Next Generation Communications Blog

April 2015

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Optical Network Terminal (ONT) Provisioning Made Simple

By: Mae Kowalke, TMCnet Contributor

Fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) enables providers to deliver more bandwidth and better services to customers, but service provisioning can be a substantial headache since FTTH networks are shared and therefore the optical network terminal (ONT) location is not known. Not knowing the ONT location, currently operators must send a technician to the customer’s home to establish the right location and apply service provisioning.

Alcatel-Lucent understands this problem well, and it has taken steps to ease the pain of FTTH service provisioning by developing its ONT Easy Start solution.

Alcatel-Lucent Explains the Importance of CDC-F Optical Networks

By: Paula Bernier, TMC Executive Editor

Today’s technology now allows a single fiber strand to carry up to 17.6 terabits per second of traffic. That’s the equivalent of transmitting 88 Blu-ray discs in a second. This ultra-broadband capability, and the new software-defined networks that service providers are embracing, have important impacts on optical networks further upstream.

“…we need to stay in the light/photonic domain as long as possible in order to reduce the cost associated with repeatedly converting wavelength photonic signals to electrical,” notes Scott Larrigan, senior marketing manager of IPR&T product and solution marketing at Alcatel-Lucent, in a recent TechZine posting, CDC-F optical networks propel us forward, and in the podcast embedded below.

How to meet the challenges of virtual network functions assurance

By: Kevin Landry, Product Marketing Manager, Alcatel-Lucent

As they move into the cloud era, network operators need a service aware network operations tool to assure virtual network functions (VNF) management. They’ll need it to efficiently perform a variety of network operations tasks, including:

  • Service impact assessment
  • Fault localization
  • Identification of true root-cause (from symptomatic faults)
  • Taking corrective actions to resolve problems fast

As described in a vEPC post related to converging NMS and VNF manager functions within the ETSI Management and Orchestration (MANO) architecture, operators need to evolve their network operations tools for NFV through tighter coupling the NMS and VNF manager functions. Specifically for VNF assurance, the blog states “Troubleshooting is simplified because traditional NMS faults/events are correlated with VNF related events/faults. The VNFM provides lifecycle management and automates the self-healing of VNFs.”  

Video Shows How Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) Actually Works

By: Mae Kowalke, TMCnet Contributor

Rarely does a video about network functions virtualization (NFV) captivate your attention like the one that Alcatel-Lucent recently uploaded about service innovation and lean operations in the context of NFV. Sometimes NFV can be a challenging concept to get your head around, but the video breaks it down with clear visuals and none of the PowerPoint that usually puts you to sleep.

If you haven’t seen the video you can watch the embedded version below. But also let me explain what the video is talking about.

Four Ways Cable Operators Can Boost the Customer Experience

By Mae Kowalke, TMCnet Contributor

The customer experience has always mattered, but its importance has grown in recent years. This has been driven by increased global competition, including the almost instant availability of alternations, and the rising expectations by fickle and informed consumer. Yet, cable operators have a long way to travel if they want to deliver the customer experience (CX) that consumers demand.

The Temkin Group’s Q3 2014 survey of 10,000 US consumers’ opinions about goods and services registered the lowest ranking average Net Promoter Score (NPS) for pay TV providers, a telling statistic. Internet service providers did almost as poorly, coming in only one position higher.

“As technology innovations drive shifts in consumer behavior and open new service opportunities, operators must start eliminating pain points,” stressed Alcatel-Lucent’s Nicholas Cadwgan in a recent TechZine article, Cable MSOs transform the customer experience. “This includes any obstacles that will impede their ability to launch and provide adequate care and quality assurance for those services.”

Cadwgan lays out four customer experience management (CEM) areas that cable operators should focus on.

Motive Big Data Analytics (BNA) Helps Operators Leverage Network Data for Service Creation

By: Mae Kowalke, TMCnet Contributor

Service providers are seeing an increasing number of applications moving outside of their control. At the same time, they are facing stiff competition within their geographical markets. Developing new revenue streams has become a top priority.  As a result, many service providers have invested in business intelligence systems to help them figure out these new offerings and how to win and keep customers.

Interestingly, despite this need and a sense of urgency most service providers are ignoring their greatest asset: Their network. The network provides more visibility into subscriber usage and trends than Google, Yahoo and Facebook combined, according to a recent Alcatel-Lucent Motive posting on the value of big networks analytics (BNA).  They believe it is time for this visibility to be unlocked and put to work.

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