How Intelligent Automation Can Take Your Broadband Operations Efficiency to New Heights

Broadband operations teams have a long and growing list of responsibilities. One minute you’re overseeing a network upgrade, the next you’re investigating a network alarm or addressing a security incident. Network and service-affecting issues can arrive—sometimes simultaneously—from multiple sources: the network operations center (NOC), customer support, field operations, and more. Teams can become overwhelmed by too many problems, too many tools, and too much “swivel chairing” between different screens and systems.

But that’s only half the problem. Operation teams are also under pressure to lower day-to-day running costs and meet a myriad of operational targets. Key performance indicators may include reducing truck rolls, reducing time-to-repair, and maintaining service uptime. Operations is the core of everything—not just optimizing network performance, but also ensuring subscribers have an amazing, seamless experience from end-to-end.

It’s easy to get lost in the all the “noise” and competing demands—and easy to lose sight of what’s important. As a result, operations teams can find their time taken up with inefficient manual tasks and excessive workloads. This is operational complexity—and it’s a beast. So, for the last blog in our three-part blog series on “taming the beast,” we’re going to look at how BSPs can transform operations with automation.

Automation transforms operational models in whole new ways. By automating many simple, repetitive tasks, teams can streamline processes and create more efficient and effective operations. Automation can also avoid those instances of human error that can easily occur due to high pressure and high workloads.

The ability to quickly implement and automate workflows across the entire subscriber-facing network is therefore a key component within the Calix Operations Cloud (Operations Cloud) and Intelligent Access EDGE platforms. Using these platforms, broadband service providers (BSPs) are able to:

• Automate service activation and turnup. Increase operational efficiencies by eliminating the need for excessive human intervention in provisioning and service-turnup.
• Automate reporting and notifications. Quickly identify and prioritize the most important network events, alarms and notifications. Operations teams can create customized alarm notifications and scheduled alarm reports, allowing them to provide the right information—to the right people—at the right time.
• Automate network health and traffic monitoring. Use real-time data and insights to feed workflows that relieve broadband operations from spending time on repetitive network monitoring tasks. This frees up human resources and lowers OPEX.

Implementing these levels of automation reduces workloads and instances of human error. It also frees up valuable personnel to work on more important or complex tasks. The results can be sensational. Service providers deploying Operations Cloud are managing to reduce operating costs (OPEX) by up to 80 percent.

This solution takes the efficiency of broadband operations to new heights—freeing BSPs to focus on adding subscribers, deploying new services, and driving revenue growth.

Discover how you can deliver an amazing subscriber experience while driving greater efficiencies in your operations teams. Download our latest eBook, “Tame the Beast—Take Operations From Reactive to Proactive Through Insights and Automation.”