cartesian coordinates newsletter summer 2016 · 2020-07-02 · rely on 2g for voice carriage. in...

Cartesian Coordinates Newsletter - Summer 2016 1

COORDINATES

Cartesian Newsletter Summer 2016

The Networks Issue

FEATURING:

• Guide to Network Transformation

• Preparing for DOCSIS 3.1

• Migrating with SDN, NFV and LSO

2 Cartesian Coordinates Newsletter - Summer 2016

Opening remarks

This Summer edition of Coordinates focuses on insights and developments in communications networks.

Networks have been central to Cartesian since it was founded to deliver management and advisory services to network operators. From that start in 1991, we have supported operators through continuous technological progress from PSTN to VoIP, copper to fiber and from 2G to LTE. So for this Summer edition of Coordinates, we’ve decided to focus on insights and developments on the network side of our business.

In this edition’s expert interview, Rick Gasloli discusses the next wave of technology evolution for cable operators. Drawing on his experience in helping operators through numerous network transformation projects, Dr. Ron Angner shares his advice on best practices to ensure a successful transformation. And addressing a client challenge, Vito Morawetz introduces what is needed to retain customers through a complex SDH/SONET platform transition.

Finally, since our beginnings in network consulting, we have grown to offer strategy and technology consulting, and managed services to the wider telecoms and media sector. Last year, we expanded to serve the digital TV and broadcast sector as well, and added testing, auditing and security capabilities to our breadth of services. To communicate our wide capabilities to customers more clearly, we’ve categorized our services into nine ‘Where We Help’ areas that reflect your business challenges. We introduce the areas in our ‘Company News’ section.

As always, we welcome your feedback and hope you enjoy this edition of Coordinates.

Peter Woodward CEO, Cartesian

www.cartesian.com facebook/cartesian twitter/cartesiantweets linkedin.com/company/cartesian

Contents

Opening Remarks

Expert Interview

• Rick Gasloli and the Next Evolution in

Cable: Preparing for DOCSIS 3.1

Insights • Industry Analysis:

2016 Predictions Update

• Featured: Network Transformation -

Best Practices for Success

Company News

• Areas Where We Help

Client Challenges

• Client Challenge: Retaining Customers

through SDH Network Platform

Transition

• Industry Challenge: Enabling Agile

Service Delivery

Conferences & Events

2

3

4

5

9

9

10

11

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EXPERT INTERVIEW: Rick Gasloli, SVP, Strategic Development Next Evolution in Cable: Preparing for DOCSIS 3.1

Rick, thank you for taking the time to speak to us today. Could you tell us about your role at Cartesian?

I joined Cartesian this year, to lead the strategy for identifying and developing business and partnership opportunities with North American MSOs, as well, as the capabilities to support them. We have a number of exciting projects

underway that leverage Cartesian’s expertise in strategic consulting, data analytics and cleansing, and network life cycle management. I am also working with our EMEA team to bring to the United States some great capabilities that we have been providing to European MSOs. Most notably, Wi-Fi design and testing, digital video engineering and implementation, and content security services.

Your background is in cable. What was one of your earliest experiences in the field?

I joined Comcast’s Online group in 1997, as Director of Online Engineering, to help launch high-speed data. This involved upgrading the HFC (hybrid-fiber coax) plant for two-way operation, coordinating market launches with our partner, the @Home Network, and making sure our technicians were prepared with the knowledge and tools to connect customer’s personal computers to the network. While we take it for granted today, it was not a trivial task to connect a computer to the Internet in the late nineties. The other thing I remember is launching an entire market with four T-1s (1.5Mbps) to the Internet. Today, the home of every cable customer has more than that!

How has the cable industry evolved?

Wow! How hasn’t it? The cable industry has evolved from its humble beginnings of connecting a few homes to a community antenna so they could receive a better television picture to one that is operating some of the highest-performance broadband networks on the planet serving many millions of customers and billions of interactions every day. As long as we are talking about evolving, I think a special call-out to the HFC network is in order; after all it, is what makes cable, cable. Twenty years ago the average HFC network was delivering approximately 80 channels of television and a 1.5Mbps Internet service. Today that same network architecture is delivering hundreds of channels of HD, On-Demand video, Internet speeds in access of 100Mbps, telephone services, and more. This is in large part due to innovations like digital video, advanced video multiplexing, and DOCSIS. With new technologies like DOCSIS 3.1, Remote PHY and passive, fiber-deep nodes, the HFC network will be providing new and enhanced services for many, many years to come.

