Solutions

What Operators & Service Providers Need to Achieve

In order for operators to meet customer service expectations whilst at the same time maintaining a sustainable business, they need to achieve the following:

• Economies of Scale
• Provide Market-Leading Quality of Experience
• Optimise the Costs of Providing the Services
• Ensure Robust Reliability of Services

Current Challenges Facing Operators & Service Providers

While this continues to remain highly relevant in today’s operator environment, there have been a number of challenges that have arisen, including:

• Network Performance and Dimensioning
• Visibility & Understanding of Subscriber Behaviour, Network Behaviour and Service Behaviour
• Quality of Service
• Price Compression
• Service Commoditisation
• Reduced Barriers to Entry for New Competitors
• Security
• Revenue Leakage
• Maintaining Service Levels and Quality of Experience when using Third-Party Infrastucture

Operator & Service Provider 5-Stage Evolution Cycle

Core2Africa has always believed that the operators/service providers need to continuously evolve in order to meet market expectations. Since the founding of Core2Africa in 2010, Core2Africa has advocated the following five high-level stages in the evolution of the operator/service provider environment:

1. Network Convergence – through the years, this has largely been achieved in most environments
2. Network Consolidation – in recent years, this has evolved from consolidating multiple network devices to consolidating the number of locations where network equipment is installed
3. Simplification – removal of unnecessary equipment across the environment, including standardisation, structuring, naming conventions, and architecture
4. Automation – following Simplification, it becomes practical and affordable to start automating the repetitive tasks and closing the loops between the business systems (CRM, provisioning, support, billing)
5. Separation – an abstraction of the services from the physical network infrastructure

Core2Africa’s solutions: SNAPA

In line with these challenges, Core2Africa provides solutions with the value proposition to best address them, which include the following five elements

Subscriber

Subscriber management refers to the mechanisms and processes whereby subscribers are provided with services dynamically and are authenticated, provisioned and connected to the Internet according to the service profile via various hardware and software elements. The demand for subscriber-orientated services has grown, providing the bulk of subscriber Internet access. Subscriber management is easier to automate, has better scale and is easier to deploy.

Core2Africa provides the relevant hardware and software platforms along with professional services for managing subscribers. across various access technologies.

We have a proven history of assisting customers with a ‘best-fit’ solution across various access technologies. We provide integration with provisioning, billing, and CRM systems as well as analytics and telemetry solutions.

Networks

Telco’s, ISPs and other organisations with critical dependencies on the Internet, require high availability Internet infrastructure built on a foundation of a robust, carrier-grade network.

Core2Africa specialises in the design, deployment and optimisation of carrier-grade networks. With a highly motivated skills base we have designed, deployed and optimized numerous networks across sub-Saharan Africa.

We have built up a portfolio of leading network vendors to provide customers with optimal solutions based on the customer’s unique requirements. We pride ourselves on our multi-vendor integration capabilities and we are comfortable to fit in with existing network environments/infrastructure. In consultation, we develop roadmaps to optimise customers’ networks to meet future requirements, re-using existing equipment where possible to provide the most cost-effective solution.

Automation

Automation has become critical for any business with a substantial subscriber base to reduce costs and improve quality of service. Automation spans from the procurement to the provisioning, maintaining and de-provisioning of a service.

We provide customers with the most appropriate tools and processes to improve quality and enable future growth without a corresponding increase in costs.

Core2Africa has a proven track record of integrating with existing customer OSS/BSS systems using the most appropriate technologies for their unique environment. Our services enable customers to reduce costs, improve the quality of services being provided, the accuracy of billing, and ensure the de-provisioning of services that are no longer required.

Protection

Protection encompasses everything from DDoS and other network attacks, fraudulent use of services, revenue leakage, hardening of equipment, firewalling, AAA (authentication, authorisation, accounting), DNS security, lawful intercept, parental control and forensic investigations.

Protecting and mitigating risks is a persistent and evolving necessity. Attacks on network infrastructure are growing in sophistication, exploiting every vulnerability. The direct and indirect costs of a security violation, including financial loss, brand reputation risks and privacy act violations, can be crippling.

Core2Africa has worked with a variety of telco’s and service providers to address their protection requirements.

We have established relationships with leading security and protection vendors. Our approach is consulting-led where we gain a detailed understanding of our customer’s requirements. This enables us to implement the most appropriate and cost-effective solutions to address the identified risks.

Analytics

Analytics is a vital part of understanding subscriber behaviour, service suitability, service profitability, network utilisation, performance, availability and risks. Analytics are essential to the successful operation of a service provider environment by monitoring and understanding a variety of key KPIs on the network and the services provided.

