uptown and dense street by Street site
Plane2: 1800M
900M sites in the two metropolitan areas are of high density. The frequencies have high reuse rate and high
frequency interferences, which brings tremendous challenges to the effective utilization of existing wireless
network resources. To reduce the inter-frequency interferences, balance traffic load, and optimize network
coverage, it is required to optimize the structure of the existing network. By building a dual-plane and
tridimensional IBS system, we can make full use of the 1800M resources and resolve the problems facing the
existing network once and for all by optimizing the two networks.
(Idea of the stereoscopic network integrating GSM900 with DCS1800)
DCS1800 networks to achieve continuous
coverage, laying a foundation for
reducing the number of sites with higher
configuration requirements and alleviating
frequency interference. In addition,
Guiyang Mobile flexibly deployed sites on
streets or used remote radio units (RRUs)
to achieve coverage in multiple scenarios
instead of the original coverage by one
macro site. General packet radio service
(GPRS) and Enhanced Data rates for GSM
Evolution (EDGE) channels were enabled
on GSM900/DCS1800 MHz bands. In this
way, mobile stations (MSs) can initiate data
services at any frequency band, therefore
balancing the network load, reducing the
number of handovers between GSM900
and DCS1800 MHz bands, and improving
user perception.
With the continuous exploration of the
stereoscopic network, by the end of July
2011, the proportion of DCS1800 MHz
carrier frequencies increased from 33.4%
in the same period in 2010 to 40.95%, and
key performance indicators (KPIs) such as
traffic proportion, coverage of backbone
roads, and speech quality were fully
improved.
2. Integrating the IBS Network with the
Stereoscopic Network
80.00%
66.52%
60.00%
40.00%
33.48%
59.05%
40.95%
0.00%
1800M Carrier Accounting
900M Carrier Accounting
45.30%
27.00%
98.21%
98.00%
97.00%
96.00%
20.00%
2011.6
Continuously balance the load on 900M/1800M sites in the two
metropolitan areas and customize the scenario switchover and parameter
re-selection solution according to the actual situation in Guiyang to ensure
that the 1800M sites can effectively share the traffic. The proportion of
traffic absorbed by 1800M sites was increased from 28.81% to 43.70 on
a year-on-year basis.
99.00%
54.70%
60.00%
1800M Voice Traffic Accounting 900M Voice Traffic Accounting
2010.6
73.00%
80.00%
0.00%
2011.6
By the end of July 2011, the project team successfully implemented the
phase-1 & phase-2 frequency E network retirement project. By then, 128
1800M macro sites totaling 1752 carrier frequencies and 42 1800M IBS
sites totaling 158 carrier frequencies have been added to the network.
The proportion of 1800M sites was increased from 33.48% to 40.95%
on a year-on-year basis.
0.00%
43.70%
28.81%
20.00%
2010.6
40.00%
56.30%
60.00%
40.00%
20.00%
71.19%
80.00%
95.69%
95.00%
1800M Coverage Accounting
(Main Road)
2010.6
900M Coverage Accounting
(Main Road)
2011.6
Continuously improve the network coverage on roads. Because 1800M
frequency has abundant resources and high voice service quality, 1800M
resources are generally used for improving the drive test result. The
coverage of 1800M network was increased from 27% to 54.70% on a
year-on-year basis.
94.00%
Voice Quality
2010.6
2011.6
With the increase of 1800M sites, number of sites with high traffics is
reduced, as well as the frequency interference. As a result, the voice
service quality increased from 95.69% to 98.21% on a year-on-year basis.
(After the idea of the stereoscopic network is implemented, KPIs such as traffic
proportion, coverage of backbone roads, and speech quality are fully improved.)
> 30
The increasing special locations in
urban areas, such as high buildings and
underground parking garages have
become a huge problem for outdoor
coverage. Facing the problems of increased
complaints about indoor connectivity on
the live network and an increasing number
of complaints about poor coverage in
small areas, Guiyang Mobile and Huawei
project team actively investigated the areas
where the problems occur frequently and
adopted the stereoscopic coverage to
resolve the problems according to actual
local conditions. For VIP sites and highgrade office buildings, Huawei IBS solution
was adopted to properly allocate sufficient
radio resources, therefore achieving
optimum coverage effects and improving
VIP customer satisfaction. For areas where
the capacity of outdoor sites failed to satisfy
the heavy traffic, such as stations, shopping
malls, and schools, IBS sites were set up to
absorb as many traffic as possible. By doing
FEB 2012 ISSUE 31
this, outdoor sites load was reduced, and
the impacts of traffic peaks on the entire
network were alleviated, ensuring the voice
quality of outdoor sites.
After the IBS project (Phase III) was
implemented, KPIs such as network radio
access, handover success rate, TCH call
drop rate, HQI, and interference band were
improved to varying degrees. Wherein, the
improvement of HQI and interference band,
1% and 5% respectively, was the most
evident.
