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Telecom Extreme Transformation The Road to a Digital Service Provider Kaveh Hushyar Former Chief Engineering Officer, AT&T, Inc. Stanford University, California, USA Harald Braun Former President & CEO, Aviat Networks, Inc. President and CEO, Siemens Networks Llc., USA Dr. Hossein Eslambolchi Former President, CIO, CTO, AT&T Inc. p, p, A SCIENCE PUBLISHERS BOOK A SCIENCE PUBLISHERS BOOK
First edition published 2021 by CRC Press 6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300, Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742 and by CRC Press 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN © 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, LLC Reasonable efforts have been made to publish reliable data and information, but the author and pub- lisher cannot assume responsibility for the validity of all materials or the consequences of their use. The authors and publishers have attempted to trace the copyright holders of all material reproduced in this publication and apologize to copyright holders if permission to publish in this form has not been obtained. If any copyright material has not been acknowledged please write and let us know so we may rectify in any future reprint. Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Law, no part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or here- after invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publishers. For permission to photocopy or use material electronically from this work, access www.copyright.com or contact the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978- 750-8400. For works that are not available on CCC please contact mpkbookspermissions@tandf.co.uk Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging‑in‑Publication Data Names: Hushyar, Kaveh, 1952- author. | Braun, Harald (Telecommunications engineer), author. | Eslambolchi, Hossein, 1957- author. Title: Telecom extreme transformation : the road to a digital service provider / Kaveh Hushyar, former chief engineering officer, AT&T, Inc., Stanford University, California, USA, Harald Braun, former president & CEO, Aviat Networks, Inc., president and CEO, Siemens Networks Llc., Hossein Eslambolchi, former president CIO, CTO, AT&T, Inc. Description: First edition. | Boca Raton : CRC Press, 2021. | “A science publishers book.” | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “The next wave of telecommunication and service provider transformations will be very different, we call it extreme transformation, in that the communication service providers (CSP) have to become a Digital Service Provider (DSP) to stay relevant. In the DSP world the customers are not just “human beings”, but it also includes billions of sensors and IoT devices that will be revolutionizing digital lifestyle with relevant content enabled by data mining, and leading to decision making, and entertainment. for CSPs, to stay relevant, they must compete, not only with differentiation in network reliability for quad-play connectivity services, but also must move up the value chain, and to transform to become a Customer-Centric DSP for digital services. The extreme transformation from a CSP to a DSP status is what we are covering in this book”-- Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2021000985 | ISBN 9780367750138 (hbk) Subjects: LCSH: Wireless communication systems--Technological innovations. | Internet of things--Forecasting. | Application service providers. | Internet service providers. | Organizational change. Classification: LCC TK5103.2 .H865 2021 | DDC 384.3/3--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021000985 ISBN: 978-0-367-75013-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-75017-6 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-16074-8 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Radiant Productions
Preface Objectives It is the ambitious purpose of this book to provide a playbook for the extreme transformation of a Communication Service Provider (CSP) to include the Digital Service Provider (DSP) status. A CSP that does not transform to a DSP, will face an “innovator’s Dilemma” (Christensen, 2016) as it has created many casualties in different industries. This book lays out the authors’experience and the learning from the transformation of many global networks of the tier 1 CSPs over time. It provides a playbook for evaluation of the legacy networks, and the transformation of its shortcomings into the Best-In-Industry (BII) global DSP with competitive performance. In this book, we address the questions about the “Why” of transformation, and the “What” of transformation. The answers to the “how-to” of transformation are not the subject of this book. The “How-to” of transformation is highly dependent on the state of the CSPs before the start of a transformation. The “how-to” is best learned and practiced on the job, motivated by the need for the transformation, and leveraging the partnership with experts with global transformation experience. The motivation for this book is to pass on the authors’ lifetime learnings and the experience for the transformation of customer experience, and the DSP platform build-out at a global scale which is sustainable and is built to last. We think it has the potential to provide a stepping stone for a much better place, from where we picked it up just a few years ago. Acknowledgement The idea of the book began many years ago between the three of us while working on several projects, in different companies (Service Provider, Product Manufacture), different organizational positions and definitely with different views of how things should be done, but always with one goal in mind: Get it done right, on time, within budget and with no compromises on quality! This book is a work product of this collaboration between the authors over the last 2 years while we focused on the learnings of our combined knowledge, failures, and experiences over all the projects we executed in the telecommunication industry on a global level. If this book contributes in any way to help plan and execute a transition from a CSP to a DSP, we will consider it a success.
