CoFuture helps HITL future-proof its network

Punita Jasrotia/New Delhi

According to Anupam Swarup, a GIS solution was the need of the hour for HITL

After the take over of Essar, Himachal Futuristic Infotel Limited (HITL) was in a fix as to how to start the basic Telephony service. Though the company had the license to start their service in Punjab and the requisite amount of manpower, they did not have a system in place that could manage different Network Elements such as the telephone exchange, cables, pillars and the subscriber. In order to solve this problem, the company approached Consoli-dated Futuristic Solution (a.k.a CoFuture, the software company of HFCL) in May 1999 to set up a Telecom Network management System.

Says Anupam Swarup, vice president-operations, HFCL and head of CoFuture, “The company was facing a very basic yet difficult situation of identifying the ‘resource’ (i.e. identification of a faulty cable from a maze of cables) laid underground. This problem was assuming alarming proportions as they just had manually-made Land base maps for their assistance, which were hardly of any use. The need was for a Geomatics-based Information System (GIS), which could not only be time and cost effective, but also help in using the ‘digitised maps’ and integrating the ‘location based spatial data’ to resolve and streamline the management operations.” CoFuture developed a GIS based solution called the ‘Outside Plant Management System’, which looked into the enablement of better management of OSP Network Elements (NEs), Service Provisioning and provided better Fault Management assistance.

To start with, HFCL divided the whole project into five phases. The first phase research and analysis, involved understanding the requirements of the network, availability of resources, facility and manual Land base maps. As part of the first phase, the company decided to digitise the Landbase maps.

After that the company went in for its second phase called the ‘design stage’ wherein it designed the entire network. The aim was to make the identification of cables more easier, besides taking care of the accessibility factor of complete exchange data, facility planning, wait list management, area transfer and optimum routing of cables.

However, the company’s main focus was on ‘service provisioning’ (which takes care of the provisioning, de-provisioning and shifting needs of a connection) and ‘fault management’ (which takes care of any kind of fault arising in the system) modules. This is applicable for both Wireline and Wireless services. As part of this phase, the provisioning module was deployed for checking the availability of resources, reserving them, and finally generating a new circuit for the subscriber. “In case resources are not available and the subscriber wants to be wait-listed, the record is added to the wait-list. After the work order is generated, the billing centre provides the telephone number and the subscriber ID to the Loop Allocation Centre (LAC), while the ‘de-provisioning module’ helps in releasing existing ‘circuit resources’ attached to a telephone connection, which has to be disconnected on a subscriber’s request,” says Swarup. The shifting module in the system helps change request of a subscriber. This has to fall in namely five types change of name, change of telephone number, address, migration from wireless to wireline service and fault management assistance.

The fault management module in the system takes care of the details of the subscriber who has a faulty telephone. Its task is made easier through the assistance of route tracing (it helps in locating the faulty circuit in the network) and history maintenance (which helps in managing the fault history of the NEs).

The third stage was the ‘development phase’, in which CoFuture designed the whole project on Windows NT, Oracle for its database management requirements and ‘Geomedia Professional’ as the GIS tool. “The system helped in capturing the NEs, as they were created on the ground in a GIS system and stored their non-spatial attributes in a database. This in turn, was used by the provisioning department in generating circuits for new telephone connections, shifting of a connection, as well as de-reserving of a circuit (on subscriber’s request for disconnection ) for the subscriber,” he said. The system also helps in managing the Access Network of the NEs and the ‘Backbone & Backhaul Network’ of NEs.

The fourth stage is the ‘parallel phase’ where CoFuture expects to identify and meet the requirements which might have been overlooked in the development phase. The fifth stage is ‘project monitoring and execution’, which involves plan modifications, notifications and information exchange. Though the company is still in its fourth stage, through the implementation of OPMS it expects to double or triple its subscriber base in the next couple of years.