What are you most excited about for the future of cable?

I think I am most excited about cable’s opportunity to become the aggregator for all experiences in the home. In addition to voice, video, and data services, cable is perfectly positioned to facilitate the access to services like energy management, medical monitoring, and connected-home services. Cable will be an engine for the Internet of Things.

What new technologies will be coming in the next few years?

As mentioned earlier, DOCSIS 3.1 will be on all the MSOs’ upgrade plans. DOCSIS 3.1 will provide Internet speeds of 1Gbps or more. This capability will not only be needed to address the ever growing demand for Internet bandwidth, but will also facilitate the transition from QAM to IP-delivered video, 4K content, and virtual-reality gaming and programming. DOCSIS 3.1 “Full-Duplex” will allow Cable operators to offer ultra-high-speed symmetrical data services. The deployment of virtual, cloud services will grow as the MSOs move from hardware- to software-based services. We are already seeing this in video with the movement of DVR and search functions from the set top box into the cloud. Being able to understand big data has and will be critical to the North American MSO’s success. Customer experience measurement/prediction and advertising are top priorities. The usage statistics alone from hundreds of millions of devices is generating massive amounts data on a daily basis. I see Cable adopting artificial intelligence technologies to help them manage and understand all this data.

How can Cartesian help MSOs with the adoption of these new technologies?

Being focused on the telecommunications industry we have the experts that can help our customers from strategy through to deployment. They understand all the latest technologies and have years of successful deployments under their belts. We are helping our customers prioritize the deployment of technologies using advanced data analytics. By correlating network, operations, business, and customer data, we identify areas that will make the most impact on customer experience and the bottom line.<>

Are you prepared for DOCSIS 3.1? Ask us to assess.

“Twenty years ago the average HFC network was delivering approximately 80 channels of television and a 1.5Mbps internet service. Today, that same network architecture is delivering hundreds of channels of HD, On-Demand video, Internet speeds in access of 100Mbps, telephone services, and more.”

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At the end of 2015, we made predictions on the ten events and themes that will shape the communications industry over the next 12 months. Here we give a mid-2016 update on developments relating to a few of these predictions.

Prediction: SDN will continue to gain traction with more enterprise services being developed around the technology.

In 2016, we have seen further launches of software-defined WAN services (SD-WAN) by network operators serving the enterprise market. In June, CenturyLink joined others – such as AT&T and Level 3 – with the launch of a new SD-WAN service for multi-site enterprises, offering IT managers the ability to monitor and control WAN performance themselves. These solutions typically ship with software-based CPE, enabling greater flexibility than traditional solutions have offered.

The other side of the enterprise-SDN coin is internal consumption of SDN by IT departments. Here we are also seeing progress, although less widespread than with the telcos. In a recent industry survey by ZDnet, 13% of respondents said they had implemented SDN while 32% were planning to do so. Meanwhile, the Open Network User Group of IT business leaders launched a set of industry initiatives in May to support the transition to open software-defined infrastructure.

Prediction: Following the successes of industry frontrunners, more network operators get serious about decommissioning their legacy voice switches and moving to IP.

In the US, operators are continuing to make progress in migrating customers to next-generation platforms, whereas other countries appear to be moving more slowly. After a year of migrating legacy voice customers to fiber, Verizon petitioned the FCC in January to permit the termination of postpaid calling cards and personal 800 services.

In April, AT&T requested permission to retire 13 legacy bridging and multiplexing services, stating that it aims to have less than 10% of its wireline customers on TDM-based voice services by the

Industry Analysis: 2016 Predictions Update

end of 2016.

In June, Level 3 asked the FCC for permission to shift legacy voice customers in Portland, Oregon to an IP-based cloud service, which it aims to implement in the Fall. Also, in France, Arcep has launched a public consultation on copper access rates, seeking to encourage and incentivize the transition from legacy copper services to fiber.