iv Telecom Extreme Transformation: The Road to a Digital Service Provider You can’t write a book like this without mentioning the mentors, tutors, and teachers who guided our professional career. Also, we got many powerful inputs from thought leaders in the industry while we were debating details in certain sections of this book. In summary, it would not have been possible to write this book without the meaningful input and commitment made by close friends, family, and colleagues. For the Mentors and Tutors, the list has to start with Frank Ianna, former Chief Quality Officer of AT&T who is a global lead in network reliability; George Nolen, former President and CEO of Siemens North America who taught us to look at things always from different angles but foremost from the benefit we create for the end- customer, that if what we do, creates value for them, and if this can’t be answered with a convincing YES, then it must create value for anybody in the value chain. Our main teacher, when it comes to flawless execution of network operations, is John McCanuel, former AT&T Senior Vice President; when it comes to looking at subjects from a geo-economic and geostrategic perspective, our teachers include Anton Schaaf, former Group Board member of Siemens Networks and CEO Coach for southeast Asia, Joe Cook, former Senior Vice President of Verizon for Global Network Planning and Engineering, and Alberto Gross, President and CEO of CLA direct, an innovative telecommunication Solution Provider for Latin America and Caribbean markets; and last but not least, Karel Pienaar, Navi Naidoo, Hassan Motalebpoor, Edris Saberi, and Pete DaSilva were responsible for influencing our thinking for executing projects in Europe-Middle East and Asia. Our appreciation goes to Tom Rutledge, Chairman and CEO of Charter Communications. Tom’s visionary view about the US telecommunication industry had a big influence on all of us. Many thanks to all for coaching us on the cultural differences between our heritage and the way topics can be approached with different cultural values and in a diverse cultural environment. Among the many people who very early in our professions introduced us to the CLOUD based delivery concept of functionalities, we have to thank our friend and great Entrepreneur, Michael Tessler, former President and CEO of Broadsoft, who founded the company and build it to the global market leader in cloud-based unified communications solutions. Also, very influential in our way to position business solution into a global customer base were Harald Link, a Thai-German businessman, industrialist, philanthropist, and owner of B. Grimm of Bangkok, Thailand, and Tzvika Friedman, former CEO of Alvarion and currently an active investor in global innovative telecommunication business solutions. Many intensive breakfast meetings influenced our long-lasting thinking. On the complex issue of optical Networking, we are grateful that we had very good counselors and coaching in Simon Zelinger, former Vice President of AT&T, and Dr. Hans-Juergen Schmidtke, a Communications Network Specialist experienced in optical networking solutions, now working with Facebook on their influential Telecom Infrastructure Project (TIP). In addition, our appreciation goes to the countless hours we spend during our professional careers on multifaceted technology challenges with Behrokh Samadi, Jim Medica, Robert Covel, Chris Dressler, Nikos Theodosopoulos, and Mike Hayashi.
Contents Preface iii 1. Introduction 1 1.1 About The Authors 1 1.2 Who Will Benefit From This Book? 1 1.3 How This Book Is Organized 2 1.4 Future of Telecom 3 1.5 The Road to a “Digital Service Provider” Status 6 2. Preparation for Transformation 10 2.1 Introduction 10 2.2 Transforming CSP—Why to Transform 13 2.3 Transforming CSP—Scope of Transformation 25 2.4 Transforming CSP: Best-In-Industry Practices 26 2.4.1 The Concept-Of-One (BII-Co1): Do It Once, Do It Right, 28 and Use It Everywhere 2.4.2 The Concept-of-Zero (BII-Co0): When One is Not Enough 30 2.4.3 The Concept of None (BII-CoN) 32 2.4.4 Database of Record (BII-DBOR) 32 2.4.5 Ask Your Self (BII-ASY) 32 2.4.6 Outage Management (BII-OM) 33 2.4.7 Communication, Command, and Control Process (BII-3CP) 34 2.4.8 Closed-Loop Performance Management System 35 (BII-Integrated Dashboard) 2.4.9 War Room-Cross-Organizational Issue Resolution (BII-WR) 35 2.4.10 Restore First, and Repair Next (BII-Restore & Repair) 36 2.5 Tools for Transformation 37 2.5.1 T-Plan/Q-Plan 37 2.5.2 Zero-Based Workforce Model (BII-Zero-Based Workforce) 37 2.5.3 ETE Service-level CAPEX Unit Cost/Platform Unit Cost 38 2.6 Service Disaster Recovery (BII-SDR) 38 2.7 Transforming CSP—Accountability, Goal Setting 39 2.8 Transforming CSPs—Setting Transformation Targets 40 2.9 Transforming CSP—The Network/Process 42 2.10 Transforming CSP—Security 42 2.11 Transforming CSP—Operations Discipline (BII-OD) 43 2.12 Transforming CSP—Transformation Culture (BII-TC) 44
