How Accelerating Network Data Analytics Gives Telcos a Competitive Edge

The telecommunications sector is growing more complex by the day. Rapidly developing technologies and fierce competition are generating petabytes of valuable network data that telcos must be equipped to understand and leverage if they want to maintain a competitive edge. Whether it’s forecasting capacity needs or monitoring network performance in real time, telcos need new analytics solutions to accelerate their network data analytics capabilities and produce actionable insights that drive real-world benefits. 

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Accelerated telecom network analytics platforms not only enable telcos to ingest massive volumes of disparate data at unprecedented speeds, but also provide highly intuitive tools that the average team member can use to perform thorough analysis of network data and uncover previously hidden patterns, trends, and insights. Investing in accelerated telecom network analytics solutions is key to optimizing operations, maximizing profitability, and future-proofing your company. Read on to learn how accelerating network data analytics can give your telco a competitive edge.
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Start with Good Network Planning

Designing an efficient network requires coordination of a wide array of components, such as asset and spares management, customer orders, field workforce management, network capacity planning, network configuration, and resource inventory. 

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Network planning solutions leverage real-time monitoring and forecasting to predict network demands and coordinate capacity expansion for maximum returns. This is especially useful for increasingly prevalent 5G use cases, such as network anomaly detection and optimizing 5G network infrastructure, in which telecom professionals must be prepared to predict and adapt to constantly fluctuating demands. 

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Leveraging the most advanced telecom network planning, design, and optimization software enables network engineers to effectively analyze massive volumes of network data and plan the most efficient network. Artificial Intelligence-powered technologies automatically identify where and why key metrics have fallen short, and fix the root cause across the full extent of the network. From there, telecom network planners can use network data for traffic forecasting and performance prediction to inform network investment planning, optimal resource allocation, coordination of resources, and implementation efficiency.
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Predicting the Future

Modern telcos can’t just respond quickly to issues as they happen – they’re expected to predict issues before they happen and be able to course correct before the customer feels a negative impact. 

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But network maintenance and performance is becoming an increasingly complex challenge as the number of telco assets is exploding. And with the added complexity of 5G infrastructure, edge network, and the Internet of Things, it is absolutely crucial for telcos to adopt accelerated telecom analytics solutions that can handle the deluge of big data generated by these assets, and that will enable telcos to perform the preventative and predictive maintenance necessary to keep them ahead of the curve. 

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Predictive analytics in telecom includes activities such as: network bandwidth checks, network hardening and densification, network security assessment, validation of antenna orientations, vegetation management, and verification and certification of service-level agreements. Operators can use accelerated telecom analytics solutions to visualize, cross-filter, and interact with these massive telco datasets, and leverage sophisticated trend analysis, pattern recognition, and cross functional data integration capabilities to easily detect equipment anomalies and patterns, predict failures before they occur, and perform corrective maintenance at the most efficient moment. 

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Predictive network maintenance keeps you one step ahead of any issues, and one step ahead of the competition. It also has major cost-saving benefits by streamlining maintenance costs through reduced equipment, inventory and operational costs, and labor; maximized production hours and asset uptime; and improve asset reliability and safety. Legacy systems cannot cope with the volume and complexity of data in the modern telco operation.
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Optimize, Optimize, Optimize…

Every industry would like to optimize every aspect of their operations. For telcos, optimization is a highly complex and challenging endeavor that requires the most advanced AI-powered technologies and automation capabilities. 

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Telecom network data analytics professionals can use accelerated network infrastructure monitoring tools to instantly query and visualize billions of interactions and continuous flows of sensor data packets across entire telecommunications networks, and use this data to quickly discover actionable intelligence regarding network performance, signal strength, and download speeds. This information drives optimization of the network infrastructure and improves the overall quality of the telecom customer user experience.

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Continuous monitoring and measuring of network traffic and performance are critical, proactive measures that accelerate analysts’ ability to determine what elements are impacting network bandwidth and latency most, such as subpar infrastructure and security, incompatible or poorly designed applications, and outdated hardware. 

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Everything from telecom network investments to truck rolls to technician skills can be optimized with the help of accelerated analytics. With millisecond querying, filtering, and visualization, accelerated telecom network analytics solutions give operators a clear view of how different factors affect the bottom line, and provide instant insights from otherwise overwhelming telco datasets. 
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Know Your Customer Better Than They Do

Let’s face it, the telecommunications sector has notoriously low rates of customer satisfaction. 

And in such a highly saturated sector composed largely of commoditized services, customer churn is at an all time high. That’s why it’s so important for telcos to provide not only exceptional network services and products, but also exceptional customer service in order to maintain a competitive edge and prevent customer churn. 

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With such stiff competition, it is essential that telcos prioritize new, innovative solutions that are most likely to transform their customers’ experience. Accelerated telecom data analytics solutions help telcos integrate things like churn rate prediction models, which use data regarding connectivity, customer accounts, demographics, geographies, and usage. These models enable telecom companies to develop micro-segmentations of customers, in which providers can gain a better understanding of customer behavior and create a more personalized and targeted approach. Advanced solutions, such as an accelerated platform for network data analytics, make it easy for analysts to analyze network activity and see when customers are utilizing less/more of a service, when to offer a more enticing package, which services to offer in the package, and how much their monthly bill should be.

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Having a clear and comprehensive view of network activity also ensures that service and care professionals are always aware of what customers are experiencing with their network. Equipped with issue resolution information and an accelerated platform for big data analytics in telecom, telco service teams can have fast, data-driven solutions ready for customers with queries or complaints, which will improve customer satisfaction and increase customer lifetime value in the long-run.
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Speed is Everything

Well, maybe not everything, but for telcos, speed is a top priority when you’re dealing with big telco data. Just how big are these data sets? The International Data Corporation estimates that by 2025 there will be approximately 41.6 billion connected devices generating 79.4 zettabytes of data. Parsing through these vast and complex network data sets to reveal insights that are critical to guiding our decision-making is a major challenge, one that accelerated solutions for analytics in the telecom sector can help solve by providing immediate access to enormous data extracts, allowing users to execute queries in milliseconds, and decreasing time to decision-quality information 

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Massive profits are hidden in telco data – profits that are likely to go untapped without tools that are robust enough to ingest, analyze, and visualize telecom data at speed and scale. Network data analytics function to help you uncover those hidden profits. Advanced solutions for analytics in telecom combine the power of interactive visual interrogation with hardware-accelerated Machine Learning capabilities and custom algorithms to get to answers at unprecedented speeds. Where legacy systems might generate network reliability reports in 20+ minutes and over 45 minutes to detect anomalies, accelerated solutions for analytics for the telecom industry can generate reports in seconds with anomaly detection down to just minutes. 

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Providers that can predict network capacity and usage patterns, have a constant real-time view of network operations, leverage automation to respond to incidents as they occur, and adopt the latest in accelerated technologies for data analytics in the telecom industry have a greater chance of keeping their customers from churning to other telcos. 
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The Heavy.AI Difference

Telecom providers that leverage accelerated network data analytics solutions can analyze data related to connectivity, performance, reliability, usage, and more, in order to glean deeper insight into their customers’ network needs, ultimately improving the user experience and optimizing customer retention in the telecom industry. 

The scale of modern telecom data, however, is often too vast and varied for legacy analytics tools, which limits telecom network analytics capabilities. With HEAVY.AI’s advanced solutions for telecom analytics use cases, analysts can quickly analyze and visualize all of their data to spot anomalies and drill down to specific network issues that can cause network inefficiencies and customer churn.