As network complexity continues to rise due to the proliferation of new technologies and services, data accuracy has emerged as a critical factor for success in the telecom industry. Operators must manage vast inventories of physical and virtual assets, optimize network performance, comply with regulatory requirements, and enhance customer satisfaction. To achieve this, a reliable and accurate data foundation is essential. This white paper explores the importance of data accuracy in telecom operations, and how operators can leverage accurate data to gain competitive advantage.

Real-World Customer Challenges

The following real-life examples from major network operators highlight why data accuracy and relevance are not just important - they're critical to business success.

  1. Wasted Investments on Non-Existent Equipment
    A leading telecommunications provider in India was wrapping up a comprehensive network audit when they stumbled upon a shocking discovery: over 400 radio nodes were missing from their records. This wasn't just an oversight - it posed a serious risk to their network coverage, customer satisfaction, and overall operational efficiency.
  2. Underperforming Equipment from a New Vendor
    In Africa, one of the continent's largest mobile network operators faced a critical issue after partnering with a new vendor to upgrade its radio network. Despite the promise of cutting-edge technology, over 98% of the newly installed equipment underperformed, lagging far behind their older systems. The consequences were immediate: customer churn was on the rise, and their competitive edge in a rapidly expanding market was slipping away.
  3. Inaccurate Network Performance Data
    For a prominent Moroccan network operator, the lack of reliable data was undermining their entire operation. Major discrepancies between their Configuration Management and Performance Management systems left the team unable to accurately gauge network performance, jeopardizing their ability to optimize resources and maximize returns on multi-million-dollar network investments.
  4. Unnecessary Duplication of Network Assets
    A Saudi-based telecom and digital services provider discovered just how costly inefficiencies can be during a routine network audit. As they dug into their asset inventory, they uncovered widespread duplication and significant losses of expensive equipment - exposing how much was being wasted in terms of both time and money.

Read on to find out how Nuiva helped these specific customers keep their day-to-day operations running smoothly and saved them $millions in asset tracking and resource efficiencies.

Why Data Accuracy is vital for Telecom Operations

  1. Inventory Accuracy

Telecom operators need accurate inventory data for optimal network visibility, cost management, and operational efficiency. Inaccurate inventory data can result in network outages, inefficient resource allocation, and inflated costs.

  • Increased costs: Without accurate records of network assets, operators may be making unnecessary asset purchases, paying for unused equipment, and may be unable to optimize license management.
  • Suboptimal operational efficiency: Inaccurate inventory data reduces network visibility, resulting in operators failing to quickly respond to faults, leading to reduced network performance, and making planning for future growth more difficult.
  • Reduced network performance: Inaccurate configuration of network elements can lead to mismanagement and suboptimal allocation of resources.
  1. Lack of Automated Data Management

In an increasingly complex environment, telecom operators often struggle to keep their network management systems (NMS) synchronized with the actual state of their network assets. Manual processes introduce errors, leading to wasted resources and revenue loss.

  • Missing Auto-discovery and validation: The inability to discover and identify discrepancies in network configurations, increases the likelihood of errors and leads to poor data integrity.
  • Incomplete inventory management: Without regular updates from network management systems (NMS, EMS) inventory data may not fully reflect real-time conditions across different domains and vendors, reducing cost control and impacting decision-making.

Nuiva's ACE Solution: A Comprehensive Approach to Data Accuracy

Nuiva's Asset Control Engine (ACE) Solution addresses the most pressing data accuracy challenges faced by telecom operators by delivering a unified inventory management system with over 90% accuracy. Through its unified inventory management system and a comprehensive data model developed over two decades, it delivers unmatched accuracy in tracking network assets, configurations, and performance metrics.

Key Features of Nuiva’s ACE Solution

  1. Comprehensive Data Model

Nuiva’s data model covers all aspects of telecom networks, including:

  • Inventory Management: Accurate tracking of both physical and virtual assets, ensuring a comprehensive view of the entire network.
  • Network Topology: Detailed mapping of nodes, links, and their relationships, offering precise network visibility.
  • Technologies Supported: ACE supports a wide range of technologies including Radio, Microwave, SDH, WDM, IP, Core, Fixed, and fiber optics, ensuring compatibility across diverse network environments.
  • Configuration Management: Enables telecom operators to accurately track and manage configurations across various devices and services.
  • Performance and Fault Management: Monitors key performance indicators (KPIs) and detects network faults in real-time, improving operational efficiency and service quality.
  • Service Provisioning: Automates network service deployment, reducing the time and effort needed to launch new services.

