3 Comptel Webinars Explore the Global Fibre Broadband Opportunity

Operators around the world are finding ways to make the fibre broadband opportunity work to their advantage, and many others are using those blueprints to chart their fibre initiatives.

Comptel explored the fibre broadband opportunity from every angle in a recent series of webinars. In the first session, “How to Build a Perfect Setup and Business Model for Fibre Connectivity and Services,” Comptel CTO Simon Osborne was joined by analyst Dean Ramsay of Analysys Mason and product manager James Wheatley to discuss the market opportunity and ideal business model for fibre services.

Ramsay explained that, per Analysys Mason estimates, about 50 billion in U.S. dollars was spent on worldwide capital expenditures related to fibre-to-the-x (FTTX) capabilities. That was about 2 percent higher than 2014, said Ramsay, who added that more than half the world’s consumers will have access to fibre internet by 2020.

That would be an ideal outcome for many consumers, who are starved for faster internet to support complex home networks. The average household will run multiple fixed and mobile devices from a single home Wi-Fi network, and with bandwidth-greedy services like 4K video ready to enter more homes, demand will only increase in the years ahead. Ramsay explained that most consumers now know that fibre is the latest and greatest technology for fixed broadband services, which makes fibre capability an attractive marketing tool for operators.

Of course, to offer fibre, operators need to solve a number of infrastructure, network and service challenges. In his part of the presentation, GE’s James Wheatley explained how proper network design – focused on automation, optimisation and a single view to disparate networks – can help operators efficiently meet overwhelming demand for higher bandwidth services. He also offered best practices for aligning physical inventory to meet customer expectations around service availability and quality. Watch the first webinar here to learn more.

In the second webinar, Ramsay and Comptel’s Patrick Wijngaarden elaborated on our project with Chorus, a New Zealand-based operator that completed an aggressive fibre deployment in less than one year. “How Chorus Cut 40% of Service Delivery Time with Modernised Fulfilment” provides a strong case study for intelligent service fulfilment around fibre, as Chorus was able to roll out fibre to a majority of the country’s population thanks to an automated fibre provisioning process devised by GE and Comptel.

This type of intelligent network transformation, which limits disruption to the network while significantly increasing operator capabilities and service opportunities, provides a crucial blueprint to operators exploring fibre deployments. The third and final webinar in our series provided another compelling example, this time from POST Luxembourg, which navigated the delicate balance of a corporate split-off by adopting a more dynamic, efficient and automated fulfilment architecture to serve existing and future demands from customers. Watch “Agile Delivery Leading to Successful OSS Transformation” to learn more about that story.

As we’re seeing from worldwide activity, fibre will undoubtedly continue to be one of the top services those customers demand in the years ahead. Not only will fibre deployments help operators keep up with consumer expectations, but as Comptel VP North America Peter Middleton explained recently, fibre capabilities could also be the difference-maker that helps smaller operators compete with larger players in key markets like United States.

The only thing standing in the way? Network transformation. Chorus and POST Luxembourg proved that the network does not have to be an obstacle to service opportunity, as long as you know how to devise an intelligent and efficient strategy for evolution.

Watch the complete “Winning with Fibre” webinar series to catch up on the issues around fibre connectivity and to receive a blueprint for building the perfect business model for fibre connectivity and services.

Watch part 1: “How to Build a Perfect Setup and Business Model for Fibre Connectivity and Services”

Watch part 2: “How Chorus Cut 40% Of Service Delivery Time with Modernized Fulfilment”

Watch part 3: “Case Example – Agile Delivery Leading to Successful OSS Transformation”

Comptel Customer Chorus Wins Second GTB Innovation Award for Innovative Broadband Project

Fibre optic technology continues to fulfil its promise as the fastest way to deliver Internet and communications services worldwide, and over the years, we have helped operators successfully and cost-effectively deploy the technology.

For one, Comptel is pleased to be associated with partner GE Digital Energy and operator Chorus, who received a 2015 Global Telecoms Business (GTB) Innovation Award in the category of fixed network infrastructure innovation. It is the second consecutive year in which our team was honoured for our work on the ambitious project in New Zealand.

Chorus is the largest telecoms infrastructure provider in New Zealand. The company was created shortly after the 2009 launch of New Zealand’s Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) initiative, which seeks to deliver fibre-optic broadband to 75 percent of the country’s population by 2020. Challenged to meet the UFB’s aggressive short-term implementation deadlines – schools, hospitals and 90 percent of businesses in New Zealand needed to be fibre-enabled by 2015 – Chorus turned to Comptel.

