IDENTIFYING THE CHALLENGES

BT currently provides mobile operators with a number of managed services, including cell-site repair, data transport and managed interconnect. These are designed to meet their operational aspirations, reduce total cost of ownership and increase shareholder value. As a result, BT has developed a detailed understanding of an operator’s business and is therefore well positioned to identify other areas where its solutions could have a similar impact.

BT believes that by taking a more holistic view of an operator’s network and accepting greater responsibility for it, it could introduce operational efficiencies that would reduce cost and increase customer satisfaction. BT’s capabilities include an enhanced network management service that encompasses the in-life management of an operator’s mobile network access and connectivity layers; and technical, operational and property management. This would:

• enable enhanced fault diagnosis 
• improve decision making 
• reduce the incidence of failure 
• underpin initiatives focussed on reducing response and restoration times

BT would be responsible for the provision of services based on agreed Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), with an emphasis on increased network availability through a reduction in network failures and improved restoration times.

BT is also keen to explore a ‘risk and reward’ principle that emphasises the need to drive improvements in network quality and underpins an operator’s key imperatives. This initiative could be used to focus on key indicators (such as availability, fault volumes, fault reduction, restoration time, and priority site availability) and to share the benefits of success.

Mobile operators therefore face the challenge of converging and managing various technologies to meet a reduced opex challenge today and a low cost, high growth and rapid deployment challenge tomorrow.

EXPLORING THE SOLUTIONS

A phased implementation based on an agreed scope and a roadmap for fulfilment is preferred to a ‘big bang approach’ to minimise any risk to ongoing operations. This would enable operators to migrate non-core activities to BT, subject to the achievement of agreed pre-requisites and criteria.

Site recovery, field maintenance and network upgrade activities would be undertaken by BT’s skilled engineering workforce. Subsequent phases could include the management of the mobile core network, the build and optimisation of the access layer, and the fulfilment of associated operational requirements.

The contractual arrangements may probably encompass the end-to-end scope of proposals, with progression between the phases subject to the successful completion of the pre-agreed service and commercial criteria.

REAPING THE BENEFITS

BT believes that the implementation of the proposed managed service would deliver significant internal and end-user benefits, including:

• significantly reduced management overheads and opex 
• a reduction in fault volumes and out of service times 
• increased network availability 
• more efficient use of bandwidth 
• greater operational efficiency