Communications industry test, monitoring and analytics expert EXFO announced that MTN Group has successfully deployed EXFO's Context dynamic topology platform in 14 African countries, as part of MTN's digital transformation initiative on the continent, targeting improved network inventory, security, and performance functions.
MTN is Africa's largest mobile network operator, providing voice, data, fintech, digital, enterprise, wholesale, and API services to more than 270 million customers in 19 markets.
MTN operators across Africa, including early adopters MTN Uganda and South Africa, report simplified network management and improved visibility of telecom assets using EXFO's Context platform, helping them deliver top-quality services to their mobile network customers.
EXFO contends that the Context system has enabled MTN operators to gain visibility of their end-to-end networks across all vendors and technology layers, providing a single, accurate, and up-to-date view.
With EXFO Context, MTN's network management is streamlined, improving inventory data quality and making planning and assurance processes more robust.
Related: EXFO, Telescent partner on physical layer network automation diagnostics
Leveraging EXFO's automated updates, change audit, and service impact analysis capabilities, MTN operators can quickly grasp the state of their network, assess the impact of faults or planned maintenance activity, and understand whether detected changes have received the necessary approval from a change management process perspective.
EXFO Context uses native graph database technology and a semantic modelling framework to deliver the end-to-end dynamic view of networks, services, and customer dependencies enabling key automation use cases. Automation relieves pressure on network managers, providing them with the right information at the right time to make informed decisions.
Digital transformation of the network is a top priority for MTN and rolling out EXFO's solution will accelerate innovation and support the adoption of new technologies. This is particularly important at a time when delivering reliable service performance is made more difficult by the increased complexity of the network and related service assurance processes. The introduction of new technologies such as 5G, network virtualization, and programmable networking contribute to greater complexity, increasing the need for better end-to-end visibility.
EXFO experts will be on hand at the Mobile World Congress (MWC 2023) in Barcelona, Spain from Feb. 27 – March 2.
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Wim te Niet, Vice President EMEA, EXFO, commented:
"As demands on network infrastructure continue to grow, service assurance has become increasingly important to streamline and automate the processes that support the network. Of critical importance is the ability to map network topology, providing visibility to all the elements within the network and ensuring integrity of data to enable ongoing digital transformation. EXFO is delighted that Context has delivered these capabilities to 14 MTN operating companies including early adopters Uganda and South Africa, and we look forward to seeing operators across the MTN Group enable more automated operational processes with our service assurance solution."
Amith Maharaj, MTN Group CTO said:
"MTN Group is committed to our digital transformation journey to improve the flexibility and variety of services we're able to efficiently deliver to our customers. That can only be possible by equipping our networks and teams with the best possible solutions. EXFO Context has proven to be an impactful contributor to better manage our networks by tracking our active network assets and ensuring that defined change management processes are adhered to."
Lloyd Mphahlele, MTN Group GM: Transport and OSS Tools, remarked:
"The transformation journey of deploying the EXFO Context platform across our markets was enormous and exciting at the same time. I appreciate what EXFO and MTN have managed to accomplish as partners, to address the complexity in the network domain and create a single pane end-to-end view, that has significantly improved our operations."
Ali Monzer, CTIO, MTN Uganda, explained:
"At MTN Uganda, a larger portion of our planning and operation team is currently using the EXFO platform, with the ability to rapidly check the status of the network elements 24/7. The benefit of this extends far beyond our network administrators, having created another layer of transparency for our finance and resourcing teams that rely on network data to guide their budgeting decisions. If an asset running on the network fails, is removed, or altered, we are able to see these changes within minutes – which is a key capability for increased network visibility and performance and to detect any unauthorized changes that might have impact on our revenue or the company."
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