Prediction: Global interest in the shutdown of 2G (GSM) networks grows as we approach the end of 2016 when the first networks are due to close

So far, we have seen major operators such as Telstra and AT&T target GSM network closure by the end of the year. Similarly, major operators in Asia-Pacific (e.g. Optus, M1, Singtel) have announced 2G closures for 2017 as a result of license expirations and government action to reassign 2G spectrum for LTE. In the US, the FCC will consider this July whether to repurpose large amounts of higher-frequency spectrum for 5G, driving operators to abandon legacy networks.

Many operators have continued to face a dilemma over network closure, with revenue from M2M and GSM roaming still running strong. Instead, operators have begun discussing the potential for 3G closure prior to 2G, in light of 3G data services migrating to 4G and a recent report by Ericsson finding that 78% of 3G terminals rely on 2G for voice carriage. In April, the three major Turkish operators (Turkcell, Vodafone and Turk Telecom) facilitated the rapid migration of six million 3G customers onto the newly-launched LTE-Advanced Pro services, also known as 4.5G, within one week of launch. Such successes may drive 3G closure ahead of 2G. Also quickly gaining traction is the deployment of single RAN networks to allow operators to maintain GSM service with less spectrum and without sacrificing 2G revenue streams. One recent example is Airtel India’s network initiative “Project Leap” which has been upgrading base stations to a single RAN network since 2015.<>

> Get our industry predictions for 2016 in our Winter Coordinates

by Adam Fraser

http://www.cartesian.com/cartesian-coordinates-winter-2015/


Network transformation has always been happening. The pace

and scale of change is now increasing as operators face big

technology changes. There are corollary questions that must be

answered as the network transformation plan is developed:

• What to do with the old legacy network and all the

associated support systems?

• What is the appropriate payback for monies spent to

decommission legacy networks?

• Is it really worth it to migrate “every single customer”

off legacy equipment, both switch and transport, to

Featured: NETWORK TRANSFORMATION

decommission the assets?

• What is the risk that churn will increase and revenue will

decrease in a decommission or migration effort?

Every operator is faced with these questions and more. Each

situation is as unique as the operator’s network and customer

base. The best way for operators to answer these questions

is to have the best industry information available and make

decisions based on realities versus myths. This article will explore

some major operator issues and provide insights and share

our experiences for developing a “best practices” approach to

network transformation. (Continues on page 6...)

All communications infrastructure has a life span, and restructuring and migrating networks are activities that need to be done. This “network transformation” – changes that include decommissioning and customer migration – is a complex process that has many phases and requires participation and support by most departments in the network operator. It is an exacting, time-consuming and expensive undertaking. It often takes staff away from their business-as-usual (BAU) revenue-generating jobs. No matter the amount of effort, nor the pains and gains along the way, the transformation gets done. But what are the true measures of success of a network transformation? Is it OPEX, power and real estate savings associated with turning down an old legacy network? Churn reduction or revenue growth? Increases in customer satisfaction? The answer is that all of these are important and must be addressed as operators develop their network transformation plan.

Best Practices for Success

by Ron Angner, PhD


Network Transformation: Best Practices for Success

Start with a business case

One of the common problems we encounter is network

transformation starting without a good business case. A good

business case is a critical first step in the decommissioning

process. It forces discipline in the approach and provides an

overall view of the program. The business case will help determine

which assets should be decommissioned and in what timeframe.

It should take into account not only the cost savings associated

with removing assets from the network, but also should look at

the revenue and customer impacts.

Cost savings are more straightforward and include items such

as savings associated with network (maintenance), technical

sites (property, facilities, power and cooling) and personnel

(operations).

Revenue impacts should include the revenue carried by the

network elements – access, switch, SDH (Synchronous Digital

Hierarchy). This analysis typically includes an examination of

the profitability of the impacted services as well as where in the

product lifecycle they are. For example, at what point will T1/E1

circuits (multi-channel carrier lines) no longer be supported? Is

dedicated trunking going to be supported in the future? Having a

clear product strategy is critical.

Finally, operators must consider the customer impacts.

How much revenue will be lost through churn during

decommissioning? What are the opportunities for revenue upsell

associated with new service offerings available in the transformed

network? For top customers, the impact that migrating their

service to a new platform has on day-to-day operations should be

considered, and any costs associated with updating or modifying

their CPE (customer premises equipment).

A well-structured business case will examine all the elements

above to determine which network elements to decommission as

well as the associated timing.

