Real-Time Network Intelligence & Predictive Analytics for Communications Service Providers A Whitepaper
Superior customer experience is the direct result of high network performance; hence, a proper solution to analyze network performance is absolutely essential. Real-time network intelligence along with predictive analytics capabilities support the telecom operators in their network strategy by offering enhanced capacity planning, service assurance, network control and optimization, and customer experience. Executive Summary Typically, the customer satisfaction of telecom operators is directly linked to their network performance; this makes network performance a prerogative for providing superior customer experience. Telecom operators hardly ever make use of the terabytes of data collected by them, even though the data can be vital to achieve business benefits. Besides enhancing customer experience, real-time network data analysis can play a vital role in supporting telcos to achieve improved capacity planning (intelligent load balancing, network planning etc.), enhanced service assurance (service quality management, performance management etc.), and improved control and optimization (intelligent routing, intelligent offload, small cell placement, etc.) Real-time network intelligence along with predictive analytics capabilities support the telecom operators in their network strategy by offering solutions to enhance capacity planning, service assurance, network control and optimization, and customer experience. It also offers telecom operators the capability to isolate, identify, and fix service problems with pinpoint accuracy. Therefore, telecom operators have to rely on maximizing revenue potential by gaining visibility into network traffic information. Key Challenges Increasing Network Complexity: Analytics needs to take into account increasingly complex infrastructure and network architectures. The complexity comes into picture due to the advent of complex network structures, wider geographical coverage, increasing volume of usage data, etc. Lack of Correlated Data: The data generated from various network devices, system logs, and equipment sensors needs to be processed and correlated prior to storing. Traditionally, telecom operators have been facing a big challenge in achieving this due to the volume, velocity, and variety of the incoming data. Limitations of Traditional Methods of Analysis & Tools: Traditional methodologies of managing network operations rely heavily on experience and raw tabular presentation of data offering no real-time, situational awareness and decision-making capabilities.
Prodapt s solution helps telcos respond to network issues on the basis of predefined SLAs, measuring and adapting the services through real-time analysis of data, which streams directly from network and consumer devices. Preemptive Real-Time Network Intelligence Service providers have no shortage of network data that can be used for effective boosting of network performance, improving customer retention, and reducing costs. However, this data resides in disparate systems, such as inventory, provisioning, service fulfillment, billing, and customer experience management. Hence, it s difficult for network operations teams to obtain a coherent view of how subscribers are affected by application, network fault, network capacity, and performance. To overcome this hurdle, Prodapt provides Preemptive Real-Time Network Intelligence, a solution to translate the data analysis into realtime actionable insights for operators by integrating and analyzing operational network data. This helps several telecom operators to establish a result-oriented approach to manage the overall customer experience. The solution helps telcos respond to network issues on the basis of predefined SLAs, measuring and adapting the services through real-time analysis of data, which streams directly from network and consumer devices. Analysis on network data, correlated with location, service status, and device type, can provide the service providers an unparalleled ability to make realtime, well-informed decisions. Preemptive Real-Time Network Intelligence helps operators easily monitor network usage, available capacity, etc., while identifying potential issues, such as MSC failure (in which case, the data can be used for proactive traffic rerouting to different MSCs for high-value customers, while notifying less profitable customers of the potential problem and a resolution timeframe). The Prodapt solution covers a wide variety of data sources from which the data will be gathered and correlated, so that required dimensions, granularity, and flexibility are available. A sample set of input items are given below. Device-level information in each geography Current level of usage Current level of threshold Average usage per month Number of times threshold was exceeded during each month Number of outages Data from fault management systems (number of tickets in each geography for each device, fault reasons, fault resolution time) Impacted customer regions Prodapt s solution solves the following complex issues. Degraded performance for a set of subscribers can be caused by a single node or server Delivering additional bandwidth to the areas where the bandwidth threshold is met Cross-matching the impact of improving the quality of service for one or more services
Here are a few sample reports generated by Preemptive Real-Time Network Intelligence. The solution employs a technique known as time series analysis, making use of the time series data of customer subscriptions and corresponding usage data. Predictive Network Analytics Forecasting Capacity Requirements Improving operational excellence is a key factor for telecom operators to compete in today s economic environment. However, operational expenses remain a pretty high percentage of the revenue, and network operations related expenses in particular cost at least 50 percent of the OPEX. Traditionally, multiple organic and inorganic growth achieved by telecom operators have resulted in poor usage of existing assets, inconsistent information about network usage, etc. This leads to over- or under-provisioning of network resources disproportionate to the customer base. In this context, there is a pressing need for the telecom operators to focus on critical areas such as accurate network planning, trending, and optimization. The accuracy, granularity, and flexibility needed to optimize the network infrastructure or prediction-based planning of network investments (using data down to the cell level) requires a well-designed solution. Simple data based on spreadsheet-based analysis cannot support a telecom operator. This is why an advanced predictive analytics solution to optimize the capital and operational costs is needed. Prodapt s Predictive Network Analytics Solution offers accurate bandwidth prediction, capacity requirements for the future based on past trends in customer subscriptions, bandwidth usage, etc. The solution employs a technique known as time series analysis, making use of the time series data of customer subscriptions and corresponding usage data. Proper understanding of overall network and per-application usage provided by the solution enables operators to allocate assets in a more informed manner.