3. Integrating the 2G Network with the
3G Network
If the 3G network shares the same
IBS system with the 2G network, the
bandwidth of the existing 2G IBS system
needs to be transformed; otherwise, the
3G indoor coverage network needs to be
designed again. Therefore, compatibility,
interference, service bearer and sharing,
and capacity need to be fully considered
during the design of the 2G IBS system.
In addition, the Wireless Local Area
Network (WLAN) and WiFi terminals are
used in hotspot areas. For areas where
point-to-point (P2P) traffic takes a higher
proportion, the WLAN is deployed
preferentially. For areas on the 3G
network where absorption of data services
is insufficient, coverage is enhanced
and price leverage is used to drive the
development of data services.
A New Milestone for Guiyang Mobile
With the implementation of a series of
optimization schemes to improve connectivity
and ultimately gain better user perception,
the number of exceptions on the live network
decreases significantly from 217 in January
2011 to 80 in July 2011. In June 2011, the
number of static users exceeded 20,000,000,
which is another milestone for Guiyang Mobile
after the number of static users exceeded
10,000,000 in 2008. In addition, network
quality of Guiyang Mobile ranks higher among
peers nationwide and the user penetration
rate in Guizhou province exceeds 75%. In the
preventive maintenance inspection of China
Mobile held in December 2010, Guiyang
Mobile surpasses other competitors.
31 <
Success Story
Telenor Norway
The fastest ever and top quality GSM/UMTS
network migration in Europe
By Luo Zuoguo
> 32
FEB 2012 ISSUE 31
On October 6th
at around 3 pm,
the LAST site
was swapped!
Site no 6379
was Hoevikfjellet
in Aure,
Møre og Romsdal
”This is the biggest upgrade of
the mobile network in Norway we
have ever carried out. It will create a
solid and flexible base for further
developing the services offered by
the Telenor mobile network and the
quality of those services. Our aim is to
provide customers with better, more
innovative services across the country.
This means better in terms of capacity,
speed and stability”.
On 6th of Oct. 2011, 15:00 local time, the
last site in Telenor Norway BRAIN RAN
project went on air, which indicates that
Telenor Norway BRAIN RAN project swap
has been successfully delivered seven weeks
ahead of master plan, thus enabling Telenor
to provide better network quality and the
latest services to all mobile users in the home
market, Norway. This is the largest scale
network infrastructure upgrade in Telenor
Norway history and it is also the fastest ever
mobile network implementation in Europe:
witness the historical moment. Excitingly,
while suddenly, the room turns to silence and
tears was coming out from people’s eyes—
Ragnar Kårhus, former CEO of Telenor
Norway, November 2009.
856 co-located physical GSM&UMTS sites
were swapped in high volume month, 60
sites per day and averagely 600 sites per
month in volume phase which lasted 10
months.
Telenor and Huawei have jointly made a
new record and benchmark for the industry.
People are gathering in the swap centre
room in Fornebu, Telenor headquarters, to
Looking back over the past two years, some
episodes are unforgettable. There have been
difficulties, struggles and even tears, while
most are for the joy of success and the great
feeling of achieving milestones one after
another.
Opportunities only to those who
are prepared
In the telecommunication industry, there has
been a saying that” the vendor, who owns
the Nordic, owns the world.” Nordic market
is considered as one of the top high-end
markets in the world and it is also the place
where the world’s top telecommunication
vendors originated from. It is the home
market for them. Nordic had been one
Last site swap finish celebration in swap room
33 <
Success Story
Telenor, one of the major telecommunication operators in the world, owns the largest market
share in its home market Norway, decided to choose Huawei, the leading telecom service
provider in the world while a newcomer in Nordic, to be the best partner of the entire mobile
network upgrade including GSM, UMTS and LTE in Norway. That was where the story started
from…
of the few markets that Huawei wireless
solutions had not dominated prior to 2009.
In October, 2009, history has been changed.
In order to keep providing the best services
to mobile users and reduce both CAPEX
and OPEX, Telenor decided to replace all
existing radio access network provided by
> 34
existing two vendors in Norway. Existing
network vendors were determined to win
the contract in order to reinforce their
domination in mobile network industry,
while newcomers were eager to break
through the market starting from here.
With leading Single-RAN product solutions,
excellent service delivery capabilities and
strong willingness, Huawei was finally
selected to be the preferred vendor for
the upcoming six years of mobile network
upgrade equipment and service provider.
”This is the biggest overhaul of the
Norwegian mobile network we've ever
made, and creates a solid foundation for
further development of services and quality
FEB 2012 ISSUE 31
of service in Telenor's mobile network. The
main goal is to give our customers better
and more innovative services across the
country. With better, we mean capacity,
speed and stability”, says Ragnar Kårhus,
former head of Telenor Norway. ”The
selection of suppliers has been made after
an extensive tender process of negotiations.
