Telefónica says that the new centre will support its transition from a network-centric operation towards a more customer-centric operation with a strong focus on customer experience.
During a media briefing today, for which Capacity was present questions were raised about SOC and its ability to have prevented the infamous data outage suffered by Telefónica UK in December of las year.
In response, Brendan O’Reilly, CTO, Telefónica said: “would SOC have made a difference during the outage? Probably not. It terms of how we recovered and then interacted moving forward, then yes. Having real time analytics and data would help every relationship. But remember SOC is predictive and has that forward-looking element to the service not the network elements.”
When pressed on whether Telefónica has plans to introduce something like SOC on the network side of things, he added: “we already do that in terms of network assurance. As for the incident that happened last year we are working with Ericsson to ensure that certain things are in place, and we’re having those conversations now. I cannot comment until the conversations conclude but we are speaking to them specifically about the incident. Do we have controls in place for our network? We absolutely do. “
Under the terms of the partnership, this will be an 18 month project, during which Nokia will deploy its evolved Service Operation Centre (eSOC) platform for all of Telefónica UK’s 32 million customers.
“Telefónica is pioneering the transformation toward customer-centric operations with the deployment of Nokia eSOC, said Bhaskar Gorti, president of Nokia Software. “Nokia is proud to support Telefonica’s digital transformations and SOC deployments across the globe and with the flexibility to adapt to existing ecosystems in local markets.”
Leveraging AI and Machine Learning, the eSOC Platform interfaces with Telefónica UK systems and data sources, allowing the company to monitor customer experience, proactively predict and recommend actions based on trends.
“With SOC we have already transformed three of our markets reaching the next level in automated customer experience management, granting us flexibility and adaptability that serves as a key differentiator,” said Juan Manuel Caro, director of network and IT operations at global CTIO at Telefónica.
The new SOC will also prepare Telefónica for the requirements of 5G, said Brendan O’Reilly, CTO, Telefónica. “Its all about customer experience not investment. It’s about delivering new services efficiently and with the machine learning and AI capabilities in SOC, we have deliver that.”
5G will require service providers to differentiate from the rest and create that much needed business case. It’ll be about services and gaming that all require the lowest latency,” added Tim Smith, Nokia’s European vice president of software.