In the first phase of their project, we initiated an “intelligent evolution” of Chorus’ infrastructure, which evaded traditional upgrade procedures in favour of a holistic approach. As a result, Chorus was able to reduce the time required to provision fibre services to customers’ homes by 40 percent, reduce the time needed to train staff on fibre technology and complete the entire project in just one year. You can read all about that first phase in this fibre provisioning case study from Analysys Mason.

Our team’s win in this year’s GTB Innovation Awards is for the second phase of our work, which comprised the integration of logical and physical inventory. We worked together with GE Digital Energy and relied on TM Forum Frameworx to combine our inventory systems in a way that best served Chorus’ needs. As of early 2015, Chorus achieved an end-to-end provisioning solution that enabled the automatic processing of service requests, which means little manual work is now needed to process orders for fibre service, send installation instructions to field crews and activate the service.

An efficient provisioning solution and accurate physical inventory also means technicians spend less time clarifying records, which unlocks better efficiency in the field, faster install times for customers and a stronger foundation for improved fault resolution and asset maintenance.

“The feedback I have received so far from the field seems to be very positive,” said Gemma Cleland of Transfield Services, a Chorus contractor. “They are especially happy with the additional inventory information that they are now getting provided.”

Comptel is proud to once again be recognised as an innovator in the provisioning and delivery of a new generation of communications services. We recognise both the emerging telecoms trends that push operators to innovate, as well as the challenges operators face in deploying the solutions that address those trends. As a result, we’re ready to help our customers meet these challenges head on, while acknowledging that our work has only just begun.

Both Comptel and GE Digital Energy will be in Nice, France for TM Forum Live! from 1 – 4 June, 2015. Email [email protected] to arrange an in-person meeting at the event. And download our new book, Operation Nexterday, to learn more about the creative ways leading digital and communications service providers can meet new market challenges.

How Chorus New Zealand Cut Fibre Provisioning Time by 40% with Comptel

If the telco industry will remember anything from 2014, it will be the decisive move toward disruptive technologies. With Over-the-Top (OTT) services and IPTV eating away at traditional sources of revenue, communications service providers (CSPs) are working hard to differentiate in an increasingly competitive and commoditised landscape.

A growing number of fixed broadband providers are turning to automated fibre fulfillment systems to stay ahead. Fibre deployments have been largely impractical for many CSPs, because of cost considerations and logistical reasons, but the need for disruptive tactics may change that trend. After all, ultra-fast broadband connections will be a unique offering in many countries. Pyramid Research estimates that only 35 percent of households worldwide will have a broadband connection this year.

Fibre fulfillment systems will be key differentiators for CSPs, as they will enable more efficient, seamless service delivery to see through customer demand. Comptel customer Chorus New Zealand was one such company that saw the benefits that could be realised – and this week, we were recognised with a Global Telecoms Business Innovation Award for our work together!

The Fibre Future

Chorus is New Zealand’s largest telecommunications infrastructure company. In late 2012, the business was looking for a modern fibre service fulfillment system that offered order management, large-scale logical inventory and activation capabilities that would help establish the company as a standalone entity from Telecom New Zealand. Chorus had recently been awarded a number of ultra-fast broadband contracts and set the goal of delivering a “best-in-class” fibre broadband experience to more than 830,000 New Zealand homes. That’s where we came in.

“Instead of undertaking a major OSS transformation that promised to be cumbersome and costly, Chorus New Zealand elected to pursue an ‘intelligent evolution’ project,” stated Dr. Mark H. Mortensen, author of the Analysys Mason case study. “The major benefit to doing so was it allowed them to provide a fully automated stack based on Comptel’s industry standards-based framework. As a result, Chorus experienced a 40 percent reduction in the time required to electronically provision a fibre connection to a customer’s premises.”

Through such an intelligent OSS evolution, the traditional barriers to fibre deployment fall away. By almost reducing the time of fibre provisioning by half, Chorus guaranteed that the ROI from fibre would be apparent much earlier in the deployment lifecycle. In turn, both the business and customers started to see the benefits of ultra-fast broadband sooner.

The service agility, operational flexibility and rapid time-to-market made possible can become serious differentiators for CSPs in the coming years. The companies that successfully deploy and deliver fibre, supported by automated, catalog-driven fulfillment and by undertaking an end-to-end approach, will pull out ahead of the competition. It also opens up the opportunity for more innovation and better customer service that will generate new streams of revenue to counter the risks of commoditisation.

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