vi Telecom Extreme Transformation: The Road to a Digital Service Provider 2.13 Transforming CSP—Investment Monetization 45 2.14 Transforming CSP—Business Case for Transformation 45 2.15 Transforming CSP—Transformation Team 46 2.16 Transforming CSP—High-level Steps & Time Line 46 2.17 Transforming CSPs—Lessons Learned 48 3. Assessment of the Present Mode of Operation (PMO) 51 3.1 PMO: Introduction 51 3.2 PMO: ETE Services to be Assessed 53 3.3 PMO: ETE Service/Network Performance 54 3.3.1 Assessment of Customer-Facing (QoE) Dashboards 56 3.3.1.1 Overall Assessment of Real-time QoE 57 3.3.1.2 Assessment of Network Domain for QoE 63 3.3.1.3 Access/Aggregation Network Assessment 68 3.3.1.4 Content Network & IXP Assessment 69 3.3.1.5 Network and Users Security Assessment 70 3.3.2 Assessment of Network-Facing Dashboards 70 3.3.2.1 Assessment of CSP Competitive Dashboard 70 3.3.2.2 Assessment of CSP Executive Dashboard 72 3.3.2.3 Assessment of CSP Operations Management 73 Dashboard 3.3.2.4 Assessment of CSP Working-level Dashboard 73 3.3.2.5 Assessment of Dashboard Drill-down Capability 75 3.3.3 PMO: Assessment of Network & OSSs/BSSs Architecture 75 3.4 PMO: Assessment of CAPEX Unit Cost 77 3.5 PMO: Assessment of OPEX Unit Cost 80 3.6 PMO: Overall Gap Closure 82 4. FMO: The Network & Systems 86 4.1 FMO: Introduction 86 4.2 FMO: Vision & Targets 86 4.2.1 Revenue/New Service Target 88 4.2.2 Bandwidth Target 89 4.2.3 QoE Driven Network Performance Target 89 4.2.4 CAPEX Target 93 4.2.5 OPEX Target 95 4.3 FMO Typical Services 96 4.4 FMO: Assessment of Available Network Technology Performance 97 4.5 FMO: Design-Objectives to Guide the Transformation 100 4.5.1 FMO: Design Objectives for Network & Service 100 Transformation 4.5.2 FMO: Design Objectives for Process & OSSs/BSSs 104 Transformation 4.5.3 FMO: Design Objectives for Network Operations 108 Transformation 4.5.4 FMO: Design Objectives for Organization Transformation 109 4.5.5 FMO: Design Objectives for Cultural Transformation 109
Contents vii 4.6 FMO Network Architecture 110 4.6.1 BII Survivable Network Architecture 111 4.6.2 DSP FMO Conceptual Architecture 114 4.6.3 DSP FMO Functional Architecture 117 4.6.3.1 Unified Transport (uTransport) 120 4.6.3.2 Unified Core (uCore) 127 4.6.3.3 Unified IP Service Aggregation (uSAG) 134 4.6.3.4 Unified Access Network (uAccess) 139 4.6.3.5 Wireless (future release Volume II) 145 4.6.3.6 WiFi Offload 148 4.6.3.7 IPTV 151 4.6.3.8 Over-The-Top Streaming (OTT) 157 4.6.3.9 SoIP Platform 162 4.6.3.10Unified Data Centers 167 4.6.3.11 Unified Support Infrastructure 177 4.6.4 FMO ETE Connectivity Architecture 181 4.6.4.1 FMO Network Connectivity Architecture 182 4.6.4.2 FMO Service Connectivity Architecture 185 4.6.4.3 FMO QoE Probe Architecture 188 4.6.4.4 FMO Standard Node Architecture 193 4.6.5 FMO: The Processes/OSSs/BSSs 193 4.6.5.1 FMO DSP Processes—Preview 194 4.6.5.2 FMO Service Creation Processes—Preview 194 4.6.5.3 Service and Technology Introduction Process 195 (Water Fall)—Preview 4.6.5.4 Capacity Planning and Deployment Process—Preview 195 4.6.5.5 FMO Customer engagement: Marketing & 201 Contracting Processes—(future release Volume II) 4.6.5.6 FMO Customer Buy Processes— (future release 201 Volume II) 4.6.5.7 FMO Customer Use Processes— (future release 201 Volume II) 4.6.5.8 FMO Customer Care process— (future release 201 Volume II) 4.6.5.9 FMO Maintenance Process—(future release Volume II)201 4.6.5.10FMO Pay & Financial Processes— (future release 202 Volume II) 4.6.5.11 FMO DSP Systems 202 5. FMO Integrated & Real-time Dashboards 203 5.1 Unified QoE Dashboard 204 5.2 Competitive Dashboard 206 5.3 Executive Dashboard (IBM Business Analytics for telcos, 2010) 206 5.4 Operations Managers & Working Level Dashboard 207 6. FMO: Operations-Network & Services 211
viii Telecom Extreme Transformation: The Road to a Digital Service Provider 7. FMO: The Regulatory 213 8. FMO: The Transition Mode of Operations 216 8.1 The T-Plan for Bridging to the FMO 216 8.2 Transition Mode of Operation 1 217 8.3 Transition Mode of Operation 2 223 8.4 Transition Mode of Operation 3 225 8.5 Transition Mode of Operation 4 230 8.6 Transition Mode of Operation 5 233 9. Conclusion 236 10. Appendix 238 11. References 244 Index 247
Chapter1 Introduction 1.1 About The Authors We the authors are the students of the telecommunication industry who have been leaders and practitioners in the space of telecom and digital services transformation. The authors in alphabetical order are: (1) Harald Braun: former President and CEO of Aviat Networks, Inc., and the President and CEO of Siemens Networks LLC, USA. Engineering degree in Telecommunications from the University in Aachen/Germany. Prominent standards influencer and spokesman in the telecommunications industry and recognized as one of America’s “Top 100 Voices of the IP Communications Industry” by Internet Telephony magazine. Serial High-Tech Entrepreneur in the Digital Economy. (2) Hossein Eslambolchi: Former Chief Transformation Officer and president, CIO, CTO of AT&T, with more than 1400 registered patents, 2017 Ellis Island Medal of honor, Thomas Alva Edison Prestigious NJ inventor Hall of Fame, Info world Global Top 25 CTO award in 2005: PhD in Electrical Engineering from San Diego State University. (3) Kaveh Hushyar: Former Chief Engineering Officer of AT&T. Cross industry leadership in Transformation. MS Industrial Engineering from Stanford University. The authors are actively engaged in providing consulting services on a variety of transformational projects globally. 1.2 Who Will Benefit From This Book? The authors have written this book for a variety of readers: (a) Telecom and digital services professionals, from the working level all the way up to the executives, who are planning to embark on massive transformational projects, in an intensely competitive market, from a Communication Service Provider (CSP) status to include Digital Service Provider (DSP) status, or from
