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How Telecoms and Cable can Leverage Big Data

Updated: Jul 24, 2020

CSP (Communication Service Providers) are traditional Telecoms and Cable Companies. Over the last ten to fifteen years the industry as seen the lines blurred between these two different service providers. Today, Telecoms and Cable companies provide almost identical services and essentially compete in the same space. We’ve seen the trend as they have positioned themselves and rebranded to become CSPs attempting to become your one-stop shop as it were for all your Broadband, Home Phone, Wireless, OTT (Over the Top), and traditional TV services. CSPs face tremendous challenges in this competitive field. They are scrambling to cost-effectively satisfy the ever-growing data and network quality expectations of their customers. The coming of 5G technology has increased pressure to grow and upgrade their existing network all at the same time. More than ever it is critical to have good data and information to make decision on all aspects of the business such as Customer Experience, Network Optimization, Network Capacity, Operations Analysis, and Investment Planning. Big Data has become one of the most strategic assets for CSPs. Legacy analytic solutions can’t keep up with the size and scale at which modern CSPs have to operate at. Increase in adoption of smartphones and growth in mobile internet, the increase in OTT services such as Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, Amazon, Disney+ are putting pressure on broadband capacity. CSPs have an advantage due to the depth of data it collects, they have access to exceptional amounts of data sources: customer profiles, device data, network data, location data, network capacity, etc. CSPs are practically sitting on a goldmine of information but are finding it difficult to derive true value from their Big Data. The successful companies are the ones who are actively embracing Big Data and Analytics to drive their business into new frontiers and improve on core business and values. The key is to be able to manage Big Data to facilitate real-time actions. Analyze and visualize complex Data records at scale is a skill set that CSPs must incorporate in all levels of business. CSPs have started using big data and real-time analytics to build capacity heat maps to monitor customer experience, and send alerts at the time of network congestion or potential outages. Targeted marketing can analyze usage patterns, billing data, support requests, and purchase history. This can lead to providing customized products. Network optimization leverages big data and analytics to effectively monitor and manage network capacity, build predictive capacity models, and use it for prioritizing and planning network expansion decisions. Capacity planning using real-time data can pinpoint congested areas and help forecast expansion for new capacity roll out. With these forecast models, CSPs can track actual versus forecasted traffic. With this information, they can fine-tune their models and adjust their investment plans.

CSPs need to be able to effectively prioritize their investments and resources based on forecasted capacity needs and will ensure they’re investing their CAPEX effectively. CSPs can use their big data not only on external decisions but they can analyze within to create Operational Analysis and drive internal efficiencies, process improvement, and cost savings around the core business operations. CSPs are now discovering there is an opportunity to Monetize their Data. All the data the CSPs are mining, modeling, aggregating, these data sets can create powerful statistics that can be of significant value to other businesses and verticals. One key area is with IoT and or M2M (Machine to Machine) developments. CSPs are exploring IoT and M2M solutions to add location-based and GIS elements to the streaming data to provide valuable insights to the enterprise verticals

CSPs have a tremendous opportunity to harness their Big Data and put it to work for them. The shear amount of data and information their business is already generating must be seen as an asset. There are emerging technologies and companies specialized in Big Data Analytics that can be powerful partners in the coming boom of 5G. These partners are ready now to work together with CSPs to move smartly and efficiently into the new Big Data landscape.


Doug McCluskey, PTech

Network & Broadband Specialist

Missing Link Technologies ltd.


This post was originally published by the above author on LinkedIn.

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