InfraCo

The business of deploying and maintaining telecommunications infrastructure has become a significant player in the sector.

Its core business involves deploying passive network infrastructure and support, as well as maintaining it, leasing it to other telecommunications operators or major internet providers for service delivery.

These infrastructures may include fixed networks (backbone, high-capacity networks, radio links, or even FTTH networks) for so-called InfraCos, or communication towers for TowerCos. Most existing InfraCos/TowerCos were born from separating a service company's (telecommunications or utilities) network assets into a new entity, often with an additional investor or for eventual sale, serving not only the parent company but other clients as well.

Challenges

Based on our experience collaborating with InfraCos, these are some of the main challenges they face:

• New Revenue Streams: Telecommunications infrastructure requires substantial investments, making it essential to continuously seek new business lines on existing networks. Advances in software-defined networks and the trend toward the API-fication of telecommunications services enable the commercialization of new services and technologies to maximize investment returns.

• Integrating New Networks: The telecommunications sector is in constant consolidation, and one of the most common growth strategies for InfraCos is acquiring new networks or establishing agreements to share existing networks. Integrating these new networks, whether through purchase or sharing, is crucial to maintaining efficient provisioning processes for offered products or solutions. Additionally, network monitoring and assurance ensure automated operations, cost reduction, and quality of service.

• Process Automation: Especially those related to commercialization, provisioning, and operations. Designing architectures and processes specifically for the telecommunications infrastructure business ensures greater automation capacity across all process stages. Enhancements in service provisioning processes and tools have a significant impact on operations, cost reduction, and efficiency.

Solutions and Services

The expertise acquired by Optare Solutions over more than 20 years of experience in the telecommunications sector has allowed us to provide the following solutions and services to address these challenges:

• OSS Assessment and Roadmap: Changes in business models necessitate a thorough review of OSS processes and systems to optimize them and adopt digital maturity models. Optare Solutions has extensive experience helping clients design the architectures they need and subsequently assisting with their implementation.
• Catalog-Based Service Order Management: The shift towards marketing diverse types of communication services or their aggregation requires greater flexibility in service provisioning. This can be achieved by separating commercial management from networks and independently managing different layers (product, service, resource), thus gaining flexibility, reducing time to market, and lowering development and operational costs.
• Inventory and Planning: Having systems for inventorying physical and logical resources, both passive and active, is essential for controlling an InfraCo's network assets. We offer solutions designed for inventory management, planning, and deployment. The reliability of these systems is crucial for integrating new networks, automating processes, and reducing operational costs.
• Zero-Touch Network Operations: Solutions designed to progressively automate network operations, starting with monitoring and network assurance and advancing towards root cause analysis and automation of resolution-oriented actions.