2 Telecom Extreme Transformation: The Road to a Digital Service Provider a DSP to include CSP status; or to transform their legacy CSPs, in a non- competitive market, for efficiency and effectiveness. (b) Telecom and technology equipment manufacturers who develop future hardware/software products to enable the transformation from a CSP to include DSP status, and vice versa. (c) Institutional investors who are trying to evaluate and/or to establish their investment decisions in the leading-edge companies across different industries of Telecom, Equipment Manufacturers, and the Digital Service Providers. (d) Management Consultants in Telecom and digital services who are trying to leverage a solid benchmark for transformation engagement with their clients. (e) University students globally, majoring in telecommunication and technology products and services,who need to develop a breath of understanding for the end-to-end DSP, as well as a guide toward identifying areas for development of specific depth for their professional interest and career planning. Given the above classes of readers for this book, one would benefit the most if equipped with the basic understanding of the telecommunication networks/services and its practices. 1.3 How This Book Is Organized The scope of CSPs’ and DSPs’ business is broad, and its transformation is complex and extensive. We are planning to present the subject of Telecom Extreme Transformation in two volumes: Volume I, the subject of this release, covers the playbook for the assessment of the legacy CSP networks, essential Best-In-Industry practices for transformation, End- to-end future and transitional architecture for a global Digital Service Provider (DSP) with the focus on unification of wireless/wireline/data networks, and the unified Services over IP (SoIP) platform; and Volume II, the subject of future release, will cover Wireless last mile access, Security, and Operations and Business Support Systems (OSSs/BSSs). Volume I is organized into the following chapters: Preface, including the acknowledgement; Chapter 1 (Introduction) covers the background of the authors, the potential audience for the book. It also provides the Future of Telecom (technology direction over the next 10+ years for Wireless, Wireline, Devices, and Applications/ content), and a brief executive summary for the road ahead for transformation; Chapter 2 addresses the Preparation for transformation (why to transform, transformation targets, best-in-industry practices); Chapter 3 presents an Assessment of present mode of operations (PMO) in telecom (performance, Capex, Opex, business issues); Chapter 4 covers the Future Mode of Operations (FMO) in telecom (transformational targets, network and systems architecture for wireless, wireline, video, and content delivery); Chapter 5 presents the FMO integrated and real time dashboard for flawless operations of the overall network; Chapter 6 presents FMO
Introduction 3 Network Operations and services; Chapter 7 provides a brief view of the Regulatory issues and challenges; Chapter 8 covers the Transition Mode of Operation to navigate from PMO to FMO; Chapter 9 outlines the Conclusion; Chapter 10 is an appendix for the book; and Chapter 11 outlines the references and the citation. 1.4 Future of Telecom We believe that, by 2030, most of the traditional CSPs will be transformed to become Digital Service Providers (DSPs). Today’s CSPs are now the providers of connectivity services (traditional connectivity pipes with low margin), plagued by capital intensive platforms, and slow response to meet new customer demands. These CSPs will be transformed into DSPs with highly reliable high-speed connectivity services, and vertically integrated services with high margin Digital Services, highly CAPEX/OPEX unit cost-efficient, customer-focused with BII QoE performance in a broad sense of connectivity, content, and touchpoints with the end customers and suppliers/partners. Tomorrow’s DSPs will monetize the bit stream on their connectivity network, and have the potential to take on digital disruptors, such as Google, FB, and Netflix, with strategic advantage for high-quality ETE networks. We believe that tomorrow’s DSPs will become solution providers for new digital services in an age of exponential growth and digital lifestyle, as well as a role model for digital touchpoints and the capacity to connect the unconnected 3+billion people by 2030. Tomorrow’s DSPs will measure their business performance by revenue per bit of traffic on their network. Digital lifestyle and the growth of ‘digital Nomads’ is