Regional ITU Consultation on
Conformance Assessment and
Interoperability for the Africa region
(Nairobi, Kenya, 30-31 July 2010 )
Interoperability Challenges
in ISPs’ Operations
Tamer M. Kamel,
Networks Operation & Maintenance
Division, TE-DATA
Egypt Manager
Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010
Agenda
TE Data @Glance
Multi-Vendor Environment
Interoperability Experience
Recommendation
Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010
2
TE Data @ Glance
Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010
3
TE Data Market
Market Leader as an internet
provider and data communication
solutions
~ 1 million home customers with
60% market share
~ 2000 enterprise customers with
advanced solutions with 50% of
Egypt market share
~ 100 Gbps of international
bandwidth capacity with 70% of total
4
internet
in Egypt
Nairobi,
Kenya, 30 – 31 Julycapacity
2010
TE Data Services
Basic Services
ADSL Broadband
WiFi Internet
Internet Dial-up
L2/L3 MPLS VPN
Inter-AS VPN
IP Transit
Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010
5
TE Data Services (Cont.)
Value Added Services
IPTV, VoD
Clean Internet
Video Conferencing
Domain Names
Virtual Call-Center for small business
IP-Surveillance
Virtual Branching
Hosting Packages, Managed Data-center
Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010
6
Multi-Vendor Environment
Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010
7
Multi-Vendor Environment Benefits
Minimize Cost
Reduce Risk
Enrich Services
Flexibility That Drives Innovation
Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010
8
TE Data Multi-Vendor
Data Center
Access
Core
Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010
9
Interoperability Experience
(Time Bomb)
Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010
10
1. LACP (IEEE 802.3ad)
Failed to establish port bundle
between DSLAM uplink (Vendor-A)
and the access switch (Vendor-B) due
to mismatch in LACP parameters.
Impact:
End customers experience instability
Added operational cost and resources
Loosing redundancy feature
Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010
11
2. MTU (RFC-1191)
BRAS (Vendor-X) failed to establish
subscriber sessions forwarded from
MSAN (Vendor-Y); due to MTU
mismatch
Impact:
Extra Configuration and customization
Added operational cost and resources
Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010
12
3. SELT (ITU-T Study group 15)
Couldn't perform copper line
inspection by an application (VendorA) due to limited functionality of
some DSLAM platform in SNMP and
SELT test (Vendor-B) DSLAM
Impact:
No access to SELT services
Difficulties in maintenance operations
Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010
13
4. xDSL (ITU G992.x)
CPEs commit support of line-codes;
while some are not functioning well
Impact:
Extra configuration needed
Difficulties in maintenance operations
Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010
14
5. MAC Address (IEEE 802)
many CPE brands use non-unique
and fake MAC address during
encapsulating PPP frame; causing
duplicate MAC at DSLAM side and
session may be dropped.
Impact:
Difficulties in maintenance operations
Added cost to replace CPEs
Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010
15
6. SNMP
ATM DSLAM (Vendor-X) not
supporting the standard an complete
MIB tree; causing poor discovery and
management through the SNMP
servers
Impact:
Hard to provision and to operate through
management servers
Added operational costs and resources
Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010
16
Recommendations
Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010
17
Recommendations
Operators should share their
experience and knowledge regarding
interoperability through standard
bodies.
ITU and Standard Bodies should
make a program to enhance operator
skills regarding standards in
technology.
Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010
18
Recommendations (cont.)
Local and international standard
bodies help in establishing and
accrediting regional LABs.
Monthly Bulletin by local countries
NTRA with vendors’ problems and
actions
Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010
19
Recommendations (cont.)
Hardware and software suppliers
should mention the certificates of the
products regarding the introduced
features and its interoperability with
other suppliers.
Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010
20
THANK YOU
Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010
21