CASE STUDY
Telefónica UK / O2 is the UK division of Telefónica , which has operations across Europe and the Americas . Ciena has been working with Telefónica for more than a decade , providing network infrastructure for the company in 17 countries around the world .
Several years ago , Telefónica UK decided to build its own dedicated core network and selected Ciena as its sole photonic supplier for the project . Based on the success of this collaboration , Ciena continues to provide consultancy and network infrastructure for Telefónica UK , helping the carrier to stay ahead of the fast-growing traffic demand curve and to prepare its network and business for the next-generation of highbandwidth and ultra-low-latency services .
Challenges with no risk of service downtime or disruption at any stage of the process .
Telefónica UK also wanted to streamline its management requirements and costs . In particular , the company wanted to deploy a single management system and console for managing both TDM and next-generation services to increase management and troubleshooting efficiency .
Solution
To kick-start its network upgrade and TDM services migration , Telefónica UK created a compelling business plan for senior stakeholders . This was based on equipment specifications and a detailed architectural design from Ciena , which allowed the Telefónica UK team to project short – and longer-term cost savings .
For Tier 1 operators around the world , legacy TDM services are significant contributors to revenues and the bottom line . However , legacy infrastructure and services are becoming increasingly expensive to run , manage and support – impacting OpEx and negatively affecting margins . Telefónica UK experienced this issue while operating legacy TDM services to deliver traffic from 2G-and 3G-only cell sites across the company ’ s core network . These services were increasingly costly and difficult to support .
To address this challenge , Telefónica UK decided to migrate legacy TDM services in its core network onto a modern , more efficient networking platform . Telefónica UK sought a solution that could run legacy TDM services and next-generation mobile services side-byside . It needed a partner that could transition services
Based on the business case , which projected impressive CapEx and OpEx savings , Telefónica UK stakeholders approved a solution built on the Ciena 6500 PTS . This photonic platform offers up to 100 GbE transport speeds with an extremely dense and power-efficient network footprint . Additionally , it is engineered to integrate seamlessly with Telefónica UK ’ s existing Ciena 6500 network , with no need for back-to-back interfaces anywhere in the network .
Telefónica UK chose the Ciena 6500 PTS due to the ability to ‘ emulate ’ and run legacy TDM services in an IP / MPLS environment with no changes to customer experiences or revenues . Equally importantly , the 6500 PTS incorporates Ciena ’ s Manage , Control and Plan ( MCP ) domain controller , which provides single-pane management for all services running on the network .
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