transforming the way we live our lives. It is empowering us to communicate anytime, anyplace, with any device on any network. It is improving our quality of life through digital touchpoints, and is providing businesses with an immense opportunity for value creation through the introduction of innovative service solutions. Digital lifestyle is enabling a new way for capital flow through the global economy. In the new economy, “Over-The-Top”(OTT) (Journals.elsevier.com/ telecommunications-policy, 2020) (Introduction to eTOM White Paper, 2017) digital services, interactive video, and user-generated content are becoming more prevalent. Players such as Facebook, Google, Apple, YouTube, Instagram, Netflix, or their future incarnations are reaping the rewards of new revenue streams being generated by advertising, payed-for content, on-demand services and application services. The emergence of the Internet-of-Things (IoT), Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and the rapid growth of autonomous vehicles will change future telecommunication networks forever. We believe that the digital lifestyle is the force that will shape the future of telecom. The future of telecom must be seen in the cross-section of four essential elements: Devices, Content/Applications, wireless, and wireline networks as depicted in the picture below (Figure 1.1). The key question for CSPs is the ownership of this cross-section. On one extreme, CSPs will remain to be the owner of the traditional pipes with shrinking and low margin products, and on the other extreme, they become DSPs with high margin smart pipes, while leveraging the strategic asset of their
4 Telecom Extreme Transformation: The Road to a Digital Service Provider network for high availability services, by offering content and/or devices. It is also true that today’s content providers (such as Google) would evolve to become a DSP. This cross-section is evolving, and based on our collective insight, by 2030, the cross-section will bring about the digital lifestyle leading to ambient solutions for the customers. Ambient solution for consumers is where digital services are utilizing the IoT sensors’sensitivity and responsiveness to the presence of people; and for the business, it is about collaboration, big data, and sound decision making, and the availability to work from anywhere at any time. As you see in Figure 1.1, by 2030, Devices will go to common robotics, fueled by IoT sensors and Robotic vision; for mobility, it is the scalable 7G (10 Gbps) with 100-to-1 wireless vs Wireline endpoints; and for wireline, it is the scalable Exabyte backbone and Yottabyte data centers fueled by the unification of the wireless and wireline networks, 100 Gbps last-mile, secure cloaked network, and on-demand reconfigurable networks, where the network is being autonomously configured in real-time to deal with catastrophic events; The content & applications will take us to tele-immersion and ambient intelligence solutions fueled by Cognitive Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). At this cross-section, the people are in the center stage, for quality of life entertainment, working productively, and having fun at it too. The devices enable big data and intelligence gathering; the wireline enables the exchange of big data (east-west pipes in addition to the north-south) over the geographical environment; wireless enables extreme mobility and anyplace communication at High-speed; the applications and content provide seamless touchpoints between people and businesses, and insightful context to the big data which will facilitate human decision making as well as entertainment. Today, the ownership of the cross-section is spread across 4 key players: (1&2) the traditional CSPs (for capital intensive & low margin pipes in wireline and wireless networks), (3) new and emerging companies such as Google and FB (for high margin content, applications, and advertisement), and (4) the traditional Network Equipment Providers, such as Apple and Cisco (for innovative and high margin devices and network gears).The fundamental question for the legacy CSPs is the scope of the ownership of this cross-section going forward. At the end of the day, the CSPs have to find their way into the high margin content and applications to stay relevant. Meanwhile, today’s content providers will be vying for connectivity services, demanding a massive transformation to become a DSP. There are some CSPs who will be leading the revolution, and others who will take advantage of the learning from the leaders, to build and to deliver the BII services for their customers. The leaders of the revolution will pay a significant price to be the lead,but they will become global DSPs and will be the first to benefit from the leading-edge technology and stay ahead of the competitive curve. To deliver on this future with a competitive posture,the big league CSP players must leverage a sound set of processes and BII practices that are timeless to piece together the off-the-shelf technology components of the time, to meet and to exceed customers’ expectations, and to maintain that network performance at all times.