Approach network transformation as a full time job

Another issue with potentially demoralizing consequences

is adding the transformation workload onto existing staff

and expecting them to pick it up alongside their existing

responsibilities. Transformation is complicated. It requires detailed

planning, network engineering and customer hand-holding –

all of which leads to a full-time job. Experience shows that staff

members cannot effectively support a decommissioning program

while continuing to do their BAU, revenue-generating/supporting

jobs. A dozen internal departments are typically involved in a

network transformation activity, and resources from all business

units must be assigned to support the activity. Some departments

such as legal, regulatory and PR may not require full-time

resources, but will require dedicated resources.

How big of a team do you need? The team size will vary

depending on the number of network elements being

transformed as well as the number and complexity of customers

and circuits that are being migrated. For example, a typical team

would require more than 15 full-time workers to decommission

a dozen switches and associated customers and trunks over an

18-to-24-month period.

Consider churn mitigation, revenue retention and customer satisfaction

Many business cases and comparisons are made against a BAU or

“do nothing” approach with the customers and revenue carried by

the legacy infrastructure. A common misbelief is that the passive

Figure 1: Benefits of a proactive approach to network transformation



(Continues on page 8...)

wait-and-replace approach is best: “We will just wait 8 years and

the revenue and customers will attrite away and then we will

remove the assets.” Based on our experience, taking a proactive

approach to network decommissioning will not only minimize

BAU churn because customers are being offered new and

improved services, but also has the potential to increase revenue

by upselling customers services that are not available to them in

the current environment.

This is achievable when a very proactive approach, driven by

marketing and sales, is developed and implemented to focus on

customer satisfaction; an approach that provides regular updates

on the network transformation and the advantages it brings to

them. In our experience, a transformation purely driven by cost

savings and legacy technology replacement is typically far less

successful than the customer-driven approach.

Figure 1 shows how taking a customer-centric approach can

minimize churn, provide stable and uplifted revenue, and also

increase the speed of transformation. Increasing the speed of

transformation brings Opex savings and Revenue uplift quicker

than the traditional technology-driven approach.

Designate a focused management team

A management team focused and rewarded on the success of

the network transformation program is key to the success of

the program. Many operators are putting units in place such

as Migration Control Centers or Migration Operation Centers

whose sole purpose is to manage the end-to-end transformation:

from business case approval to engineering and construction, to

customer migration, and finally, asset removal. These units are

established by the chief executives and typically report directly to

them.

The Migration Center (MC) is responsible for planning, executing,

tracking and dashboarding the entire program. One of the key

responsibilities is developing and managing the budget and

ensuring that the program is resourced with the appropriate full-

time and/or dedicated personnel from across all organizations

– Sales, Marketing, IT, Legal, Regulatory, PR, Engineering and

Construction, Real Estate, Finance and Revenue Assurance as a

minimum.

The MC is the nerve center of the transition program – from both

a business and operational perspective. It keeps the rest of the

business updated on progress and ensures that the entire team

has access to the information they need. Dashboards for business

metrics would include items such as revenue by customer and

product, churn by customer and product, ARPU, and costs.

Customer and sales operations would include contact center

metrics related to customers that are being migrated, outbound

Figure 2. Dashboards for measuring business metrics for transformation projects



marketing and calling, account executive performance in

dealing with their customer accounts that are migrating,

including agreement on customer migration plans and having

new contracts signed. Network and technical operations would

include dashboards measuring planning and construction

intervals, provisioning intervals premises install intervals, reworks

and revisits. In essence, the business and operational dashboards

provide detailed information that allows executives, directors

and managers to manage the program to the metrics and

service level agreements (SLAs) established in the business case.

Typical dashboards measuring business metrics are shown in

Figure 2.

A focused management team operating in a migration center

environment is one of the most critical factors in executing the

transformation plan on time, within budget and of the highest

quality. This focus has reduced the execution time by about 25%.

Ensure that customer migration is a well-planned and well-orchestrated process

Customer migration is one of the most critical ingredients for

a successful network transformation. If customer migration is

done correctly – with a meticulous or “white glove” approach

- objectives such as minimizing churn and maximizing revenue

retention can be readily accomplished. If not done properly,

a network transformation activity can easily have significant

business impact.