Vendors have been assessed for technical
requirements and specifications, future
plans, commercial terms and conditions
that may ensure a stable, effective and
predictable cooperation. It was a close
competition between vendors, but ultimately
it was Huawei who emerged as the winner
outright. Technical quality, credibility in
relation to the extensive replacement of
equipment, as well as commercial conditions
combined were crucial.” adds Kårhus.
This was the first mobile network SWAP
contract Huawei won in Nordic from top
operators in its home market in Europe.
Huawei, with its proven Single-RAN solution
and service delivery capability in other
markets all over world, has the opportunity
to better fuel Telenor’s success. Meanwhile,
it was even more challenging for Telenor, as
Norway is most important market which is
not only where the headquarters is located
but also where the most revenue and profit
contributes for Telenor group.
However, local resources which were the
main power that the project had to rely
on, were extremely limited in Norway. The
population of Norway is around 5 million
and telecom graduates from NTNU, one of
the biggest universities in engineering and
technologies, are around 30 per year. While,
to deliver this project, more than 600 people
were needed from Telenor, Huawei and local
swap subcontractors.
To solve resource bottleneck and establish
delivery capacity quickly, Telenor, Huawei
and all subcontractors in BRAIN RAN project
started to explore talents, not only in
Scandinavian language speaking countries
(Norway, Sweden and Denmark), but also
other countries all over the world. The
project finally became an “international
club” which had people from more than 25
nationalities working together.
Harsh geographical and weather
conditions Norway locates between
58°N and 71°N, with five months of snow
year round, and some areas might have
-40°C cold weather for months. Norway
is a tourist paradise with mountains all
over the country and most beautiful fjords
in the world, while, it is not good at all
for swap, especially in the long snowing
winter. Moreover, the weather in Norway
changes so rapidly that outdoor activities
become more difficult. There are more than
2500 sites where helicopters are needed to
transport equipment and engineers to the
spot to do survey, installation and swap.
Sometimes helicopters had to wait for hours
just for the weather to become fine to be
able to fly. Even when arriving at a spot, you
might not be able to find the site as there
was heavy snow all around you.
Effective Solutions, Striving for Perfection
Those difficulties were challenging for swap
but they could not stop the swap. Both
Telenor and Huawei realized that to make
the swap activities as a product line was the
only way to make the swap smooth and
successful. “As a product line, we should
have centralized support, control and clear
processes to guarantee the swap runs on
track and in an efficient manner. Meanwhile,
highly disciplined swap teams and efficient
post swap performance optimization is key
to drive the fast swap with high quality”,
says David Tang, BAIN RAN project director
of Huawei. It was a common understanding
for Telenor and swap subcontractors as well.
Therefore, the project team started to work
from those main aspects.
No failure but only success, for both Telenor
and Huawei.
Mission Impossible? Believe you
can and you are halfway there!
Challenges—far more than expected
It was not easy to win this contract
for Huawei and even deliver a better
quality network. BRAIN RAN project was
established and given the responsibility
of swapping the complete radio access
network of Telenor Norway, which contains
6379 GSM and UMTS co-located physical
sites and 9000 GSM and UMTS logical
Nodes. Huawei had vast swap experiences,
while challenges in Norway were far more
than that expected.
Limited local resource: In order to deliver
this project, Huawei allocated experienced
expertise to Norway from all over the world.
Heavy snow to the site
“Snow coated” sites
Helicopter transportation
Offshore Oil platform sites swap
35 <
Success Story
Efficient
Highly
Network
Optimizations
Deciplined
Swap Teams
Centralized
Swap Room
Clear Process
Support and
Control
10-20 calls/site between
field and swap room
Remote configuration
of equipment
contains work from survey, design,
transportation, swap execution, to
optimization and documentation archiving,
which need cooperation across all teams
involved. Huawei, together with Telenor
and swap subcontractors, developed project
level E2E process which integrated key
actions, milestones and Lead time of Telenor,
Huawei and subcontractors, and clarify the
responsibility of each party in project delivery.
and Strict Plan
Tool for monitoring in
swap room
Plan for swap in swap
room
SWAP ROOM Swap:
Coordination
Cell block
Site Integration
Configuratiion
Verification
Neighbours
Transmission:
GIPS
X-Nett
SDH
DXX
BRUM
BRUT
Telenor Norway BRAIN RAN Project Swap Room
Centralized swap room provides efficient
support and control
Huawei Norway office is inside of Telenor
headquarters building and originally it was
where the Huawei project members were
working and it was one floor straight upstairs
of Telenor project office. In order to enhance
centralized swap support and control, have
more convenient and closer communication
between project members, Telenor and Huawei
decided to establish an office where all key
resources could work “seamlessly” together.
