Mobilink NOC Dept.

By Faras Rafiq
Ex- NOC (NSS) Engineer

Mobilink NOC

Telecom Companies in Pakistan

Telecommunication is one largest revenue

generating industry in Pakistan.
Currently the following companies are
operating in Pakistan
Mobilink
Ufone
Warid
Telenor

WorldCall
Wateen
PTCL
China-Tel (Paktel)

Cost Comparison
Services
Mobile Sim
Local Call Rates
Local SMS
MMS

Cost in Australia
(AUS$)
$2-4

Cost in Pakistan
(AUS$)
$0.77

$0.8/Min

$0.027/Min peak time,

$ 0.077/ HOUR at night

$0.25/SMS

For $1.15 you can get

1000 SMS

$0.5/MMS

$0.04/MMS

Mobilink earns AUS $15 Million/day by only voucher

recharge, where as Mobilink biggest customer is Post paid

History of Mobilink

Mobilink is owned by Orascom Telecom (OT)

which is an Egyptian based company,it also owns
MobiNil and BanglaLink.
Mobilink was established in 1999 and it is the
largest Telecom Company in Pakistan.
35 Million+ subscribers by March 2008.
(compared to 21.4 Million population of Australiaon 9 Sep 2008 14:35).
60 MSCs,650+ BSCs and 7000+ Cell sites across
Pakistan.
How to Manage such a large network !!!!

History of Mobilink NOC

A centralized OMCR (Radio Network) was

established in 2000 in Lahore.
Performed Fault and Configuration management
for BSCs and BTS only.
During 2006-2007 Mobilink faced a loss of US$ 60
Million due to Network Down time.
In 2007, Mobilink decided to establish a complete
NOC for end to end visibility which included
Access, Core, TXN, IN and VAS.

Departmental Organization of
Mobilink

TMN Model

Network Element
The following Network Elements are monitored in Mobilink.
Access side:
BSCs (Alcatel,Motorola, Huawei)

BTS

Individual Cell Sites.

Core Side:
MSCs (Siemens,Alcatel,Huawei,Nokia)

HLS (Motrolla).

STP ( Tekelec)
IN & Vas side:
IN Platforms (Siemens)

SGSN
(Alcatel)

GGSN
(Alcatel)

SMSC
(Logica)

IVRs

PRBTs

USSD
TXN side:
Optical Fiber and ATM nodes (Huawei)

Element Management
Following EMSs are deployed in Mobilink
Access Side:
Motorola OMC

Alcatel OMC

Huawei OMC
Core side:
Siemens SCR

Alcatel NMC

Huawei iManager

NetBoss
IN & Vas side

@comms

OMC-PS
TXN side

Huawei iManager

Network Management

EMS provide Fault and Configuration capabilities for their

respective NEs.
Alarm Types, Commands syntax and terminologies for hardware
are different for each vendor.
Separate Teams and trainings required for each domain of
elements.
Mobilink opted for a NMS solution called TeMIP
(Telecommunication Management Information Platform) provided
by HP.
One platform for all entities, translate all alarm types to standard
format, convert generalized commands to individual EMSs syntax.
A single Team required to handle problems from all types of
Network Elements.

Service Management

NOC engineers use TeMIP (NMS) to perform Fault and

Configuration Management to provide services to the
subscriber.
Special software are used to analyze the performance of
individual NEs and give their feed back to operations and
planning departments.
Create Weekly, Monthly downtime and response time
reports for higher management to analyze and devise
strategies for future expansions and improvements.
Thats the reason NOC is given the name
Eyes and Heart of a Network !!!

Business Management

Managers and Specialists are responsible for

proper functionality of NOC department.
Analyze reports and identify areas of
improvement and devise strategies to reduce
network downtime.
Take up issues with Operations and Planning
department
These are the people who decide investing on
Capex (US$80 Million TeMIP project) to reduce
Opex .

TeMIP NMS

In terms on FCAPS TeMIP provides F,C,P,S.

TeMIP provides the following functionality to NOC
Engineer.
Automatic Trouble Ticket creation.
Tap Filter (Block unwanted alarms).
Corrective Filter (User friendly format).
Correlations (Handle complex scenarios).
Transient Filters (Avoid Fluctuations).
Outage Management (Planned Activity).
Routine checks .

TeMIP NMS

an engineer opined to the author that network

management is best described as all aspects of devising
and operating networks that no one knows how to
automate D. Comer.
On average 280,000 alarms are received a day. These
alarms are handled by 50 NOC engineers
Most of the alarms are fluctuations or straight forward and
can be easily automated.
Automated systems cannot match human decision making.
For example Fiber break, Outage due to Power issues.
A single 16 STM Fiber break will generate nearly 77,500
alarms alone. The process can be automated but infeasible
in terms of time, computational and resource cost.

Network Management Protocols

SNMP
(UDP Based)
Q3
(TCP Based)
CORBA
(TCP Based)

Architecture of TeMIP

OVSD Trouble Ticketing System

OVSD Trouble Ticketing System

All Trouble Tickets created are stored in an oracle

database.
These trouble tickets are notified to the relevant
persons by automatic E-mail or SMS.
The on-site engineer accepts the T.T via e-mail or
sms which indicates that the problem is under
investigation.
Any change in the status of the T.T is notified and
once the issue is resolved the on-site engineer
inform the reason via e-mail or sms and the T.T is
closed.
This T.T system is given the name OVSD.

Configuration Management

TeMIP has the functionality to provide

Configuration Management without
worrying about the underlying Network
Element.
Provides a standard GUI form with
mandatory fields highlighted for particular
tasks.
Once a command is executed, it is
converted into the syntax understood by
the respective EMS.

Performance Management

Performance Management

TeMIP provides statistical displays of T.T created

for each type of problems in a day.
It provides easy extractable Excel file for creating
reports.
It provides MAPs to readily identify problems in
the network
All these features are used by Management
(Managers, HODs, Directors, CTO) to determine
in one look how a network is performing.

Alarm Text of SNMP Alarm

N1_L3MTP:Signalling link failed (stopped), LINK=STK1BL16,

A tiIncTrapCleared trap was received from 10.14.2.30 at 274693740.
DESCRIPTION: Trap issued by the INC to an OS with a severity value of
'cleared'. The objects contained in the variable binding list are scalar
objects ( with index 0 ).
VARIABLES:
tiAlarmDateTime=20080801182933+0600,
tiAlarmReportingObject={ 1 3 6 1 4 1 231 7 99 4 1000 0 },
tiAlarmFaultyObject={ 1 3 6 1 4 1 231 7 99 47 1000 99 9 1 1 8 78 49 95
76 51 77 84 80 },
tiAlarmEventTypeId=communicationsAlarm,
tiAlarmSeverity=cleared,
tiAlarmErrorID=1179650,
tiAlarmEndKey=true,
tiAlarmDescription=N1_L3MTP:Signalling link failed(stopped),
LINK=STK1BL16,
tiAlarmSequenceNumber=47066365, tiAlarmSourceName=in9ce1-core2,

1.3.6.1.4.1.231.7 iso.org.dod.internet.private.enterprises.sni.siemensUnits

Countries where TeMIP is used for

Network Management
France
Singapore
Peru
Canada
Taiwan
China
UK

References
Mobilink NMS Ph2 Functional
Specifications v1.0-S
http://www.mobilinkgsm.com
Price comparison figures taken from
optus brochure
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs
@.nsf/94713ad445ff1425ca2568200
0192af2/1647509ef7e25faaca2568a
900154b63?opendocument

THANK YOU for your time

ANY Questions !!!!!!!