Effective customer migration, starts with an understanding

of which customers are connected to each switch, and which

services each customer has on those switches. A rationalization

of information in billing, provisioning and network systems,

and associated cleansing activity, is the critical first step to

successful customer migration. This information can then be

used to develop migration plans for customers. For customers

such as residential and SMBs (small and medium businesses)

who have similar sets of services, a handful of generic migration

plans typically address 90% of the customers can be developed,

In most cases, operators do not have staff readily available to focus on a network transition/decommissioning program. Obtaining external support and leadership with the skills and hands-on experience in planning and executing a network transformation can be invaluable. From planning to execution and everything in-between, we have helped operators be successful and achieve not only their technical objectives but also their business objectives, such as churn mitigation, revenue retention and growth and increased customer satisfaction. At Cartesian, we have the skills, experience and tools to lead and to support highly complex network migration programs and have led our clients to decommissioning success. Contact us to find out how we can help you.

Planning or in the middle of a network transformation project and need support?

with the remaining 10% needing special treatment. Enterprise

customers present a completely different challenge. Because

of their size and complexity, no two customers are the same. In

these instances, a migration plan for each customer may have to

be developed.

The other critical aspect of customer migration is

communication. When communicating with customers, inform

them that transformation will happen, why it is being done and,

most importantly, how it will benefit them. If not communicated

properly, and the customer base perceives that the transition is

all about cost savings for the operator, the business objectives of

minimal churn and revenue retention will be severely threatened.

One-on-one, “white glove” handling of the top 20% of customers

is the key to success. Communication to this group should be

personal and frequent and should support them through the

entire transition – from communication, to service selection, to

contracting, to service migration and testing.

This type of “white glove” approach has resulted in our clients

reducing churn due to migration by about 50%, gaining higher

levels of customer satisfaction, and increasing revenue by around

3% for enterprise and over 20% for residential customers.

In Conclusion

Developing the business case to confirm the value of the

program, planning the program, prioritizing the activities, and

developing the budget and staffing requirements are critical to

the successful execution of the program – especially given the

number of different departments that need to participate and

the diverse skill sets needed. Establishing the plan for a multi-

year complex program and setting the groundwork for successful

execution are the essential ingredients for a successful network

transformation project.<>



COMPANY NEWS: Areas Where We Help You

This year, Cartesian celebrates its 25th anniversary. As specialists in the telecoms, media and technology sector we have witnessed enormous change in this period. As our clients have grown and transformed their businesses, we too have expanded our portfolio to meet their needs and reflect changes in the industry. Last year, with the acquisition of Farncombe, we further expanded into digital TV and broadcast, adding testing, auditing and security capabilities to our portfolio.

We now offer a diverse range of services that address specific challenges in our sector. To simplify and clarify where we help our

The past five years have seen a dramatic transformation in how business and enterprise customers meet their network access requirements. Until a few years ago, the default access technology for B2B customers was based on Synchronous Digital Hierarchy

(“SDH” or “SONET” for Synchronous Optical Networking), ensuring dedicated, stable, resilient transmission bearers to support most business critical applications. However, the development of Ethernet standards has meant that the same quality parameters and business critical applications can be supported on Ethernet bearers at much higher bandwidth and lower cost per Mbps compared to SDH lines.

As a consequence, carriers are witnessing high churn rate and declining revenues for SDH services of up to 40% p.a. while at the same time they are still required to maintain ubiquitous and costly platforms in support of a rapidly shrinking customer base.

A holistic approach to SDH/SONET platform retirement

While carriers would prefer to deploy scarce resources in support of fast-growing Ethernet-based services, they find that tackling the challenge of SDH obsolescence and transitioning to new platforms is riddled with uncertainty and complexity:

• Is the data used to identify the SDH access services and network components available and accurate?

• Will customers faced with platform transition stay loyal to their existing carrier, or take the opportunity to move?

• What would replacement product propositions look like? Would they emulate services previously available on SDH or provide new capabilities and features?

• What is the impact of transitioning from SDH to Ethernet platforms on access and interconnect facilities? What is the cost of leased lines supporting replacement services? Is the existing Ethernet interconnect footprint optimized to support increased Ethernet volumes?

