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Bharti
Telenet wanted to upgrade its fixed line network in
order to provide additional services. It went in for
Nortel's Metro solutions to boost network capacity.
by Minu Sirsalewala
Bharti
Telenet needs no introduction. With brands like 'Airtel'
and 'Magic' in the cellular space, Bharti has been one
of the most prominent companies in telecom with interests
in cellular, fixed line, and Internet access. It has
over 2,673,000 customers—nearly 2,293,700 mobile,
261,000 fixed line and 119,000 Internet customers
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The Company
Bharti Telenet Limited offers a range of cellular,
fixed line and Internet services in India. The
company has over 2,673,000 customers across the
country. In addition to providing regular fixed
line services, the company also offers nationwide
broadband and long distance networks.
The Need
The company wanted to upgrade its TouchTel fixed
line network in order to provide additional services
and facilitate faster time-to-market.
The Solution
Bharti went for Nortel Networks' OPTera Metro
4000 series of solutions and its Preside range
of Network Management Solutions.
The Benefits
Bharti has a new multi-service backbone network
that provides high scalability and enables the
company to provide a wide range of services to
its subscribers. Now, the company can deploy new
services in the shortest time possible.
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The
company's strategic objective for its fixed line business
is to have a strong presence in data-centric circles
(telecom areas) with a particular focus on high-density
business and industrial districts. This encouraged Bharti
to set up a high-capacity voice and data network that
would support high data transfers efficiently and effectively.
"We wanted to get the first mover advantage as
far as the private operators are concerned in these
circles. There is a lot of potential in the data and
voice service market in the Delhi and Haryana circles
due to high degree of industrialization. Therefore as
a part of our strategy we decided to build a high-capacity
voice and data network in these circles," said
Rohtash Mal, CEO, Bharti Telenet, New Delhi.
"Apart from building a high capacity network one
of the prime concerns was to have an efficient network
management system in place so as to have quick activation
of the network, provide network assurance with fault
diagnosis capabilities, revenue retention and enhancement,
and operational cost savings."
The earlier backbone
Prior to implementation of the new network, Bharti had
a smaller backbone infrastructure for its TouchTel fixed
line network in New Delhi that provided basic telecom
services. However, the network was restrictive; it was
not possible to roll out additional services on the
same network due to limited capacity. This made it necessary
to upgrade the existing network to handle additional
capacity. The answer was to migrate to an Optical Ethernet
solution.
A new spine
After evaluating various options from available
technology and products, Bharti Telenet chose to deploy
Nortel Networks OPTera Metro 4000 series of solutions
and its Preside range of Network Management Solutions.
"We selected Nortel Networks because of its proven
technological leadership in the optical transmission
equipment space and experience in setting up optical
networks", said Rohtash Mal.
The hardware solution
The Nortel Networks hardware solutions met several important
criteria for Bharti's network requirements and allowed
high capacity provisioning. The company deployed OPTera
Metro 4000 hardware. It is an STM-4 (622 Mbps) and STM-16
(2.5 Gbps) full access high port density multiplexer
which can be configured as a terminal multiplexer, an
add drop multiplexer, a small cross connect, and as
a regenerator. It also has Dense Wavelength Division
Multiplexing (DWDM) capabilities and has seamless interoperability
with the OPTera Metro 5000 Optical services platform.
This ensures flexibility and a scalable evolution path
to increase capacity as further wavelengths are added.
Therefore, it meets Bharti's requirements of provisioning
high capacity into the network and scale up as the demand
increases.
OPTera Metro 4000 harnesses the power of SDH/SONET and
Ethernet technology to extend the value of optical networks,
and positions service providers to offer innovative
and profitable voice, multimedia and data services.
Enabling multi-service
The solution helped Bharti provide a variety of services
and a wide range of interfaces for various types of
bandwidth requirements. It can offer interfaces up to
252 E1s or 16 STM-1 optical tributary port per shelf,
2 Mbps tributaries, 140/155 Mbps tributaries, full access
to 10/100 BaseT interfaces with Nortel Networks Packet
edge.
This
allows Bharti to cater to multiple customer requirements.
Using this solution Bharti will be able to provide data
services like IP VPN, Internet Access, Transparent LAN,
and Closed User Group facilities to their customers.
Lower costs
The compact design of OPTera metro series is similar
to conventional STM-1 multiplexers but it has 4 or 16
times the tributary, aggregate and switch capacity.
The compact size makes it suitable for deployment on
customer premises and in street cabinets as well as
in central offices. “This helps us in terms of
reduced operating costs, as the number of spare unit
is reduced up to a factor of 4.” The simple architecture
and the reduced number of spare units allows field staff
to quickly familiarize with the equipment. This helps
reduce the amount of staff training time by up to 40
percent.
Faster time-to-market
Bharti Telnet has deployed Nortel Networks' Preside
Network Management solution to facilitate faster time-to-market.
It provides remote access to each OPTera Metro 4000
series from a management center, and allows fault and
performance monitoring and configuration. It also minimizes
service downtime and maximizes utilization of network
resources.
The challenge
"We did not face any technical problems with the
deployment of the OPTera series. The only challenge
Bharti had was to build an entire network in stringent
time frames and provide it with the first-mover advantage
as a private operator in the Delhi and Haryana circles."
"Clearly the comprehensive nature of the solutions
provided to us by Nortel gives us the added advantage
of having a faster time-to-market network which translates
into cost effectiveness. The condensed footprint of
the solutions is cost effective and the benefits of
this can subsequently be passed on to the customer,"
says Rohtash Mal.
Operating in a data centric region the Nortel Networks
solutions provided Bharti the required edge to provide
high quality data and voice traffic to their customers.
The faster time-to-market nature of these solutions
gave Bharti an edge over other private operators by
giving it the first mover advantage.
Minu Sirsalewala can be reached at minus@networkmagazineindia.com
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