As part of Operational Separation, Telecom must comply with a complex set of undertakings which affect the way its IT systems are managed. At the same time the telco’s shared services division is grappling with providing IT systems to support next-generation networks in both the fi xed and mobile space. Sarah Putt looks at the progress being made.Telecom is undergoing a massive period of transformation. It must make the transition from the rigid PSTN world with its proscribed end-to-end solutions to the next generation of packet-based IPbased voice and data services. And that’s just in the fi xed-line space. The company built and launched a new 3G network thisyear and is currently operating two parallel mobile networks.Integral to this programme of work is the legal requirement to operationally separate into three divisions: retail (includes Gen-i and AAPT), wholesale, and network arm Chorus. A set of undertakings has been agreed to with the government and if milestones are not met on agreed-to dates, the company may befi nancially penalised (see pg1 for latest).At its AGM, Telecom Chairman Wayne Boyd described the work being done to enable new services and operational separation as “the mother of all IT programmes”.He told the audience that it was “a fundamental rebuilding of every aspect of our business”, that the “stakes are higher than ever”, but that “Telecom must be strong for New Zealand to survive”. There are 8500 (7000 in NZ), people employed in Telecom, and its CEO Paul Reynolds, who spoke after Boyd, assured the audience that despite the workload there was a 10% increase in staff engagement. “They’re up for it like never before in the company’s history,” he said.Arguably the heaviest burden has fallen to those responsible for transforming Telecom’s IT systems: the shared services IT division, whose task it is to ensure Telecom’s shared information systems are ‘data compliant’. These systems must be upgraded to deny some employees access to information they are not permitted to see as per the Undertakings (for example, Chorus’s confi dential customer information can’t be viewed by those working for wholesale, retail or Gen-i).Every day at 8am, the top brass in IT shared services meet in the ‘control room’ to monitor progress. GM for programme delivery Marc Rackett says extra governance has had to be put in place to ensure each milestone is met on time.“At the moment the engine is running red, but we’re holding it together,” he says.Rackett was poached from Vodafone two years ago to build the XT Network. Once that was up and running, they handed him the task of IT programme delivery. He’s got about 500 people working for him, and he’s divided the majority of his team into the following verticals:Fixed – legacy networks such as PSTN and POTS, as well as NGN or IP–based services.Mobile – CDMA and WCDMA networks, includes all mobile innovation such as HSPA+ and mobile TV.IT – all IT systems, including data separation and transformation to IP-based services.ADMS – Application, Delivery, Maintenance and Support.Integration deliveries – configuration of IT solutions for Telecom systems. It’s Rackett’s job to ensure that all five verticals are achieving their individual programme of work in harmony with each other.“If one of the domains is ahead and the others are behind, my job is to keep them all in sync because there are dependencies across each of the domains,” he says.Sitting alongside the verticals in Rackett’s team is the Enterprise Project Offi ce, which must ensure that every innovation and every system alteration meets with strict governance standards before it can be implemented into the network. The four ‘gates’ each piece of work must pass through are as follows:1. Initiation phase – projects are scoped to determine if can it be done, how much it will cost, how long it will take, etc.2. Requirements and design phase – high level concepts are turned into detailed designs3. Build4. LaunchRackett is one of seven managers reporting directly to the Chief Technology Officer. The other roles include GM of design, GM of operational production, and Chief Information Officer for Shared Services Technology and Shared Services, Mark Beder.Beder has a team of around 120, and his role is to determine that plan of work over the next 18 months, and also manage the Business Analyst team which is responsible for the requirements of the individual projects.He’s got to ensure that every system change is not only effective and data compliant, but is future-proofed. So the first thing he steers clear of is bespoke solutions.“The real challenge for telcos is making sure that they configure the application sets they buy, as opposed to customising and making it very specific to the business,” he says. “It’s very much about configuring the toolset that you have.”Industry standard systems fit the move to IP-based voice and data products and are different to systems for the PSTN, with its rigid end-to-end solutions which meant every new telco product required a new IT system to support it.In the PSTN world ICMS is the piece of core infrastructure that sits at the heart of Telecom’s IT systems. It’s like a box containing all of Telecom’s products and services, everything mixed up together, making it harder to separate what relates to the fixed network (which 90% of New Zealanders use every day to connect to the Internet) from what is company-specific information, such as customer details.See Diagram 1Over time Telecom will empty out ICMS. It began with a move to a new billing system a couple of years ago, and the company is now building new information pathways. These will ensure Telecom’s rivals in the retail market, such as Orcon and Vodafone, have the same access (called Equivalence of Inputs) as Telecom Retail and Gen-i when it comes to the fixed line infrastructure managed by Telecom Wholesale and Chorus. See Diagram 2It isn’t only new pathways that are being created; in some instances entirely new systems are being built.For example, information about Telecom’s inventory currently resides in a number of places, including ICMS. Telecom has purchased a Netcracker solution and is in the process of transferring all the information about inventory into this solution. Fixed network assets, such as copper, are tracked and stored in such a way that information about it can be accessed without confidential customer information being revealed.Inventory is part of the Operation Support Systems layer, or backend function of Telecom’s network. For the front end, Rackett’s team is currently building business-to-business portals which will enable account managers to log on and order services directly from Telecom Wholesale or Chorus.But, as Beder points out, creating new systems is complicated and only half the job. Migrating and integrating the information successfully can be even more challenging.“It’s not just the building, it’s the migrating,” says Beder. His team, in conjunction with Rackett’s team, must work out how to migrate enormous amounts of critical information from one system to another, change the way it is identified and accessed, and all without slowing down the business or damaging the network.“We’re building the foundational systems that will take us from the legacy world to the new world, creating whole new technology stacks,” he says.“There are so many moving parts in everything that you’re doing. You wake up in the middle of the night wondering about it.”
