The Evolving Landscape of Telecom Software Development
As a veteran Sales Director in the telecom industry, I've witnessed firsthand the rapid evolution of software development and technology over the past decade. The telecom sector has seen a massive proliferation of new network technologies, devices, and software platforms. Keeping up with the accelerating pace of innovation requires telecom companies to be nimble and forward-thinking. This dynamic landscape presents both challenges and opportunities.
The Critical Role of Software Support and Managed Services in Telecom
With such complex and rapidly changing systems, having robust software support and managed services is absolutely crucial for telecom operators. My experience at leading telecom software companies has shown me how vital it is to have skilled technical teams continuously managing, monitoring, enhancing, and supporting critical telecom software. Without this expert level of software support, telecom companies simply could not keep their networks running at peak efficiency.
The Need for Clarity and Expertise
However, I've noticed there is still a lack of clarity and inconsistent definitions around software support and managed services in the telecom industry. Having clear definitions and a keen understanding of the capabilities of service providers is key for telecom companies to truly maximize value. My goal is to leverage my expertise to bring clarity to this opaque domain.
Understanding Software Support in Telecom
Defining Software Support in the Telecom Sector
1. Purpose and Significance
Based on my experience, software support in telecom focuses on maintaining continuity and optimizing performance of in-production software applications. It involves identifying, troubleshooting, and resolving issues to ensure seamless operations. Robust software support is the backbone enabling telecom companies to deliver reliable networks.
2. Core Features of Telecom Software Support
Some core features of quality telecom software support include:
- 24/7 availability and rapid response times
- Remote troubleshooting and diagnosis
- Bug fixes, patches, workarounds for software issues
- Version compatibility assessments
- Guidance on optimization and configuration
- Security and vulnerability remediation
Key Players and Their Definitions of Software Support
1. How Leading Telecom Companies Define Software Support
Based on my discussions with technical leaders across top telecom operators, here are some patterns I've noticed in how they define software support:
- Bell Mobility emphasizes stability, preventative maintenance, and zero-downtime.
- Rogers focuses on performance sustainment and continuous improvement.
- Telus highlights responsiveness, proprietary expertise, and fault resilience.
Despite nuances, most share a core focus on resilience, continuity, and issue resolution.
Self-Support and Response Time: Critical Aspects of Telecom Software Support
Given the mission-critical nature of telecom networks, having strong self-support capabilities and meeting response time SLAs are two non-negotiable aspects of software support. At my company Chetu, we maintain sophisticated in-house tools, knowledge bases, and autonomous monitoring to enable fast self-resolution. Our telecom clients benefit from industry-leading 15 minute response times guaranteed in our agreements.
III. Exploring Third-Party Software Support
Going Beyond In-House Support: The Concept of Third-Party Support
While many telecom operators have internal IT teams, third-party software support provides access to dedicated expertise, tools and capabilities that go beyond what in-house groups can deliver. Throughout my career, I've seen the game-changing value third-party support brings.
Case Study: How Companies Like Chetu Provide Third-Party Telecom Software Support
Let me illustrate with an example from my company Chetu. We have over 2,500 telecom-focused software experts worldwide. For a major Canadian telecom operator, we took over and managed their entire CRM environment. This included 24/7 monitoring, level 3 and 4 engineering support, custom code enhancements, and globally distributed teams to enable follow-the-sun support.
Unlocking the Benefits of Third-Party Support
Based on my experience, some major benefits third-party software support offers telecom companies include:
1. Custom Code Fixes
Our engineers can create proprietary patches, fixes, and enhancements tailored to each client's unique environment. This level of customization is hard to achieve with product vendor-provided support.
2. Security Enhancements
We strengthen security by analyzing vulnerabilities, applying latest patches, hardening configurations, and implementing compensating controls for legacy platforms.
3. Cost Savings
Our scale and specialization drives significant cost savings compared to hiring additional in-house staff with comparable expertise.
Managed Services in Telecom
Defining Managed Services: A Distinctive Role
Managed services involve outsourcing complete management and day-to-day operations of IT systems and networks to a third-party provider. This transfers the burden of 24/7 performance and uptime.
Augmenting IT Capabilities through Managed Services
A major telecom operator I partner with relies on us to fully manage their billing system landscape across multiple countries. This frees up their internal team to focus on higher-value initiatives and innovation vs maintenance.
Levels of Managed Services in Telecom
1. Basic Management
This involves day-to-day operations like monitoring availability, batch job scheduling, user access management, backups, patches, etc.
2. Proactive Monitoring
Going beyond basic management, this entails advanced monitoring, predictive analytics, and automation to identify and prevent issues before they occur.
3. Advanced Optimization
The highest level of managed services brings together analytics, automation, and deep platform expertise to actively optimize configurations, maximize efficiency and ensure peak performance.
Case Study: Chetu's Comprehensive Managed Services
For example, Chetu not only manages the IT and networks for a leading Canadian telecom firm end-to-end, but we apply advanced automation and analytics to optimize capacity planning across data centers, forecast demand, right-size cloud resources, and enable self-healing capabilities. This relieves their team to focus on higher-value software delivery.
