Kicking off the keynote session this morning at Management World 2010 here in Nice was an insightful presentation by Mr. Liu Aili, Executive Vice President and Board Member of China Mobile Communications, the largest mobile provider in the world by customers with over 535 million subscribers.
Six years ago, China Mobile began the challenging task of transforming to an all-IP network, a process that has provided many lessons learned along the way, according to Liu. He said that with competition from non-traditional players like Skype, Google, Apple and others, increased pressure to decrease OpEx and CapEx and having to cope with incredibly rapid traffic growth, the move to IP was critical to ensure future success.
However, Liu said that the transformation process was anything but smooth, as China Mobile faced challenges in the areas of service, the network and operations. As Liu pointed out, “All IP does not equal all-in-one IP.”
His company addressed these issues by adopting an IP methodology that included creating separate public and private networks to balance its growing traffic; creating a new set of KPIs and KQIs to describe the end-to-end IP network performance and monitor the network accordingly; deploying application layer probes to simulate service initiation and discover any issues; and implementing IP route sensors at the routers to determine fault locations and detect any change in traffic flows.
Liu added that China Mobile technical staff improved its IP knowledge, created a flatter organization and deployed converged IP network tools. Liu closed by saying that despite the less-than-perfect transformation process, IP is the way to go. “Investing in all IP is the right choice for the future,” he said. “It simplifies the network but makes operations and management O&M) more complex, and operators must invest more on OSS and O&M for a successful transformation program.”
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