• What is the overall business case, i.e. the revenue,

cost and savings impacts of platform migration and decommissioning? And how can such a complex transition be efficiently managed?

At Cartesian, we have been helping carriers through this complex technology transition. In our experience, the best approach is a holistic one, which involves:

• Data reconciliation that cleanses and transforms billing, provisioning and network inventory data to deliver a comprehensive and multi-faceted view of your legacy platform estate;

• Advanced analytics for an end-to-end approach to churn management, looking at customer characteristics and segmentation, as well as customer behaviors and impacting events to develop strategies to proactively increase customer retention during platform transition;

• Product lifecycle management to retire legacy products and migrate customers to new offers, including mapping legacy products to appropriate substitutes while minimizing impact on customers;

• Access and interconnect planning to support clients as they acquire new access services, including managing supplier carriers during transition and evaluating the optimal “future state” interconnect footprint, and;

• Customer migration strategy to build and manage comprehensive plans to migrate customers away from legacy infrastructure, with minimal disruption to customers and operations. This includes cost, benefit and timeline evaluation and all aspects of the implementation, from customer notification arrangements to replacement agreements, network rationalization and legacy assets decommissioning.

With this comprehensive approach, we have helped clients reduce OPEX by recognizing where, when, and how to decommission assets and migrate from legacy platforms.

Contact us to discuss your network transition plan. We can help you realize the transition benefits sooner while taking the pain out of transformation.<>

CLIENT CHALLENGE: Retaining Customers through SDH Network Platform Transition

clients, we have categorized our services into nine focus areas. These are: Customer Acquisition & Retention; Product Management; Network Transformation; Video Services Delivery & Security; Business Strategy & Planning; Assurance & Cost Optimization; Investment Advisory; and, Regulatory Services & Expert Witness.

You’ll find these service areas on Cartesian.com and in our newest presentations. Contact us or your client director and we can tell you more about where we help.<>

Where We Help: Areas where Cartesian

supports businesses and organizations operating in

the telecoms, media and technology sector

by Vito Morawetz





Introducing: SDN, NFV and LSO

The industry initiatives of Software Defined Networking, Network Function Virtualization and Lifecycle Service Orchestration aim to address these problems, primarily by leveraging and evolving standard IT virtualization technology.

Software-Defined Networks (SDN) is an approach to designing, building and managing networks that separates the network control plane and the network data plane enabling networks to run with greater agility and efficiency.

Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is an approach to designing networks where traditional appliance hardware and software are decoupled. Functions such as switching, routing, firewalling, load-balancers etc are carried out in software that is run on off-the-shelf hardware, typically X86 based servers.

NFV is highly complementary to SDN. They are mutually beneficial but are not dependent on each other. Network functions can be virtualized and deployed without an SDN being required and vice-versa.

Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO) can be thought of as the glue that binds together NFV ecosystems, SDN infrastructures, legacy OSS/ BSS, and traditional telecom hardware infrastructure.

Network Operator Vision

The industry aspires to move to a more agile world of service delivery – analogous to what is available to consumers in cloud services such as AWS and MS Azure. It is a vision of a telco world in which services can be instantiated, monitored, controlled, billed, and managed on demand, regardless of the network or the service provider.

Migration to SDN/NFV Infrastructures with LSO

Service Providers will not rip and replace. There is a significant installed base of network infrastructure and OSS/BSS systems and from both a technology and a business process perspective it is unrealistic to replace all existing infrastructure. The evolution is likely to start in individual network domains, network geographies or for individual service types, domains such as Edge, Access Network, Aggregation Network and services such as IP-VPN, EPC and IMS are likely candidates.

The new capability will initially be deployed where it brings the most value or where the legacy network already requires an upgrade anyway. Today’s architecture (Figure 1) of physical network functions will migrate to a hybrid architecture (Figure 2) where there will be a mix of legacy and new SDN/NFV infrastructures.

Hybrid services bridging physical and virtual domains are likely to exist for many years. A hybrid scenario getting a lot of airtime could be SDN, based on OpenFlow for intra-data center connectivity to support NFV, with traditional WAN interconnects between data centers based on existing IP/MPLS core networks. Once SDN is mature in the WAN it will be possible to migrate to the full target architecture (Figure 3). A recent SDxCentral LSO market overview even suggested that “in 10 years, people should be asking what a carrier network is, because there will be no difference between a carrier network and a data centre.”