What Is Next? Networks Devices o Application 2015 aware networks o 3D Display o Storage visualization o NLU / NLP o Wearable networks o Autonomous 2020 o Virtual retinal o 1 Gbps display o Fuel Cells o 256 GB SSD o 10 Gbps networks consumer BB o Nano computers o 1TB Mobile consumer BB Storage o Cognitive networks o 100 Gbps o Holographic o Smart Sensors o Thumb Print o NFV o IPv6 consumer BB2025 Display o IoT Sensors Scanner o Cloaked o Digital scent network Dominates o End of o Robot vision Bcast TV o Nano Computers o Big Data o 3-D o Distributed o Exabyte backbone networks o SDN o On-demand Everywhere Printing reconfig. networks o Yottabyte DC o Common o Affordable dominates Green Energy o Cognitive Robotics computing 2015 2020 2025 o 100Gbps last mile 2030 everywhere o Doctor inside U 2025 2020 2015 o 6G 1+ Gbps o RT/On-demand sport o Tele- immersion o Agricultural robot o LTE-a o Last wireline streaming o Ambient Intelligence o Self driving car phone retired o 7G 10 Gbps o Computer generated o Biometric 50 Mbps solutions imagery o Quantum o Cognitive personal o 5G 500 Mbps o Nano Bot Shot assistant cryptography o Cognitive Radio o RFID o 100 to 1 Wireless vs.2025 o Cognitive SMEs o Cognitive financial o Mobile video planner o eCollaboration o Interactive Wireline End Points o Super Hi Def TV- 8K o Ultra Hi Def TV- 4K w/ QoS Video o Speech to Speech o Rich Media o Personal device o Privacy Translation services Search convergence 2020 o Netflix on steroid o Wireless VoIP o Autonomous UI o Hybrid cloud services Content / o WiFi OffLoad 2015 o Location based Wireless services Applications Introduction Figure 1.1. What is next? Figure 2.1 5
6 Telecom Extreme Transformation: The Road to a Digital Service Provider 1.5 The Road to a “Digital Service Provider” Status Telecommunication companies deliver the digital bits to the customers. There are two kinds of bits: “faster, and faster dumb bits” which is capital intensive with low margins, and/or the “intelligent bits” which has an additional content component, and has a significantly higher margin. The traditional Communication Service providers (CSPs) have gone through transformation after transformation over the past few decades. All these past transformations have had one thing in common, and that is for the delivery of faster dumb bits, leveraging the technology evolution from analog, to digital, to wireless, to IP. These past transformations have always been about faster connectivity dumb bits, with a higher speed of the last-mile connection. The next wave of transformations, in an intensely competitive market, will be very different; we call it extreme transformation. In that, the CSPs have to expand their scope of business model and become a Digital Service Provider (DSP) in order to stay relevant. In the DSP world, the customers are not just “human beings”, but it also includes billions of sensors and Internet-of-Things (IoT) (Rossman, 2016) devices that will be revolutionizing the digital lifestyle with relevant content enabled by data mining, and leading to decision making, and entertainment. The extreme transformation from a CSP to a DSP status is what we are covering in this book. The DSP status is a major shift in the business model for CSPs, in that it forces a new focus for the digital lifestyle services and a customer-centric paradigm, to enable the flow of high-margin bits/contents (“smart pipes”) with an obsession for QoE (Dai, 2011) in connectivity services, content services, and customer and vendor/partner touchpoints. The high margin-bits must be built upon the high-speed connectivity services, and at a minimum must include video subscription, interactive video such as gaming subscription, and news-and-magazine subscription services, advertising,and continuous introduction of original content, etc. The DSP status must be enabled by regulatory arrangement for Content purification in order to liberalize CSPs to become responsible DSPs. The absence of such regulation has disastrous consequences as the unregulated DSPs are programmed and prioritized for monetization of end-user engagement, driven by advertising revenue from all possible sources: legal/ethical and illegal/non-ethical. It was not long ago that we, the authors, were sat around a table enjoying the discussion about our past experiences in transforming massive global tier 1 networks with global footprints which were often headed for a disaster otherwise. In all, we moved the needle to a much higher level for the customers, the shareholder, the employees, and energized all stakeholders with the focus on QoE and the Best-In- the-Industry (BII) practices. We remember our mantra of top three priorities being reliability, reliability and reliability—pick anyone and execute on that flawlessly. In all, we brought to bear the first network and network services with the BII reliability, the first high-speed IP network, the first optical network with DWDM, the first SDN network with the ability to configure the network in almost real-time to prepare for natural disasters, the first point-and-click provisioning network to enable high-speed connectivity for the business customers in real-time, the first network to
