Mobilink NOC Dept.
By Faras Rafiq
Ex- NOC (NSS) Engineer
Mobilink NOC
Telecom Companies in Pakistan
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Telecommunication is one largest revenue
generating industry in Pakistan.
Currently the following companies are
operating in Pakistan
Mobilink
Ufone
Warid
Telenor
WorldCall
Wateen
PTCL
China-Tel (Paktel)
Cost Comparison
Services
Mobile Sim
Local Call Rates
Local SMS
MMS
Cost in Australia
(AUS$)
$2-4
Cost in Pakistan
(AUS$)
$0.77
$0.8/Min
$0.027/Min peak time,
$ 0.077/ HOUR at night
$0.25/SMS
For $1.15 you can get
1000 SMS
$0.5/MMS
$0.04/MMS
Mobilink earns AUS $15 Million/day by only voucher
recharge, where as Mobilink biggest customer is Post paid
History of Mobilink
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Mobilink is owned by Orascom Telecom (OT)
which is an Egyptian based company,it also owns
MobiNil and BanglaLink.
Mobilink was established in 1999 and it is the
largest Telecom Company in Pakistan.
35 Million+ subscribers by March 2008.
(compared to 21.4 Million population of Australiaon 9 Sep 2008 14:35).
60 MSC’s,650+ BSC’s and 7000+ Cell sites across
Pakistan.
How to Manage such a large network !!!!
History of Mobilink NOC
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A centralized OMCR (Radio Network) was
established in 2000 in Lahore.
Performed Fault and Configuration management
for BSC’s and BTS only.
During 2006-2007 Mobilink faced a loss of US$
60 Million due to Network Down time.
In 2007, Mobilink decided to establish a
complete NOC for end to end visibility which
included Access, Core, TXN, IN and VAS.
Departmental Organization of
Mobilink
TMN Model
Network Element
The following Network Elements are monitored in Mobilink.
Access side:
BSC’s (Alcatel,Motorola, Huawei)
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BTS
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Individual Cell Sites.
Core Side:
MSC’s (Siemens,Alcatel,Huawei,Nokia)
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HLS (Motrolla).
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STP ( Tekelec)
IN & Vas side:
IN Platforms (Siemens)
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SGSN
(Alcatel)
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GGSN
(Alcatel)
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SMSC
(Logica)
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IVR’s
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PRBT’s
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USSD
TXN side:
Optical Fiber and ATM nodes (Huawei)
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Element Management
Following EMS’s are deployed in Mobilink
Access Side:
Motorola OMC
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Alcatel OMC
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Huawei OMC
Core side:
Siemens SCR
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Alcatel NMC
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Huawei iManager
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NetBoss
IN & Vas side
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@comms
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OMC-PS
TXN side
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Huawei iManager
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Network Management
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EMS provide Fault and Configuration capabilities for their
respective NE’s.
Alarm Types, Commands syntax and terminologies for hardware
are different for each vendor.
Separate Teams and trainings required for each domain of
elements.
Mobilink opted for a NMS solution called TeMIP
(Telecommunication Management Information Platform) provided
by HP.
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One platform for all entities, translate all alarm types to standard
format, convert generalized commands to individual EMS’s syntax.
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A single Team required to handle problems from all types of
Network Elements.
Service Management
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NOC engineers use TeMIP (NMS) to perform Fault and
Configuration Management to provide services to the
subscriber.
Special software are used to analyze the performance of
individual NE’s and give their feed back to operations and
planning departments.
Create Weekly, Monthly downtime and response time
reports for higher management to analyze and devise
strategies for future expansions and improvements.
That’s the reason NOC is given the name
Eyes and Heart of a Network !!!
Business Management
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Managers and Specialists are responsible for
proper functionality of NOC department.
Analyze reports and identify areas of
improvement and devise strategies to reduce
network downtime.
Take up issues with Operations and Planning
department
These are the people who decide investing on
Capex (US$80 Million TeMIP project) to reduce
Opex .
