MVNO Service Setup
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Framed on the launch of Mobile Virtual Network Operator service (MVNO), Optare Solutions led the definition, design and implementation of the provisioning processes of the mobile products of R-Cable’s (telephony, Internet and television for business and residential).
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The kickoff of quad-play
In 2006 the Spanish cable company “R Cable” starts a strategic project to strengthen its offer becoming a quad-play capable operator. Following the corporate policy of controlling the network to provide differentiated services they closed an agreement for mobile network access with a tier 1 mobile operator. In February 2007 the CEO announced that mobile service will be available to his customers before the end of the year, ready for the Christmas campaign.
In less than 10 months Mobile Virtual Network Operator Service, including switching, had to be set up from the ground up. The master project began shortly after the announcement and it was focused on setting up the network and switching (they use their own MSCs) and on the definition of the commercial offer. The OSS department got involved some months later, when the product definition was nearly closed, to provide the support for the business needs.
The basic architecture decision was to use their current BPM platform provider (Vitria BusinessWare and Vitria Order Accelerator, already used for voice, broadband and TV), but using the last version of the products, preparing the path for a future migration of existing developments.
The objectives of the OSS project
The OSS share of the master project had as main objective to set up all the OSSs to support the business processes being designed, and to manage the new mobile network.
Optare Solutions began its involvement in the project in June 2007, as the specialized systems integrator for provisioning processes set up. The most important requirements objectives were:
- A SOA solution: They used managed services for some processes, so a SOA compliant design increases agility on provider changes.
- Definition of the next integration architecture: With the upgrade of the order handling platform a new integration architecture had to be design to solve former issues and increase functionalities.
- Convergent product ready: All new systems and integrations had to be designed considering the future convergent products.
- Exception management and customer operations support was considered critical.
The project
Optare led the definition, design and implementation of the provisioning processes for the mobile products. Our team worked along with client’s sales, marketing and process definition teams to turn business requirements and definitions into provisioning processes. It was in this stage when business processes were definitely closed.
Within the project all the main business processes were considered: sales, customer management, service provisioning, number portability, resource management and supplier/partner communications. Both the definition of the processes and the functionalities of the systems were made after TeleManagement Forum standards.
The new integration architecture was designed decoupling both sides of the integration, while allowing synchronous and asynchronous operations to be made seamlessly.
The results
“R Cable” succeeded launching their mobile service in the last weeks of 2007 as part of their Christmas campaign. This positioned our client as one of the first MVNOs to launch service in Spain.
The new provisioning platform version was totally integrated into the other fixed service systems, mainly CRM, and Billing. The design of the integration interfaces was flexible and scalable as proven by a CRM migration: was adapted in less than 1 month, the old one required 6 months.
We also achieve the objective of reducing operational costs, the mobile provisioning processes has 300% less incidences than same service in fixed service, with the associated OPEX reduction.