Core2Africa partners with leading vendors as well as implementing best practices for the collection, processing and analyses of data from a wide variety of sources.

We enable our customers to identify trends, traffic patterns and elements that improve user experience, while optimising network performance and utilisation.

Core2Africa has extensive experience in collecting, correlating and analysing data from diverse sources and presenting information to the customer in a simple, and easy to understand format. This enables service providers to identify issues, predict churn, and optimise service delivery.

What we do

Core2Africa provides specialised professional services to customers for building, managing, optimising and growing their Internet infrastructure.

Leveraging our in-depth understanding of service provider networks and their environments, our skilled team of professionals are ideally suited to understanding our customers’ unique pain points and requirements to recommend the best possible solutions.

Core2Africa provide high-level, specialised skills that can work on a variety of projects to complement our customer’s skills and availability, to deliver on time and in budget. We follow a well-defined formal methodology for running and managing projects of all sizes.

We make use of a network of specialists, across sub-Saharan Africa and Europe, who we rely on where we require an onsite presence.

We have the leadership, specialised expertise and experience to enable customers to achieve their strategic goals.

Our versatile technical team has expert knowledge at meeting customer requirements through the implementation of carefully chosen vendor platforms and technologies.

We provide our customers with several services when it comes to the deployment of solutions, namely:

Consultation

• Consulting around strategic goals and business objectives for cost and efficiency benefits in optimising, growing, integrating and securing their networks.
• Design consulting
• Conduct network audits
• Productisation of services
• Pricing and service feasibility
• Due diligence and valuations for mergers and acquisitions
• IPv6 and introduction of other technologies

Internet Infrastructure Deployments

• Core2Africa provides industry-leading, technical capabilities that ensures:
  • Best-fit design solutions to align with customer’s unique requirements
  • A multi-vendor approach to align with existing environments and install bases.
  • Testing and validation of solutions within Lab environments
  • Integration and migration of infrastructure, subscribers and services for long-term sustainability of the environment.
  • Comprehensive handover to customers with detailed, technical documentation, and relevant training and knowledge transfer.

• A formal methodology is used for the deployment of projects covering the following areas:
  • Initiation of a deployment with a well-defined scope of work.
  • Design and planning
  • Implementation
  • Control and monitoring
  • Closure and handover

Network Audits

• Build an accurate baseline of the existing environment.
• Compile a list of risks and issues identified
• Identify areas of potential improved efficiency and cost savings
• Provide a recommended architecture to meet business requirements
• Formulate a migration plan from the current environment to the target architecture

Proof of Concepts

• We conduct and manage proof of concepts to prove the viability of a proposed technology solution or product.

Core2Africa Service Level Agreements

Core2Africa’s Support Services (Core2Care) are designed to keep your network performing at its peak, safeguard your business from costly downtime, and ensure your customers enjoy a consistently exceptional experience. By combining deep technical expertise, rapid response capabilities, and proactive operational strategies, we deliver a support ecosystem that strengthens your infrastructure and enables uninterrupted service.

Core2Care Reactive SLA provides access to our support desk and specialist Core2Africa Engineers with an understanding of your network, for resolving support cases quickly and efficiently. We take responsibility for logging cases with the OEMs and managing the process through to resolution.

A Reactive SLA defines the response and resolution times Core2Africa commits to when addressing reported incidents or issues from customers. It includes priority levels, escalation procedures, and mechanisms for reporting and monitoring. This SLA clearly defines the roles and expectations, ensuring prompt issue resolution and high levels of customer satisfaction.

Core2Care Proactive SLA is a game-changing approach to Core2Africa’s service offering that revolutionizes the way we achieve optimal service delivery. In addition to our Reactive SLA that focusses on reacting to issues after they occur, Core2Care Proactive SLA is all about anticipating and preventing problems before they impact your business. It’s like having a guardian angel for your environment, ensuring maximum uptime, efficiency, and exceptional customer satisfaction.

Our innovative approach provides advanced case management, proactive support and controlled software release updates. Proactive support enables high levels of network availability, while controlled software release updates ensure that essential updates are rigorously tested in a LAB environment prior to implementation on your network. Core2Care Proactive support is the future of reliable and seamless service delivery. It’s the gold standard.

To further elevate your support experience, Core2Africa offers a suite of Bolt-On Packages that enhance, extend, and customise your SLA. Some of these bolt-on packages include consulting services and knowledge transfer workshops. These optional add-ons allow you to tailor your support contract to the unique operational, performance, and compliance needs of your environment.