TeMIP NMS
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In terms on FCAPS TeMIP provides F,C,P,S.
TeMIP provides the following functionality to NOC
Engineer.
Automatic Trouble Ticket creation.
Tap Filter (Block unwanted alarms).
Corrective Filter (User friendly format).
Correlations (Handle complex scenarios).
Transient Filters (Avoid Fluctuations).
Outage Management (Planned Activity).
Routine checks .
TeMIP NMS
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“ an engineer opined to the author that network
management is best described as all aspects of devising
and operating networks that no one knows how to
automate” D. Comer.
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On average 280,000 alarms are received a day. These
alarms are handled by 50 NOC engineers
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Most of the alarms are fluctuations or straight forward and
can be easily automated.
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Automated systems cannot match human decision making.
For example Fiber break, Outage due to Power issues.
A single 16 STM Fiber break will generate nearly 77,500
alarms alone. The process can be automated but infeasible
in terms of time, computational and resource cost.
Network Management Protocols
SNMP
(UDP Based)
 Q3
(TCP Based)
 CORBA
(TCP Based)
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Architecture of TeMIP
OVSD Trouble Ticketing System
OVSD Trouble Ticketing System
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All Trouble Tickets created are stored in an oracle
database.
These trouble tickets are notified to the relevant
persons by automatic E-mail or SMS.
The on-site engineer accepts the T.T via e-mail or
sms which indicates that the problem is under
investigation.
Any change in the status of the T.T is notified and
once the issue is resolved the on-site engineer
inform the reason via e-mail or sms and the T.T is
closed.
This T.T system is given the name OVSD.
Configuration Management
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TeMIP has the functionality to provide
Configuration Management without
worrying about the underlying Network
Element.
Provides a standard GUI form with
mandatory fields highlighted for particular
tasks.
Once a command is executed, it is
converted into the syntax understood by
the respective EMS.
Performance Management
Performance Management
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TeMIP provides statistical displays of T.T created
for each type of problems in a day.
It provides easy extractable Excel file for creating
reports.
It provides MAP’s to readily identify problems in
the network
All these features are used by Management
(Managers, HOD’s, Directors, CTO) to determine
in one look how a network is performing.
Alarm Text of SNMP Alarm
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N1_L3MTP:Signalling link failed (stopped), LINK=STK1BL16,
A tiIncTrapCleared trap was received from 10.14.2.30 at 274693740.
DESCRIPTION: Trap issued by the INC to an OS with a severity value of
'cleared'. The objects contained in the variable binding list are scalar
objects ( with index 0 ).
VARIABLES:
tiAlarmDateTime=20080801182933+0600,
tiAlarmReportingObject={ 1 3 6 1 4 1 231 7 99 4 1000 0 },
tiAlarmFaultyObject={ 1 3 6 1 4 1 231 7 99 47 1000 99 9 1 1 8 78 49 95
76 51 77 84 80 },
tiAlarmEventTypeId=communicationsAlarm,
tiAlarmSeverity=cleared,
tiAlarmErrorID=1179650,
tiAlarmEndKey=true,
tiAlarmDescription=N1_L3MTP:Signalling link failed(stopped),
LINK=STK1BL16,
tiAlarmSequenceNumber=47066365, tiAlarmSourceName=in9ce1-core2,
1.3.6.1.4.1.231.7 iso.org.dod.internet.private.enterprises.sni.siemensUnits
Countries where TeMIP is used for
Network Management
France
 Singapore
 Peru
 Canada
 Taiwan
 China
 UK
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References
Mobilink NMS Ph2 Functional
Specifications v1.0-S
 http://www.mobilinkgsm.com
 Price comparison figures taken from
optus brochure
 http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs
@.nsf/94713ad445ff1425ca2568200
0192af2/1647509ef7e25faaca2568a
900154b63?opendocument
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THANK YOU for your time
ANY Questions !!!!!!!