| Telecommunications Carriers Left to Manage E-Gateway and Bonding Software |
| One
of the first software applications supported
by IS Domain is a suite of electronic gateway and bonding software
products.
Telecommunications carriers use these products to order and provision
the
services that are traded between complementary and competitive
carriers. The
vendors who developed these products ceased operations, leaving
customers to
either maintain the software themselves or replace the software with
another
solution. Many of the customers affected by the software provider that
is no longer
in business do not have the technical or business capabilities to
support and
maintain the application themselves. The software application being supported by IS Domain includes interfaces that are very volatile in nature. The business rules associated with the exchange of service order information are subject to industry-mandated changes that affect each carrier's ability to conduct business with other entities. IS Domain has a clear understanding regarding the critical nature of services supported by your business partners and a true appreciation for the need to maintain these interfaces in a consistent, timely and cost effective manner. IS Domain has implemented a toll-free support line staffed with knowledgeable industry and application experts to assist every customer with troubleshooting operational problems that are encountered by the customer. Whenever possible and as needed, short-term solutions are made available to customers to get them operational as soon as possible. Problems that require software patches are provided per negotiated service level agreements. If necessary, permanent or extensive changes to software will be grouped into a scheduled release. |
| Successful New Deployments - A Study in Past Deployment Choices |
|
IS Domain was retained by a large
cellular carrier to review its internal network architecture, design
and
implementation with a specific focus on economic viability, IS Domain
undertook
a major project to address these issues. An initial review indicated that a
significant component of the total cost associated with their network
design
was the inefficiencies created through the use of separate and
redundant Wide
Area Network capacity for the corporate voice environment as well as
the data
network. Immediate consolidation of all services onto a shared network
capability reduced the corporate communications expense by 25%.
Renegotiation
of existing service agreements for the capacity required to serve this
consolidated environment, further reduced their expenses by an
additional 15%. A bi-product of the new architecture
and design incorporated into the new backbone configuration was
sufficient
excess capacity onto which a peer to peer TCP/IP based environment was
constructed utilizing Cisco Enterprise routing products. This
environment
replaced a first generation routed IP network design operating on yet
another
application specific networking environment. Replacement of this legacy
environment further reduced the corporate network costs by another 15%,
as well
as reduced the human support staff requirements by a total of 15 people. Services provided by IS Domain to this
Carrier included:
Transformation of this carriers
networking environment was
accomplished within an 11 month schedule from the start of the project,
with
the effort touching some 60 physical locations, 400 major hardware
components,
300 + circuits, and a total of 80 software subsystems. All work was
completed
on budget with the client receiving a 5 month payback on the investment
once
all project deliverables were in place. |
| Helping Carriers Understand the Breadth of an Operational Model |
|
A large wireless carrier began offering
a new type of data service and quickly realized that they needed help
in
determining the staffing requirements, skills, and operations model
required to
meet the demanding data customer's quality of service expectations.
Before IS
Domain entered the picture, the carrier had outsourced the entire
operation of
the network to a third party and did not support the management of the
service
beyond simple problem handling. IS Domain first worked with the
customer to determine the resource and skill requirements to manage the
data
service as well as the service delivery network. The resource
projections were
based on existing staff work-loads, efficiencies, and network
complexity.
Future staffing projections utilized a staffing factor that took into
account
network expansion, increased service complexity, subscriber volume
growth, and
network resource maturity. The skill sets of the different staff
positions were
also documented. The next step in the carrier's
evolution in becoming a first-class data service provider was the
development
of an operations model that defined the processes that must be
implemented to
help meet the business's revenue and cost projections. This operational
model
defined the roles each of the staff positions play in the life-cycle of
the
service and network resources. Also identified in the operations model
was the
information required to successfully perform the activities associated
with the
process as well as the tools used in the performance the activities. While working with the client's staff
in the development of the operational model, it became clear that the
existing
tools and Operations Support Systems and other tools were inadequate
for the
task at hand. Requirements were developed for a more comprehensive The final step in providing comprehensive service and network management was to define a fault and performance monitoring plan that greatly expanded on the simple device alarming that was implemented when the service was initially launched. The new alarming plan included threshold based alarms that provided proactive notification of performance issues with the service. With the implementation of proactive monitoring, customer service staff will be aware of the pending customer issues as they occur, not as a result of a poor customer experience. |
