July 14, 2007 -- Sonaecom, Portugal's main provider in the telecom, broadband, and media markets, is the latest operator to tap Telcordia for a national FTTH ¹ roll-out, to serve more than 1 million homes.
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Sonaecom is using Telcordia's suite of network planning and engineering products, including Telcordia Network Engineer, a geospatial network management system that enables comprehensive design, documentation, and management of the physical network and its associated inventory. The service provider initially deployed Telcordia Network Engineer in 2001 and uses it to support a EUR 240 million (US$354 million) FTTH network expansion that will be available to more than 2.6 million Portuguese residents by 2011.
Through the Network Engineer system, Sonaecom will track network inventory all the way to the customer residence, eliminating the time and cost of performing those tasks separately in a computer-aided-design (CAD) system. In a separate FTTH roll-out, another European company reduced planning time by 80% by using Network Engineer to automate network design and connection tasks, claims Telcordia.
"For CSPs worldwide, the decision to deploy broadband is easy. It is the execution that is daunting," says Bill Wanke, president, operations solutions, Telcordia. "Telcordia helps operators during every step of their network transformation, from planning through provisioning, to ensure a fast, efficient roll-out for even the most complex deployments. By providing deep, actionable insights into their network inventory and its capabilities, Telcordia gives CSPs the measurable performance improvements that are must-haves at a time when competition and access to capital are tougher than ever."
"Sonaecom remains steadfast in its commitment to provide market-differentiating services, and Telcordia Network Engineer has proven itself in our network to the point that it was a natural choice to expand it to our FTTH roll-out," adds Artur Loureiro, chief information officer, Sonaecom. "By modeling our entire fiber network
with Network Engineer, we can now provision millions of FTTH subscribers quickly and cost-effectively, accelerating service adoption and time to revenue."
"Smart service providers realize that an economic slump can be the best time to invest in the technologies that will determine their financial and competitive positions
long after the recession has ended," concludes Vince Vittore, principal analyst for the tech research consultancy, Yankee Group. "That is why operators such as AT&T, Free, and Telefónica Spain, as well as the governments of Australia, Greece, and the United States, are each investing billions in aggressive broadband build-outs ² that will reshape their companies and countries for the next decade. Operators must learn from prior mistakes in the broadband market where they didn't have enough capacity to support rapid uptake."
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www.telcordia.com