infraSTAT’s passive operations management system rolled out by Africa Towers and NSN

infraSTAT’s telecom analytics based passive operations management system is being used to manage 10,000 towers across ten different countries in Africa. infraSTAT deciphers and combines data from RMS sensors, OSS external alarms, infraSTAT’s own field force governance interface, financial, contractual and procurement sources to provide a real time flow of information that improves visibility into cell site operations, and enables the transition from of reactive to preventative management of the network.

TowerXchange: What is infraSTAT’s role in the telecom tower industry?

infraSTAT has evolved over the last three years from a real time status reporting and field force governance system to become a comprehensive passive operations management system for telecom towers.

Our system was piloted by NSN in Uganda in 2010 as a fuel management system, and subsequently evolved to provide robust real time status reporting and field force governance for other important passive operations activities like PM and breakdowns, using mobility tools and analytics. Today, infraSTAT is capable of collecting all passive operations data by writing interfaces to collect inputs from hardware and IT systems that are already in place; this data is then cross-pollinated using infraSTAT’s analytics engines to give rich insights and visibility across passive operations.

For example, today we can tell operations which alarms are working or are faulty. Or we can correlate a supposed PM visit with a door alarm, thus adding validation. When alarms are unavailable we use geo-location of the field-force’s mobile for governance. Operations in Africa need this multi-pronged approach.

TowerXchange: Forgive the simple question, but do you produce hardware such as RMS sensors, or do you focus on data analysis? If so, do you locate an analyst in the customer’s NOC?

We’re a software and hardware integration player - we don’t produce the physical sensors.

We provide analytics systems in the cloud, though we can also work in-premise - but we don’t put analysts in the tower operator’s NOC.

TowerXchange: Please introduce infraSTAT’s fuel monitoring capabilities.

infraSTAT provides a real time information flow for tower operators and subcontractors. Without a system like ours, variations in monthly opex, fuel and service bills can be very hard to reconcile, and tough to fit into a monthly close cycle.

We found that, as tower operators sought to create efficient fuelling systems and processes, even the best operations managers would struggle with visibility into activity of individual technicians and individual activity level sights. We identified a need for a process and mechanism to improve control, as previously many operations and maintenance schedules were run in a very reactive mode.

TowerXchange: How does your solution empower field teams to gather data on fuel and maintenance of towers?

We equip the field force and subcontractors with real time data, be that automatic scheduling of fueling or a PM technician getting details of the equipment and spare parts they need to resolve any given alert.

infraSTAT analyses, okays or flags individual transactions - so operations managers need only look at flagged transactions, and the system escalates as needed. Every flagged transaction requires operations or subcontractor explanations and approval, so you can tell who is approving and when they’re closing a task, which helps prevent deferring maintenance task completion until the end of an audit period.

Many companies remain reliant on legacy paper-based systems that fail if a critical member of staff leaves. Data hygiene is critical in passive infrastructure management. Without a system like infraSTAT, your asset registry will quickly slip out of date.

TowerXchange: How has infraSTAT enabled your clients to progress from reactive to preventative management?

We progressed from fuel monitoring to analysing a broader set of data, enabling preventative management. We’ve used mobile and web dashboards to create an information flow for field activities for sub-contractors and the operations management team at the Towerco or MNO.

So we integrate more than just information about fuelling - we found there is a great deal of value in cross-pollinating data from other activities. We’ve combined fuel monitoring with PM and breakdown data - and we have added the capacity to process OSS data. In a lot of cases where there was a breakdown, we found that the site had a history of over or under maintenance.

We find that the more data sources we can integrate, the more bang for the buck we can provide to our clients. We’re currently writing interfaces to equipment monitoring systems such as Inala’s and IPMS. We’re not just gathering remote monitoring data on hardware, but also integrating financial and contract management data, which helps tower operators review and negotiate service level agreements.

We use and update the fixed asset registry for our clients. Asset registries in Africa can be inaccurate and out of date - for example a battery swap or even a generator replacement is often not updated to the asset registry, but now any omissions can be audited and traced to the subcontractor or individual responsible. So asset registers get cleaner and more comprehensive the longer you use infraSTAT.

TowerXchange: Our readers always want to know how proven your solution is in Africa?

We’ve been working with NSN in Africa for almost three years. After our successful pilot, we signed a pan-Africa contract with NSN in April 2011, and commenced deployment in Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya in June 2011, later adding two more geographies.

In 2012 we added preventative maintenance and breakdown modules, again signing a pan-African contract with NSN. We’ve deployed these modules with NSN in Tanzania for its Vodacom and Airtel networks.

TowerXchange: I understand infraSTAT is also being used by Africa Towers.

We’ve deployed infraSTAT with Africa Towers in five geographies to date: Madagascar, Kenya, Rwanda, Chad and DRC. We’re hoping to increase to cover their entire installed base in the coming year.

We started working with Africa Towers in July 2013, with whom we’ve deployed the entire infraSTAT suite. They needed visibility about daily activity and interfaces with hardware at sites to improve operational efficiency. Africa Towers is using our information for fuelling, maintenance, breakdowns and integrating OSS reports.

TowerXchange: How have you had to adapt your solutions to meet the unique requirements of African tower operators?

When we deployed our mobile app during our pilot in Uganda, we found that many members of the field force did not have phones that could run an app. So we changed the backend to SMS to support people without smartphones.

We’ve had to be adaptable as NSN and Africa Towers have extended their rollout of infraSTAT, for example by having a French language interface ready.

We’re finding that users will use our system in different ways than we necessarily expected. For example, one of our clients deployed a power management system to automatically switch from DG to using battery power when fully charged, but found that when they heard the DG fall silent, site security would often manually switch the DG back on! Thanks to visibility into the site made possible by infraSTAT, we can now send clear instructions to security not to intervene manually unless infraSTAT sends them a message.

TowerXchange: When analysing cell site performance efficiency, why is it important to combine data from different sources?

I’ll use an analogy to explain. Monitoring passive infrastructure in telecoms is like an army of ants looking for food - if you use only a few chosen battalions, then you are going to be in trouble if two battalions get trampled on under a camper’s boot. We deploy all our battalions - we gather all the data on passive infrastructure, juxtapose that with other data to create a common, cross-organisation platform to collect, correlate, cross-pollinate and analyse data on a real time, daily and historical basis. This enables us to undertake variance analysis, comparing actual performance to expectation, which for example can enable the site owner to evaluate RoI in hybrid energy solutions.

infraSTAT has an experienced team of data and analytics professionals in Bangalore who use automation to bring these different data sources together and deliver them to the client through web dashboards with status reports and governance processes, which can be drilled down to site, equipment and activity level.