ISE Magazine, August 2019

AUGUST 2019 WWW ISEMAG COM 53 NETWORK OPTIMIZATION Fast forward to 2019 the landscape of the communications industry looks a lot different than it did in 1999 But there is a buzz that resembles the excitement of that time Today the excitement is about competing in new ways Connectivity alone is no longer enough Customers have a variety of choices when it comes to connectivity the new race is about the customer experience and differentiation through software Cloud services IoT SD WAN 5G network orchestration all of these are part of the new set of technologies and products driving that excitement That said shifting focus typically requires a balance of caring for the old while developing the new The skill sets required to harness the latest and greatest technology and to craft new and meaningful product sets are not the same skill sets that installed and maintained the telecommunications networks of yesterday On top of that the physical network isnt going away The equipment will modernize but there will always be some physical underpinnings that hold everything up That physical network old and new must still be cared for Much of the stockpile of overlapping network assets is aging The equipment is mostly End of Life End of Support and the skilled workforce who know these devices are aging out of the industry We know the network needs to be modernized optimized and consolidated but the network is very complex Most service provider networks are similar in nature Riding directly on the fiber are typically 3 4 layers of transport technologies aggregating the various systems and circuits DWDM OTN SONET ATM Frame Relay DCS Each layer is typically a unique vendor platform combination with its own unique provisioning tools layered in different ways Riding on these systems are your service layers typically voice and or data being delivered over common access lines via all sorts of access technologies Fractional T1s xDSL EoC Access nodes Dont forget about the supporting infrastructure of BITS clocks test units echo cans repeaters power and HVAC With all of the complexity how do we deal with our legacy networks They still hold significant amounts of customers and revenue Do we pick devices that we dont like and attack them Do we pick specific layers of the network and attack those Do we overbuild the entire thing and groom There are several different approaches to optimizing and modernizing these legacy networks but they all come with their own challenges and they all come with a price tag The goal is to pick an approach and move the needle right But asking ourselves which needle we are trying to move can be the difference between a successful strategy and just a lot of time effort and expense Focus on the Right Needle At Windstream we tried a variety of approaches and we chased a variety of needles We attacked individual devices we attacked specific vendor platforms we even started attacking high cost sites but through each attempt we realized that we either werent moving any needles or the needles we were moving werent meaningful enough They werent making enough of a difference to justify the costs and effort We didnt start really finding success until we oriented our efforts around the goal of cost savings We achieved this cost savings through a program dedicated to site exits As mentioned earlier network overlap is typically high Multiple legacy sites from multiple legacy companies are still being operated Every site carrying its own lease its own utility bill its own access expense and also its own customers and revenue Each site filled with legacy network elements that are stacked and intertwined with one another Each site requiring routine truck rolls for maintenance or break fix issues When you dig into it each site carries a significant amount of both direct and indirect expense 5 Learnings Following are 5 learnings that may help you as your company considers Windstreams network optimization strategies Learning 1 DEDICATE RESOURCES We pulled resources from all over the company to build a team comprised of all the necessary skill sets to plan and execute these projects We wanted to own as much of the project as possible This included transport engineers voice engineers IP engineers designers project managers and technicians The projects are very