To help operators cope with the demands inherent in connecting an increasingly complex world, Ericsson introduced Tuesday a new approach to Support Services. It involves complementing Ericsson’s existing Support Services with predictive analytics and deep learning, introducing more systematic control of software changes, and speeding up network-level fault isolation and recovery.
The enhanced Ericsson Support Services offering will consist of three key areas: Predict and Prevent (available at the end of July), Analyze and Change (available now) and Isolate and Recover (available at the end of June). These new Support Services capabilities are part of Ericsson’s recently introduced Engineered Intelligence approach.
Ericsson will also provide actionable intelligence that enables operators to achieve new levels of network stability. It also delivers automation, machine learning and artificial intelligence that aim to empower Ericsson’s support engineers working with customer operations; while operators reach newer levels of network stability and focus on introducing new technologies such as virtualization, Internet of Things and 5G.
As businesses of all kinds reinvent themselves to realize the full potential of data, operator networks are coming under increasing pressure to connect anything and everything. The introduction of different use cases such as video and audio on demand, self-driving vehicles and factory automation will require network latencies under 10 milliseconds, with no room for error.
Ericsson offers support service to networks with over three billion end users, and leverages established capabilities in the Telco domain to support customers in other industries like transport, utilities and public safety, across all aspects of ICT and its evolution into cloud virtualization. Its Cloud Support provides knowledge and skills on the solution level aiming for superior end-user experience, and delivers through close collaboration with customers and building on local presence with focus on business performance and risk mitigation.
Ericsson Customer Support combines technology position with a unique mix of global and local expertise to enable operators and enterprise customers to meet their business objectives. Its support services help users take advantage of Ericsson global support insights and innovative approaches to manage the scale and complexity of network.
With the complementary capabilities from Ericsson, customers will achieve improved user experience; increased network up-time; improved operational efficiency; stability when launch new services; and the agility to handle a changing network. The Support services offerings include fast fix of critical incidents, application of predictive analytics to prevent imminent network issues, software updating, hardware services, enhanced support during special events, and support for newly added products as well as legacy products.
“As operators face increasing network complexity with the introduction of new use cases, they must become more proactive,” said Fredrik Jejdling, head of Business Area Networks at Ericsson. “Through close collaboration between our support engineers and our customers’ operations – and by making use of automation, machine learning, and other artificial intelligence techniques – we’re putting the zero-defect network vision within our customers’ reach.”
“We are working with Ericsson to explore the power of data analytics to enhance network operations,” said Rodrigo Orozco, Head of Network Operations at Entel Chile. “Together, we were able to prevent approximately 85 percent of critical incidents in the network. This proactive approach significantly reduced the impact of any network issues on our end users.”
In other trials and early deployments, Ericsson has enabled operators to achieve a near-perfect success rate in handling software changes and drastically reduced emergency recovery time from 4 hours to just 60 minutes. In one example, a European operator was able to reduce network incidents by 30 percent despite tripling the total number of upgrades per annum.
“Ericsson’s holistic approach to network operations addresses increasing complexity facing operators as they face the challenges of supporting virtualized and hybrid environments,” said Paul Rizzuto, industry analyst at GlobalData (previously Current Analysis). “The company’s connected engineers are augmenting their deep knowledge base with real-time analytics and intelligence tools to create a strong collaboration between human and machine.”