Introduction 7 support iPhone, then again transformed for number one in IP and integrated services, then again for consolidating networks and OSSs for the number one position for ease-of-use and efficiency in the digitization of the touchpoints and the competitive cost structure for the customers, the first in having implemented flawless operations execution across our global footprints, and on and on. All CSPs will be going through transformation, time and time again. We asked each other one key question: If we were going to reflect on our experience with transformation, what should be included in a “CSP Transformation” playbook that is timeless and independent of the technology of the day? We all agreed that the traditional CSPs should do much better than enabling their customers to use their smartphones, laptops and or desktop to get access to the world around us through 100’s of disjointed applications. In the new world, we must transform to a DSP, to enable us to go to one portal (voice and gesture-enabled) to get immersed into digital solutions for all our needs. A portal that is built for a passion for QoE, and the integrated value chain of the DSPs from connectivity to digital services. In that, the CSPs must compete with the new and emerging companies with the content and OTT data services (such as Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google, FB). These recent entrants(compared with 100-year old telephony providers) are promising and delivering differentiated digital services with much higher margins, often delivered over the low margin pipes of the cooperating CSPs. That is a doomsday scenario for the CSPs. We concluded that, for CSPs to stay relevant,they must compete, not only with differentiation in network reliability for quad-play connectivity services, but also must move up the value chain, and to transform to become a Customer-Centric DSP for digital services. The CSPs, if unwilling to go through this transformation, will face the DSPs who are expanding to include the CSP status and eat the CSP’s lunch. In this extreme transformation, the CSPs must: (1) Redefine the offerings of “connectivity services” to “digital services” and the “touchpoint services”—with end customers and suppliers. (2) Transform the legacy redundant networks into a unified one. (3) Redefine the measurements to customer-centric QoE for all digital and connectivity service. (4) Leverage the timeless Best-In-Industry (BII) processes and practices to ensure an ETE sustainable network performance at a competitively operational efficiency. (5) Leverage a Service-Over-IP (SoIP) platform to enable the introduction of unified new services with a time-to-market urgency. (6) Enabled by regulatory arrangement for content purification, which is critical for liberalization of CSPs to become DSPs. The absence of such regulation has disastrous consequences as the unregulated DSPs are programmed and prioritized for monetization of end-user engagement, driven by advertising revenue from all possible sources: legal/ethical and illegal/non-ethical.
8 Telecom Extreme Transformation: The Road to a Digital Service Provider (7) Leverage data mining and analytics to know all about the users/end-customers, to anticipate the interests of the individual users, to provide individualized and relevant content, and to monetize the user engagement, and (8) Provide a unique stream of original content. This transformation demands an innovative networking platform to make it happen. We know that the technology by itself is never the critical factor for success and has not been in the past, and would not be in the future. After all, most CSPs are purchasing the same types of advanced hardware/software from the same Network Element Providers (NEPs) to build their network with. However, the big league CSP players knowhow to redefine the scope of CSP to become a DSP who knows how to respond to the needs of the customers by leveraging a sound set of processes and BII practices that are timeless and effective. The leaders know how to energize their employees with transformational culture, how to leverage the proven BII processes and practices to piece together the off-the-shelf technology components to build a competitive global network, and how to deploy the proven practices to operate and maintain the network performance, flawlessly. We have built the differentiated DSP platform, time and time again, and in the process have developed BII practices to keep the transformed network sustainable. This discussion ignited the idea of sharing our overall experience, and specific to the processes and practices, sharing it with the hope that it is a step above and beyond anything anyone ever attempted to write on the subject of CSP transformation. This book is about what it takes to build,and more importantly, operate a service & networking platform, driven by the needs of its customers. In this book, we explore what the success factors for a national and/or global CSPs are, the critical service flows that the DSP network must be built to support, we explain what the QoE must beset at for the service flows, and we describe what the BII practices are, to build, optimize, and operationalize such a global network to ensure BII and cost-effective QoE for the customers. Also, as critical it is, we explain what the operational disciplines must be to maintain the network at its’ top shape at all times. We did lead successful transformation many times, however, we did make mistakes and learn a lot from our mistakes. The scope of our mistakes and the associated learning is broad and covers not only the CSPs, but also the equipment manufacturers. Some of the key learnings from our transformation programs are as follows: (1) Must leverage the existing BII practices and processes for the transformation (the subject of this book) rather than building it from scratch. (2) If your legacy networks and services are NOT performing at the BII QoE performance level, what you need first, is the “optimization” of the legacy CSP networks to achieve BII QoE and SLA (Wieder et al., 2011), before embarking on a transformational program. (3) Never attempt to build custom solutions for the transformation to a DSP status, but use off-the-shelf technology solutions, built upon a propriety solid and differentiated architectural design of your own.
