Airtel: Transforming the India Mobile User Experience with Zero-Touch RAN June 2018

Case study Cisco public

Summary In India, there are approximately 650 million mobile phone users, and more than 300 million of them have a smartphone, according to several industry analysts. India has nearly as many smartphone users as the United States has people, and it’s about to get many millions more. Surging mobile data consumption surpassed the combined usage of the United States and China in 2017, a year that saw the landscape of the India telecom sector being altered with bitter competition. In what could be considered as a transformational year for the Indian telecom sector, 2017 saw mobile operators consolidate like never before, leaving just three major players in the market by the end of the year. In addition, the launch of new technologies such as Voice over LTE (VoLTE) services challenged operators to stay competitive and relevant. How did Airtel take up this challenge? Airtel decided to meet the competition head on. It not only is investing heavily in improved network infrastructure, but also is launching new technologies and products. With this investment comes the need to improve operational efficiency through automation and adaptive allocation of network resources where needed.

The challenge The Airtel solution Need for automation in complex Network automation to improve customer experience mobile multivendor, multitechnology Airtel has been focused on a critical project using Self-Optimizing Network (SON) software for its 3G environments network and now is implementing it to cover its 4G network, supporting VoLTE services.

The Airtel mobile network has become This solution now covers multiple cities across India, interworking with equipment from all major radio extremely complex, with multiple technologies vendors. The SON solution enables Airtel to simplify and automate its network operations practices and -- 2G, 3G, LTE, macro and small cells, and to focus more on creating value for its customers. Wi-Fi -- from multiple vendors, all in the Airtel envisioned the enrichment of SON with subscriber-specific information and predictive analysis for same geographical area, and with denser network performance. Airtel is incorporating these enhanced use cases with SON by integrating third- deployments than ever. Airtel needs the party data sources. Such integration will enable SON to perform user-centric analysis, using new data network to ensure that customer experience sources, such as customer experience systems, geolocation, crowdsourcing, and big data analytics. remains high whether indoor or outdoor, in all coverage areas, despite the exponential increase in data usage. Managing a network Airtel and Cisco solution using SON automation end to end of this caliber has becoming a major operational challenge for Airtel. It’s all about the customer Retaining existing customers and improving their experience by using user-centric optimization is Airtel needed this enhancement to improve extremely important in the current Indian competitive environment. Delivering the right performance for its mobile customers’ user experience on specific customer service levels (that is, Gold, Silver, and Bronze) or accounts is a strategic imperative, its network and to stay months ahead of but a huge challenge for mobile operators. Subscriber data is critical to enabling the network the competition. performance visibility required to differentiate the customer end-user experience.

The Cisco® SON solution is the only solution that supports integration of third-party data sources to enrich SON decisions. Cisco enhanced SON introduces user-centric optimization based on supplemental data sources, such as customer experience systems, geolocation, crowdsourcing and big data analytics. With it operators can offer differentiated QoE to their subscribers. Its added machine- learning capabilities enable SON to proactively predict performance degradation and the most effective action to prevent it.

Improve today and plan for future with • Proactive sleeping cell identification end-to-end automation • Predictive capacity management Airtel leadership New technologies. New services. New • Golden parameter audit input revenue streams. Even whole new markets. • VoLTE mute and drop calls Airtel is building a completely automated “Mobile consumers in India are network platform that self-monitors, adjusts, The future: SONFlex expecting world-class experience, and optimizes the network without manual With a changing network and the launch of new which we are fully committed to intervention. The machine-learning intelligence technologies comes the demand to rapidly deliver of Cisco SON embeds intelligence into the provide by deploying leading-edge new automation tools. Cisco SONFlex open APIs network, takes proactive control from the technologies and using advanced make the Cisco SON platform accessible for Airtel hardware and delivers the automated functions machine learning to operate our or third-party innovation. It enables hassle-free needed to compete more effectively. Its open, SON development, abstracting the complexities of network efficiently,” said Abhay hyperprogrammable architecture consolidates the underlying vendor equipment and management Savargaonkar, CTO, Airtel India. multivendor, multidomain networks into sleek, systems. It also provides the conflict management “Our collaboration on this project agile, unified systems. services essential to enable multiple SON with Cisco has helped us to With complexity growing as networks scale, applications to optimize the network simultaneously. dynamically adjust our network service providers are adopting more analytical during an exponential increase in software solutions to identify and react to voice and data traffic. With the triggers in their networks. How can they About Bharti Airtel transform analysis into action? They need Bharti Airtel Limited is a leading global machine-learning intelligence of machine-learning automation that executes telecommunications company with operations Cisco SON, we can automate core changes, while continuing to learn and create in 20 countries across Asia and Africa. operations and analytical processes repeatable processes. Headquartered in New Delhi, India, the company to repurpose more intelligence into ranks among the top 4 mobile service providers the network vs. in the hardware.” Integrating the Cisco SON with root cause globally in terms of subscribers. In India, the analytics system company’s product offerings include 2G, 3G, Cisco SON can connect with a Root Cause and 4G wireless services; mobile commerce; Analytics (RCA) system to automate maintenance fixed line services; high-speed DSL broadband; and optimization of the network by creating a IPTV; DTH; and enterprise services, including closed loop for monitoring, analysis, and action, national and international long-distance services taking the manual factor out of the loop. to carriers. In the rest of the geographies, it offers 2G and 3G wireless services and mobile Example use cases where the Cisco SON commerce. Bharti Airtel had more than 304.9 solution can automate and optimize, bringing real million customers across its operations at the end recurring, sustainable value to Airtel, include: of the March 2018 TRAI Report.

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