 

  1. Vendor and Technology Agnostic Inventory Catalog

Nuiva’s configurable inventory catalog supports multi-vendor and multi-technology environments, providing flexibility and scalability to telecom operators. This adaptability ensures that network changes—whether driven by vendor upgrades or new technology rollouts—are seamlessly integrated into the inventory management system.

  1. Automated Data Collection and Integration

The ACE Solution includes an extensive library of connectors that regularly load network configurations from a variety of sources, such as NMS, EMS, and third-party systems. This daily or near-real-time data collection ensures that operators always have up-to-date network information, allowing them to:

  • Correlate network configurations across multiple domains and vendors.
  • Integrate performance data with configuration and alarm information for a holistic view of network health.
  • Ensure continuous synchronization between operational and financial systems for better cost management.

How Nuiva Delivers Data Accuracy

Nuiva’s ACE Solution employs several cutting-edge techniques to deliver accurate data, addressing the core challenges faced by telecom operators:

  1. Auto-Discovery Process Monitoring

The solution automatically monitors data dumps fetched from NMS systems and detects any discrepancies between the network's real state and the recorded data. This process ensures that any shortages or inconsistencies in network configurations are quickly identified and corrected, thereby enhancing the overall accuracy and reliability of operational support systems (OSS).

  1. End-to-End Service View

Building an accurate end-to-end service view is crucial for managing modern telecom networks. The ACE Solution correlates network configurations across multiple domains, ensuring that any changes or discrepancies are identified and resolved. This comprehensive service view ensures that telecom operators maintain accurate and updated information about service delivery, reducing the likelihood of outages or performance degradation.

  1. Integration of Configuration and Performance Data

Integrating network configuration data with performance metrics and alarm information enables operators to maintain a cohesive and accurate view of network functionality. By combining these data sets, the ACE Solution ensures smoother network performance, enhanced fault detection, and optimized operational efficiency.

The Nuiva Solution to Real-World Customer Challenges

Nuiva’s ACE Solution has been successfully implemented by telecom operators across the globe to improve data accuracy and optimize network operations. At the start of this white paper, we outlined just a few of the critical data issues experienced by 4 of our customers and this is how it has made a tangible impact on their specific businesses:

  1. Major Indian telecommunications company: Within days of implementation the Nuiva ACE Solution helped identify over 400 inactive radio nodes listed in the CM NMS, revealing that the operator was paying for licenses on unused equipment. This discovery allowed the company to adjust their licensing costs and optimize resources, saving them over $5million.
  2. One of Africa’s largest mobile network operators: The Nuiva ACE Solution quickly analysed and benchmarked the performance of the new vendor’s solution against the legacy equipment. Armed with this information the customer was able to ensure that the new vendor reconfigured the equipment to achieve the promised performance results.
  3. Major Moroccan network operator: By correlating Configuration Management (CM) and Performance Management (PM) data, Nuiva helped clean up the operator's NMS, identifying numerous microwave (MW) links present in CM data but missing in the PM NMS. This enabled the operator to resolve discrepancies and optimize network performance.
  4. Saudi telecom and digital services provider: Nuiva’s automatic detection of discrepancies in network configurations helped identify duplicate equipment serial numbers, improving asset monitoring, validating vendor invoices, and preventing asset loss. Not only did this save $millions in asset wastage, but it also reduced future audit time from over 6 weeks by more than 50 staff members to minutes using the ACE Solution.

Conclusion

Data accuracy is no longer just a technical necessity for telecom operators - it is a business imperative. Accurate data enables telecom operators to optimize costs, enhance customer satisfaction, ensure regulatory compliance, and drive operational efficiency. Nuiva’s ACE Solution offers a robust, comprehensive approach to managing data accuracy, helping operators to overcome their most complex challenges. By leveraging Nuiva's industry-leading solution, telecom operators can achieve greater visibility, reduce operational risks, and secure a competitive advantage in the ever-evolving telecom landscape.