Introduction 9 Based on our collective wisdom with the transformation projects, once your transformation is complete, your end-customers must NOT experience any more improvement in the network and service performance, but must experience competitively priced new services, significant scalability, a much broader base for footprint coverage, and much faster time-to-market for new high margin services.
Chapter2 Preparation for Transformation 2.1 Introduction In this chapter, and before we dive into the details of transformation, we are highlighting the proven and strategic processes and practices that we have built, over many years, to aid with successful transformations. This chapter is intended to summarize the big picture of what the transformation undertaking must be preparing for. In this section we explore the top-of-the-mind for the transformational changes to come. Often, we use these BII practices as a reference, for the assessment of the CSPs. We often use these practices as a yardstick to gauge the magnitude of the transformation to be undertaken. During a typical CSP assessment, and leveraging these concepts as a reference point, first and foremost, we examine some of the CSPs’ current practices against this reference list. We have seen CSPs all over the map for the use of these BII practices. We have identified low performing CSPs who did not adhere to any of these BII practices, and some who adhered to a few. The more in compliance, the easier and faster to complete a successful transformation time after time. The transformation is not just a technological change, not a pet-project, and it is not an overnight fix. It is a journey to the higher land. This journey is full of new learnings, setbacks, and re-dos, it needs strong leadership to make it through. Let us start by sharing our collective experience in the form of a 10-commandment for the preparation of, and a successful transformation: 1. Keep Present Mode of Operation (PMO) (Harmon, 2002) and (Institute Project Management, 2018) legacy networks performing at near ~ 6 Sigma (Tennant, 2001) throughout the journey to the Future Mode of Operation (FMO). You must not tolerate the poor service performance of the legacy networks at anytime. For example, we came across CSPs with poor QoE, whose executives were bragging about their upcoming technological renewal projects, aimed at fixing the poor QoE (Laghari and Connelly, 2012) and (Wieder et al., 2011), or their cost structure. The only problem was that they were losing customers to the competition while waiting for these multi-year programs to deliver on the promises. In other cases, there were major business customers from the financial institution who were suffering from a loss of revenue due to poor latency in the network,
Preparation for Transformation 11 who responded to the CSP’s planned technology renewal communication, that “we are going to your competitor, for now, let us know when you are ready for a big-league customer”. As a first rule for transformation, we enforce network optimization, on the legacy networks and services, to ensure BII QoE and adherence to SLA before any attempt for the transformation. 2. Benchmark competition to set the high bar for the transformation. Based on our observations, many CSPs did indeed benchmark their competitors, however, in a few cases, we could not see any evidence that their annual goal- setting process was influenced by it. Lack of funding and insufficient resources might have influenced decisions and thought processes. 3. Energize the transformation with a set of bold business goals—becoming the industry leader for customer experience, increasing productivity many folds, slashing the CAPEX unit cost by an order of magnitude, improving the revenue growth above the industry level, etc. Based on our experience, there is no place for the Business-As-Usual (BAU) concept. Competition is always moving forward at a rapid pace. This requires decisive action with a compelling set of business goals. 4. Follow the Golden Thread for transformation starting with the PMO (Harmon, 2002), the Master Plan for the FMO, and the Transitional Mode of Operations (TMOs) to the FMO, and benefit realization. We did come across a few cases for failed transformation. The effort had created new networks, but had failed to migrate and integrate the legacy networks, and had failed to deliver on the promises for performance and the financial benefits. Migrating a PMO to FMO is a complicated task. It requires a full understanding of the PMO processes, it requires the development of steps (TMOs) and the associated BII processes to move the CSP from the PMO, and through well-planned TMOs to the FMO. 5. Shape the FMO with BII (Best-In-Industry) Practices, e.g., DBOR (database of record), Concept Of One/Zero/None, ASK yourself, Restore First, The3 CP’s, etc. There is no need to reinvent every component of a transformation puzzle. It takes time to develop new practices and processes. You are doomed to repeat the same shortcomings if you choose to adapt the legacy procedures and not search for, and employ, BII practices. For a successful transformation, it pays to be shameless thieves to bring the best learning and practices from the industry, and to invent a few when needed. 6. Keep the transformation alive and on track with the delivery of In-year ROI (Costantini, 2011). Change is tough, it always raises the questions among process associates why to change the PMO. In many cases where transformation was failing, the root cause was the lost energy by the process associates as they were unable to prove the benefits associated with the transformation anytime soon. As a result, they would move back to operate in the well-known and practiced legacy PMO.
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