Swap room was then setup equipped with
PCs, swap hotline systems, IT infrastructures
and all necessary systems by Telenor. It was
the coordination and plan center and provided
technical support for all problems concerning
the swap. It played an extremely important role
in the project, just as the brain.
> 36
Moreover, several swap systems were
setup to make the swap more automatic
and efficient. All swap activities were
synchronized and monitored in a swap
room dashboard system simultaneously for
every single site, every single swap. Any
discrepancies against the plan could be
discovered and investigated immediately.
“Thanks to those applications, especially
the SRD and consistency check systems,
they not only assisted us to perform the
swap efficiently, but also made it easier for
the technical team to inspect and manage
problems ”, says Rocky Luo, fault manager
of BRAIN RAN project from Huawei.
Procedure based control methodologies
guarantee high quality
Swap is a highly integrated activity which
SOP (Standard Operation Procedure), one
of the most important procedures, which
was considered as the bible and “common
language” for swap, was developed by
Huawei, together with Telenor and swap
subcontractors. It clearly defined all activities
of a site swap, from swap team set out in
the morning, cell block, transmission re-route
to service verification and alarm clean up.
Putting procedures in place was important
and training of swap teams was also the
key to guarantee of successful and high
quality of swap. In order to quickly equip
the “international” swap teams with Huawei
swap technologies and be familiar with
swap disciplines, more than 10 rounds of
training sessions were held. The training
topics were designed based on requirements
and problems in different swap teams and
swap phases.
It has been proved that as swap teams
became more and more experiences and
skillful, with military style of project control
procedure, seamless cooperation between
all parties, swaps were made not only in
line with plan but also with high quality.
Downtime was minimized and swap related
problem occurrences were also controlled
in a very low level which provided a sound
basis for further network optimization.
Post swap optimization, improving
network performance quickly
To make swap as a product line, swap
execution is important while post swap
network optimization and documentation
archiving is also the key to “inspect
and measure” swap quality from both
network performance and engineering
implementation perspectives. In this project,
dedicated expertise from documentation
and optimization teams continuously
FEB 2012 ISSUE 31
focusing on post swap activities and drove
the project to run smoothly ahead. With
fast and effective network optimization after
swap, performance of swapped network
was improved rapidly and quality reached
“Excellent” level according to Telenor
standard. From both KPI statistics and drive
tests demonstrated that network quality was
improved dramatically after swap.
“Telenor is very impressed and happy with
the performance of Huawei. It is very
good that the project is on track. Telenor
expectations to the project have been more
than fulfilled” says Rolv-Erik Spilling, former
CTO Telenor Norway.
One team one goal
“One team one goal” is the slogan of the
project and the BRAIN RAN project delivery
is the best interpretation for it. The delivery
of the project is a story that demonstrates
how operator and vendor work together to
build the best network for end-users.
“People might have different opinions
when problems came, especially when
doing technical troubleshooting, as Telenor
swap room manager, Mr Age.Haland said,”
However, I have never heard any blame
between each other when problems popped
up. We are always thinking about how to
solve the problems, not blaming anyone.
People are always smiling.”
There were many sites which were technically
Provisional
Acceptance
(PAC)
Area
Cluster
complicated and most of them covered
important areas. In order to guarantee
the successful swap, a joint team was
established to work on it. Kenth.Sivertsen,
site expert from Telenor, (and Relacom),
always thoroughly explained to Huawei
so as to make correct site swap solution
and he went to many site supporting swap
together with Huawei teams as well. The
sites in Telenor headquarters were extremely
Single-site
Verification
(handover)
CC handling
Optimization
Drive tests
Statistics
Optimization
Site
Final
acceptance
(FAC)
Single site
Service
verification
BRAIN RAN post swap network optimization work flow
complicated and important, Telenor experts
worked on site together with Huawei for
more than twelve hours and finally the swap
was accomplished perfectly without any
issues.
Together, we can make things
different and better
The project is finished, Telenor now is
providing “best in test” mobile network
service to users and further strengthen its
leading position in Norway. Meanwhile, new
swap benchmarking is created in Europe. It
again proves Huawei innovative Single-RAN
solution, excellent service delivery capability
in global high-end market and customer
oriented determinations.
It starts a new chapter for the cooperation
between Telenor and Huawei. Telenor and
Huawei have already started to do lessons
learning and are looking forward to creating
new miracles. Because, we believe—
“Together, we can make things different
and better!”
37 <
Huawei Professional Services Showcase around the World
Germany
Hong Kong
Spain
Mexico
Huawei Managed Services Unified Platform
at the tmforum MANAGEMENT WORLD
AMERICAS, Nov. 8-10, 2011 | ORLANDO FL
HUAWEI SERVICE
FEB 2012 (ISSUE 31)