In environments where operators are forced to overprovision networks running 20-25% above its capacity, Predictive Network Analysis can provide optimum customer experience while reducing the CAPEX or managing it better. Here are a few sample reports generated by Prodapt s Predictive Network Analytics Solution. The solution can be vital to reduce the OPEX of telcos, by seamlessly optimizing the capacity. Conclusion Prodapt s real-time Predictive Network Analytics Solution effortlessly manages the arduous task of converting the deluge of information into actionable insights to meet business objectives of telcos. Prodapt provides telcos the much needed visibility into how the networks are molded and connected in the age of network consolidation and convergence, where growth is driven by mergers and acquisitions. The nextgen solution is primed to support the telcos quest to become more competitive with the optimization of network assets as well as accurate and timely approach to capacity management. The solution can be vital to reduce the OPEX of telcos, by seamlessly optimizing the capacity through reducing shortfalls, minimizing order fallouts, and increasing the efficiency by identifying under-utilized resources.
About Prodapt Prodapt is a leading provider of software, engineering, and operations services with a singular focus on the information and communications technology (ICT) industry. Prodapt endeavors to maximize the value at competitive cost for global communications service providers (CSPs), independent software vendors (ISVs), and network equipment manufacturers (NEMs). Prodapt s services and solutions span across Operations/Business Support Systems (O/BSS), Machine-to-Machine/Internet of Things (M2M/IoT), Remote Infrastructure Management (RIM), Telecom Business Process Services, and Network Product Engineering. Prodapt is a niche telecom services company with expertise in service delivery and fulfillment, network service assurance, and integrated customer and revenue management. Full-fledged and constantly evolving O/BSS offerings from Prodapt will provide telcos with profitability and uncompromised customer experience, through service quality, customer touchpoint experience, and branding. Prodapt offers flexibility to telcos through targeted solutions and services (both cloud and on-premise) across BI & analytics, digitization, mobility, and B2B & B2C services. Prodapt has over the years partnered with global leaders in the communications industry including Fortune 500 companies. In-depth telecom expertise, competitive costing, and enterprise-level flexibility make Prodapt the partner of choice in the telecom domain. Headquartered in Chennai, India, Prodapt has operations in the US, Europe, and South Africa. The organization is part of a 120-year-old Indian business conglomerate, The Jhaver Group, employing over 15,500 people across 60+ global locations. The Jhaver Group has business in IT services, healthcare, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, textiles, apparel accessories, and the BPO industry. India Prodapt Solutions Prince Infocity II, 4th Floor, No. 283/4, Rajiv Gandhi Salai (OMR), Kandanchavadi, Chennai - 600096, India Ph: +91 44 4903 3000 Fax: +91 44 4903 3010 Prodapt Solutions Module1, Tower 1, 6th Floor, Chennai One IT Special Economic Zone, Pallavaram - Thoraipakkam 200 feet Road, Thoraipakkam, Chennai 600 097, India Ph: +91 44 4903 3000 Fax: +91 44 4903 3010 North America Europe South Africa Prodapt North America South Center, 7565 SW Mohawk, Building M, Tualatin, Oregon 97062 Prodapt Consulting BV 2288 ED, Rijswijk, The Netherlands Prodapt South Africa No. 3, Third Avenue, Rivonia 2128, Johannesburg, South Africa Ph: +1 800 554 5022 +1 503 636 3737 Fax: +1 503 885 0850 Prodapt Solutions 1014 BM, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Ph: + 31 0 70 41 40 722 Ph: +31 0 20 48 95 711 Ph: +27 11 259 4000 Fax: +27 11 259 4111