The Blurred Line: Software Support vs. Managed Services
The Challenge of Distinguishing Between the Two
Based on my experience in the telecom sector, there is often ambiguity around where software support ends and managed services begin. The line is frequently blurred.
Approaches to Resolving Issues Straddling the Line
When issues arise that straddle software support and managed services, we take a collaborative approach and tap resources from both teams to troubleshoot and resolve, while keeping the client looped in. This prevents finger pointing.
The Crucial Role of Mutual Understanding between Telecom Operators and Service Providers
I've learned that it's critical for telecom companies and their service providers to invest time upfront agreeing upon definitions, protocols, escalation paths and hand-off points to enable smooth coordination. We make this a priority in our client relationships.
Elevating Performance with Consulting Services
The Power of Telecom Consulting Services
Beyond software support and managed services, consulting services are invaluable for executing major strategic initiatives and technology transformations for telecom companies.
Real-World Examples of Consulting Services in Telecom
Here are a few examples from my experience:
Planning and leading a complex billing platform migration for an operator managing over 100 million subscribers.
Architecting a future-proof IT infrastructure and systems strategy for a telecom company embarking on 5G.
Defining and executing on a digital transformation roadmap encompassing systems, processes and org design.
How Consulting Bridges Gaps and Focuses on Strategic Projects
Consulting services enable telecom operators to leverage targeted subject matter expertise to fill capability gaps for business-critical initiatives. This additional bandwidth helps them avoid distraction from BAU responsibilities.
Defining Support Levels for Enterprise Telecom Software
Introduction to Support Levels and ITIL Framework in Telecom
Working in telecom software support for many years, I've become quite familiar with the ITIL framework for defining escalation processes and support levels. This is the gold standard our teams adhere to.
A Deep Dive into Support Levels (0-4) and Their Responsibilities
Let me walk through each support level and key responsibilities:
1. Level 0: Self-Help
The end user attempts to troubleshoot and resolve issues on their own using available documentation and resources.
2. Level 1: Initial Support
Level 1 receives incoming calls, opens tickets, collects basic info, and handles simple resolution like password resets.
3. Level 2: Basic Support
At this level, agents troubleshoot common issues, address how-to questions, and perform tasks like minor configuration changes.
4. Level 3: Advanced Support
Level 3 handles complex troubleshooting and identifies root causes. They take action such as adjusting configurations, applying custom fixes, tuning performance.
5. Level 4: Expert Support
The highest support level, this is staffed by deeply experienced engineers with specialized technical expertise. They handle the most complex issues and architect solutions.
Staffing Requirements for Each Support Level
Through experience, I've learned the ratios that work best in telecom are:
- Level 1: 1 agent for every 25-50 end users
- Level 2: 1 agent for every 150-200 end users
- Level 3: 1 agent for every 500 end users
- Level 4: 1 agent for every 2,000-5,000 end users
Progression of Expertise as One Ascends the Support Levels
A key takeaway I teach my teams is that moving up support levels requires rapidly expanding breadth and depth of technical knowledge and hands-on experience. Level 4 engineers are truly the Jedi Masters.
The Value of a Single Service Provider in Telecom
Navigating the Telecom Service Provider Landscape
In my many years in the industry, I've seen how telecom operators often end up working with dozens of different vendors and service providers. This fragmentation can be confusing and create gaps in support.
Chetu's Unique Service Offering
1. Dedicated Level 4 Support Engineers
As one example, Chetu has made a conscious choice to invest in and retain top-tier talent across disciplines so we can truly deliver end-to-end capabilities with deep expertise under one roof.
2. Trust and Reliability in Maintaining Peak Telecom Performance
I'm proud that this enables us to offer complete lifecycle services to telecom customers at scale, with reliability and trust earned over years of dependable partnerships.
Conclusion
Summarizing the Key Insights Explored in the Article
In this article, I aimed to leverage my experience as a telecom software expert to shine a light on the critical but often misunderstood domains of software support and managed services. My goal was to bring clarity to the unique technical capabilities and business value proposition of these services for telecom operators.
The Crucial Role of Clear Definitions and Expertise in Telecom Software Support
It is my hope that the frameworks, principles, and real-world examples shared here will enable telecom companies to have more constructive and transparent conversations with their service providers. This will allow both parties to optimize relationships and unlock the full potential of software support and managed services engagements. With the accelerating pace of technological disruption in telecom, the need for specialized partnerships based on clarity, expertise and trust will only intensify. If you are in need of tailored Telecom software support services, feel free to reach out to me today!
Author Bio
Jeff Parcheta is a Sales Director at Chetu Inc., a global, custom software development company, overseeing the Facilities Management, Residential Services, Insurance, Construction, Modeling, Drafting, and AI & Machine Learning accounts. A graduate of both the University of Texas at Arlington and Nova Southeastern University, where he received his MBA, Jeff joined Chetu in 2020, where he has built a reputation as a thought leader and industry expert within the IT community. Jeff has risen through the sales department ranks, helping the company grow into an award-winning organization.
