Intermapper Helps Alcatel-Lucent Australia Locate Business

Network monitoring proves essential to providing intelligent network services

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With Intermapper’s help, Alcatel-Lucent Australia’s intelligent network services are connecting customers with businesses—hotels, restaurants, shops—in their local calling area. Obviously, those services are only valuable if they’re available and fast. Intermapper keeps tabs on the intelligent network system, providing health checks, alerting technicians to potential problems, and supplying data for capacity expansion planning—all very cost-effectively.

Serving Millions of Subscribers Every Day

As Project Director, Mobile/Fixed Systems Division, at Alcatel-Lucent Australia, Guy Bryant leads a team of developers and technicians that install systems and implement integrations into the telecommunication giant’s voice networks. The team is especially focused on intelligent network (IN) services that allow subscribers to locate businesses (hotels, restaurants, shops, etc.) via their cell phone.

IN services handle hundreds of millions of pre- and post-paid mobile calls each day. Fixed line subscribers might, for example, call a generic Pizza Hut phone number. The IN, using business rules and the caller’s phone number as a location, routes the call to the nearest Pizza Hut.

To be of value, IN services have to be constantly available and very fast.

Providing high levels of availability and performance requires keeping a careful eye on the underlying network, identifying and fixing potential problems before they cause service interruptions, and building capacity to keep pace with subscriber demand.

Network Monitoring Ensures Peak Network Performance

Guy Bryant has been an Intermapper user since 1996. Its network monitoring capabilities had served him well at Optus Vision, a previous employer where he used its network maps to diagnose issues over a widespread network that delivered broadband data, video and telephony services. Bryant also used Intermapper to monitor networks that supported all aspects of the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney from the torch relay to the game venues. He knew Intermapper was easy to use and extremely cost-effective when compared to network management systems.

At Alcatel-Lucent, systems handle all the call and data processing through TCP/IP once it’s handed over the from the telco switch’s SS7 link (E1/T1). Bryant and his team use Intermapper to check the health of those systems and connections. Network maps and alerts point out performance problems and Intermapper data is used to plan for capacity increases.

Intermapper Remote Access lets Bryant see customer sites from his central operation desk. “We are able to see just want we want through the firewall without having to introduce anything new at customer sites,” said Bryant. “Our customers are excited about this value-added service.”

Reliable Service, Phenomenal Value

“Intermapper is such a great value,” said Bryant. “The difference in cost between it and a management system like HP OpenView is phenomenal. I’ve been able to roll out Intermapper for 10% of what a network management system would cost. And Intermapper reflects network configuration changes in minutes as opposed to weeks.” That kind of cost-effective, fast, reliable service is critical to Alcatel-Lucent subscribers; especially when they have pizza cravings.

Find Performance Problems Faster with Intermapper

See how Intermapper can help you detect network issues before performance is affected. Map your network today with a free 30-day trial.

 

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