Flexible reporting helps improve quality of multi-vendor, cross-border network

Improving network performance and reducing operational costs in the face of ever increasing technological complexity are two prime goals for most operators. Finding systems to help them do that without restructuring their existing, well-established ways of working can be an additional headache.

When Norwegian operator Telenor fully acquired its Danish neighbor Sonofon in 2003, these complexities were greatly multiplied by the need to efficiently bring together the operations of two separate national networks.

The combined operator, Telenor Nordic, needed a consistent way to monitor and analyze the performance of the combined multi-vendor, multi-national network.

“We had two different corporate cultures,” says Mr. Claus Nielsen, Senior OSS System Developer for Telenor Nordic in Denmark. “We didn’t have a consistent reporting system for cross-border network and service quality. There were high operating costs associated with reporting in a multi-vendor and multi-network environment, with added difficulties getting comparable statistics from different networks and vendors using several different reporting systems.”

Nokia NetAct™ assessed as the leader

While staff in Denmark were using Nokia NetAct™ Global Reporter, the Norwegian network was being monitored using an in-house system. The operator quickly established a project to establish a common performance warehouse that would work across the national border.

“We evaluated both the systems in use, plus one from another vendor. There was no real competition,” says Mr. Nielsen. “No other vendor was able to provide a system like Nokia NetAct™”

Nokia NetAct Global Reporter is a scalable, centralized data warehouse and reporting solution for the efficient collection, storage and analysis of network and service-related performance, usage and quality information. It enables operators to drill down into their data to deliver customized reports on network elements, the overall network and individual services. Crucially, Nokia NetAct Global Reporter can draw data together from several sources to deliver meaningful information.

A system that does what the operator wants

The system needed to match Telenor Nordic’s way of working and provide practical, tailored information to meet the individual needs of the operator’s different management functions.

According to Mr. Nielsen: “From the beginning of the project we had the working process as the focal point, and then the tool was tailored to support this, making use of as many standard product modules as possible. We defined what our needs were. Which departments we needed to support and what their work processes were.”

Working closely with the operator, we customized our Nokia NetAct Global Reporter to support the operator’s main work processes for:

One tool achieves lower operational costs

“It was clear to us that we had to automate processes and move to a single tool to save money in the long run. Now there is no need to maintain two systems,” explains Mr. Nielsen.

“We had lots of challenges and new things to investigate. Nokia Siemens Networks proved to be the best vendor at understanding our needs very quickly and achieve our demands. Their solution generates content that matches Telenor Nordic’s work processes.”

The reporting system treats the two national networks seamlessly, allowing Telenor Nordic to make direct comparisons of performance across the two countries. This enables the operator to focus its resources where they will be most effective.

Practical information to help improve customer care

Such is the versatility of the system that Telenor Nordic regularly uses to generate between 50 and 60 different types of report, each incorporating a selection from more than 450 key performance indicators (KPIs). Each report is tailored to the needs of staff performing specific functions within the organization.

So, for example, network quality engineers receive daily reports detailing the worst-performing cells, but each person’s report only covers the area for which they are personally responsible.

The operator’s call center has access to the system too. Our open system allows Telenor to incorporate its own applications, such as a map of Denmark on which call center staff can see problem areas and their status. This is a major benefit, as Mr. Nielsen explains: “Customer care center staff can better answer many end-user queries. For example, they can immediately say, ‘yes we have a problem in your area and we are fixing it at the moment’. Or ‘yes, we had a problem there and it should be OK now’.”

Raising long-term network performance

The operator’s senior management team uses Nokia NetAct Global Reporter to monitor the long-term performance of its network and services. So they might compare the minutes per drop each Monday morning, or over the same period from one year to the next.

“We don’t really focus on one day’s performance, but look at the longer term,” says Mr. Nielsen. “The senior management wants to verify that the quality of the network is increasing all the time.” Other important management parameters include radio network efficiency and call success rates.

Personnel in the Network Management Center benefit from the increased automation enabled by the system. For instance, it used to take the equivalent of almost two full-time people to manage sub-contractors working on jobs such as routine maintenance around the network. Again, the openness of our system has allowed Telenor to add a SMS-based system that enables contractors to inform center staff automatically when they are about to enter a site, making it far easier to manage them.

Similarly, it’s now very easy and quick to highlight cells in need of increased capacity. “By clicking one report I get a list of cells that require capacity upgrades. Previously it was a very heavy process to find those cells, taking several hours instead of a few minutes. And this process had to be repeated in several areas,” says Mr. Nielsen.

Benefits today, meeting future needs

Telenor Nordic expects the switch to a common reporting system to reduce operating costs and improve network quality, according to Mr. Nielsen: “At this stage it is too early to put a specific number on the benefits in terms of quality and savings, but we expect clear improvements.”

The next step is to further develop our reporting system to the company’s 3G network. “It took a bit less than 18 months [to apply Nokia NetAct Global Reporter across the 2G networks]. When doing this for 3G it will be quicker and smoother,” he says.