Figure 1: Today’s architecture

Figure 2: Hybrid architecture

Figure 3: Target architecture

The Network Operator’s Dilemma: In today’s network-centric world, services are having an increasingly shorter lifespan, increasing their overall cost. New network services often require expensive proprietary appliances to be purchased and deployed. Adding to this investment, to enable new services, these appliances needs to be racked, powered, and connected individually. As a result of these needed changes, network services are becoming increasingly more complex to deploy and manage.

Industry Challenge: Enabling Agile Service Delivery

Graphic Source: Impact of SDN and NFV on OSS/BSS by Open Networking Foundation

Migrating to SDN/NFV with LSO


Conferences & Events

INTX

In May, we were at The Internet & Television Expo (INTX) in Boston. Held over three days, INTX is one of the largest and most important events for the US cable industry. We met with industry executives and discussed our services on customer experience including using churn and behavioral analytics; launching video services and OTT/TV strategies and implementation support; and, network planning and transformation. Among the group who went were Bill Hill, Rick Gasloli, Rochelle Roberts, Jim Erickson, Julie Mendenhall and PK Ramani.

RECENT EVENTS

SPEAKER FOR YOUR EVENTWe are regularly invited to present at industry events. Contact us if you would like us to speak at yours.

Cable Congress

Cartesian is a sponsor at this year’s Cable Congress which is the leading dedicated event for the cable and media industries in Europe. Taking place in Warsaw at the end of June, our team is meeting with operators to discuss how we can help with improving customer experience and lifetime value; enabling cross-platform video delivery and launching multi-play services; and, protecting against piracy and assuring technology meets security standards. James Clark, Matthew Griffiths and Paul Rusby are attending the conference.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Risk & Assurance Group (RAG) Summer Conference London, 7-8 July

The Risk & Assurance Group (RAG) brings together professionals in revenue assurance, fraud, risk, and finance from the communications and utilities industries. RAG membership continues to grow and the Summer Conference is their biggest event yet and takes place at the BT Centre in London. Cartesian is proud to be a sponsor.

Rob Chapman will chair the event which includes expert speakers from BT, Sky, TalkTalk, EE, and many others. Andy Harper will moderate the panel on “Cloud-based Risk Assurance Services”. The discussion will cover: the evolution of OSS/BSS to the Cloud, revenue assurance in the Cloud, the business case, and technical challenges.

Our team will also meet with industry executives to discuss our services in revenue and business assurance including the use of our advanced analytics capabilities and tools.

Where to find us in Q3:

• MVNOs Africa Industry Summit Johannesburg, 6-7 July

• RAG Summer Conference London, 7-8 July

• Super Mobility Week Las Vegas, 7-9 September

• IBC Amsterdam, 8-12 September

• WICT Leadership Conference New York, 19-20 September

• Cable-Tec Expo Philadelphia, 26-29 September

Planning to go too? See you there. Book your meeting with us today.





Cartesian(R) is a specialist provider of consulting services and managed solutions to leaders in the global telecoms, media and technology industries. For 25 years,

we have advised clients worldwide in strategy development and assisted them in execution against their goals. Our unique portfolio of consulting services and

managed solutions are tailored to the specific challenges faced by executives in these fast-moving industries. Combining strategic thinking, robust analytics, and

practical experience, Cartesian delivers superior results.

Copyright 2016

www.cartesian.com facebook/cartesian twitter/cartesiantweets linkedin.com/company/cartesian

Our world is transforming. Every day, communications technology creates new opportunities to connect. Always on the move, this world is as complex as it is exciting - just keeping up is a full-time job. To truly succeed, you need to go further. By making this world simpler and smarter, Cartesian can make this happen.

We are passionate about problem solving, figuring things out, seeing things from a different angle and cutting through the complexities of the industry. We not only provide the right solutions, but also the answers that push our clients forward. And by doing this we help organizations transform - themselves, the industry and the wider world.

Ours is a world of opportunity. Combining analytics, technology and industry experience, we can help you succeed in it - faster.

Cartesian. Transformation. Accelerated.


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cartesian coordinates newsletter summer 2016 · 2020-07-02 · rely on 2g for voice carriage. in...

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