In a global sense, telecom service providers are faced with a dual challenge: reinventing their business by adopting next-generation technologies while also dealing with the requirements for ongoing maintenance and operations of legacy networks.

In the whitepaper, “A New Look at Network Maintenance,” Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert) explains why, for many service providers, deciding how to support both legacy and next-generation networks and manage the transition from one to the other requires careful planning and analysis.

With increasingly demanding customer expectations for high-quality network services, legacy networks have to make a transition to live up new technologies. As Alcatel-Lucent points out, to keep costs down, telcos are attempting to do more with less: re-engineering their maintenance operations and reducing staff. As a result, the burden of network upkeep has shifted to maintenance suppliers, who in turn seek additional compensation.

In the current business climate, many other equipment manufacturers (OEM) are focusing on their newer products and phasing out support for older equipment, even increasing maintenance costs for end-of-life products.

To help service providers adapt their support systems while adopting new approaches, Alcatel-Lucent has a single point- of-contact Multi-vendor Maintenance (MVM) solution, which they streamlines and integrates traditional OEM maintenance related activities and end-to-end processes to deliver faster, more efficient and cost-effective support.

The cost-savings alone is a solid factor for considering this option. According to Alcatel-Lucent, operational expenses can be reduced by 10 to 25 percent, with the actual savings subject to the number and mix of OEMs, as well as types of products included in the MVM solution, SLAs, ticket volume and type of problem. In addition, the company says its MVM solution will bring:

·         Lower contract management and related overhead costs by reducing a number of contracts to a single MVM contract

·         Potential for streamlining or relocating resources within service provider’s staff due to realized operational efficiencies

·         Synergy (News - Alert) between remote technical support, part repair and exchange services and onsite field maintenance across multiple network elements

The company also says that its multivendor network support gives service providers access to technical experts, processes and tools, while leveraging Alcatel-Lucent’s multivendor capabilities, developed internally and through third-party business partners and other OEM relationships.

To address the changing market, service providers can achieve a successful transition to MVM by following these three steps:

1)      Assess the network and services – determine which networks, technologies and products are relatively stable, require few software updates and/or are coming out of warranty coverage

2)      Set targets – clearly define the operational expense reduction needed, as well as SLAs for each technology or product type

3)      Select the right MVM partner – perform due diligence to evaluate prospective MVM providers in terms of their credentials, capabilities and track record

Navigating this dramatic, competitive period of telecom service evolution requires close management of maintenance costs. Multi-vendor maintenance solutions pave the way for the networks of the future while supporting the legacy networks needed to continue business today. Alcatel-Lucent’s approach dramatically reduces complexity, and provides consistent maintenance service delivery, thereby lowering and controlling OPEX (News - Alert).