Huawei Technologies ("Huawei"), a leader in providing next-generation telecommunications network solutions for operators around the world, announced the successful live deployment of NGBSS solution in Cell C, South Africa.
With this world-class NGBSS solution going live, Cell C can now focus its valuable resources on rolling out and delivering compelling end-user services and experiences in the marketplace.
Specifically, Cell C is now able to bill for its post-paid, prepaid and hybrid services in real-time, and in one single bill for all services. This provides Cell C with sustainable advantages of rapid time-to-market, cost-efficiency, and enhanced customer experience in today's competitive environment.
As Cell C's strategic partner, Huawei understands the critical business challenges it faces in an increasingly competitive market driven by services convergence and customer sophistication. Leveraging on extensive telecommunications and IT experience and expertise, and the findings from in-depth benchmarking analysis of Cell C's current business and operations, Huawei has supported Cell C's business and strategic transformation through the delivery of an end-to-end NGBSS solution.
This solution suite, implemented based on applications of industry best practices, includes customer relationship management (CRM), IP contact centre(IPCC), convergent billing system (CBS), partner relationship management (PRM), mediation and provisioning.
“This is a historical achievement and a significant milestone in the partnership and alignment between Cell C and Huawei,” said David Wang, Deputy COO for Huawei Africa. “We are honoured that Cell C has chosen us as their strategic partner on such a vital project. We are committed to continue to support Cell C's strategic transformation with our cutting-edge technology, customer-centric approach, and advanced deployment methodology.
Cell C CEO, Lars P Reichelt, said the new system enables the company to launch innovative and unique products and services to the market, reduce time to market for new products, and more importantly, address issues previously experienced by customers around billing.
Reichelt said nothing of this scale and sort has ever been done in such a short timeframe anywhere in the world. “The entire switch-over to the new system took 18 hours. You just have to look at some of our competitors to see the length of time it has taken them to replace a billing system. With our partner Huawei we replaced three systems in one go. In addition, all existing products, services and customers had to be migrated from our legacy system onto the new system. The speed at which this was done is very unique and something that you usually only see with a start-up.”
Reichelt added that the successful upgrade was largely due to an incredible team effort and will to make it happen by Huawei and Cell C.
Michael Ansley, Cell C Program Director, stated: “The detailed planning, dry runs, and data migration testing were key in the success of the cutover. Without the planning and support from our partner Huawei, the migration of this large number of subscribers on 128 different platforms to the new solution would not have been possible.”
Ron Reddick, Cell C CIO, said: “The weekend process was executed to a strict timetable, with the actual transfer of services only taking five hours, leading into six hours of extensive post-migration testing. Cell C shops and retail outlets were back online doing business by noon on Sunday. The dedication of the whole team and the commitment from Huawei senior executives in China made this one of the smoothest migrations I have ever been a part of. The continued support post cutover has allowed us to make smooth progress in the final post cutover steps and has resulted in minimal impact to our subscriber base.”
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