Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Mumbai, India: Next generation telecoms: TCS's 5G solution

Written answers to the questions

June 2023

Total 349 words used.

Following on the heels of 3G and 4G, you’d be forgiven for thinking that 5G is just the next step in the progression of mobile connectivity, offering a bit more speed and availability. But the advent of 5G has brought much faster speeds, much more capacity, and much lower latency than previous generations – and opened a whole new landscape for network providers.

For one multinational telecoms company, providing mobile and Internet services via a manual Mobile Private Network (MPN) was no longer an option – especially when the company’s key strategic objective is to increase its enterprise customer base and open new sources of income.

The telecoms giant needed to create a robust and scalable platform for delivering demand-driven 5G across the Nordics, which would allow a self-service setup.

A collaborative solution

In June 2023, the company partnered with long-term strategic ally TCS, as well as Nokia and Red Hat, to deliver a cutting-edge MPN-as-a-service solution to allow businesses to create and manage their own private mobile networks using 5G technology.

TCS used a project to automate MPN deployment for the Norwegian MoD as a template for large-scale enterprise implementations and designed a solution with three main parts:

• Using its experience in cloud-native and micro-service architectures (where development is carried out in small, independent parts), TCS built a self-service platform that allows business customers to ask for, set up, and check their MPN services through a simple user interface. The platform handles the whole ordering process – while ensuring seamless integration with existing systems.
   
• Nokia created an Orchestration Center for automatic deployment of MPN in the 5G SA core (the central part of the 5G network that controls and manages functions and services). This used network slicing to create dedicated virtual networks for each customer, with customized performance, security, and quality parameters.
   
• Collaboration among TCS, Nokia, and Red Hat allowed automation of the deployment of infrastructure, network services, and applications from multiple vendors in a cloud-native way. This enabled the quick provisioning and scaling of MPN services, as well as the flexibility to add new features and functionalities.

Total 328 words used.

Results beyond expectations

TCS and the business client successfully developed a seamless self-service platform that allows single-click network slicing, resulting in the following achievements:

• Rapid deployment: Eliminating the need for multiple administrators to configure different nodes has reduced deployment time from 2-3 days to just 20-30 minutes – offering network operators a shorter time to market and rapid scaling, allowing them to offer premium services and the opportunity to monetise 5G capabilities effectively.
   
• Improved efficiency: Automated active monitoring functionality have saved the time spent in detecting faults and enhanced time to resolution.
   
• Enhanced flexibility: The multi-vendor 5G SA core network provided the flexibility to choose the most cost-effective network functions, avoiding vendor lock-in and reducing costs. On-demand scaling allowed operators to decommission and redeploy services as needed, maximizing resource utilization and reducing over-dimensioning.
   
• Customer engagement and revenue growth: All of the above, as well as automating processes has freed up operators to respond to customers promptly – in turn leading to  increased customer satisfaction and longer customer retention. What’s more, operators can accommodate an increased number of customers with improved value-added features and service quality, bolstering the potential for revenue generation.

A critical element for success was the combination of skills and knowledge from TCS, Nokia, and Red Hat, who all collaborated to ensure the solution had all the elements to deliver the above results. Indeed, this combination of expertise created a solution so impressive that the four companies set up a joint innovation lab to show the platform's capabilities to the Norwegian MoD and other B2B customers.

The company has enhanced its operational efficiency, revenue potential, and customer satisfaction by shifting from manual processes to an automated 5G system. This fast deployment and monetization capability of 5G services has led to additional revenue and kept the business on track to achieve its strategic objectives.

In fact, the solution puts the business ahead in the telecom industry's evolution and offers a strong framework to enable upcoming digital changes.

Total 14 words used.

Please see the supporting document for extra detail on the development of the solution.