MasOrange, which is undergoing a solid and promising adjustment process after the merger of Orange and MásMóvil, has announced its decision on one of the issues that were pending. It is about choosing the company that will be in charge of managing the cable network of the group’s operators in the northern area, such as Euskaltel and R, in addition to its television services.
MasOrange executives had received several proposals to see who they would choose to handle this supervision process. In the end, the company chosen was ZTE Managed Services Southern Europe, the Chinese company that had made, according to the operator, the best proposal on a technical level.
The contract will start on December 1st
For the moment, ZTE has this contract for an initial duration of two years, but it has been confirmed that, once this period has passed, it will be renewed on an annual basis, year after year. An important fact to bear in mind is that the amount of the contract, which has not been disclosed, will be adjusted depending on the activity of the services that ZTE has to manage at any given time.
The explanation for this is that ZTE’s work will focus on the legacy cable network that uses HFC, a technology that has already become outdated ahead of the performance offered by current FTTH fiber. This means that, over time, there will be less and less dependence and use of the services that ZTE will manage, so its contract will be adjusted based on the responsibilities that it still has.
It must be said, however, that the management of this HFC cable network used by Euskaltel, R and Telecable is combined in the contract with the management of the television platforms used by these three operators. In addition to this, Euskaltel’s core network also depends on it, so ZTE will have an important responsibility in its hands from December onwards.
What will be ZTE’s role?
They will be in charge of managing both the Business Operation Services and the NOC (Network Operation Center) of the brands that MásMóvil had in the northern part of the country. As we have already said, these are Telecable, which has a presence in Asturias, R, which is in Galicia, and Euskaltel, which covers the Basque Country with great popularity.
To carry out its work, ZTE will have a team of 100 highly trained and capable people. Their role will be to manage the cable for both the business and residential services offered by these operators, offering, among other things, permanent network monitoring. They will provide this service with the 24x7x365 formula that is essential in this type of service on which so many people depend. The service they will provide will be a comprehensive solution that will also focus on resolving incidents so that Euskaltel, R and Telecable customers do not have anything to worry about.
In addition to this, the Chinese company will also be responsible for performance management, related technical support, implementation of changes or configuration of the network. Its responsibilities will include services focusing on security management and operational documentation management, to mention just a few of its tasks. It will also be responsible for ensuring that the network improves, preventing incidents and taking into account any evaluation with the intention of providing an improvement in the service.
In parallel and unrelated to the award of this network management contract to ZTE, MasOrange also has other entities that are responsible for other management processes. Thus, both Huawei and Ericsson carry out these tasks in other divisions and areas of the operator, pending the completion of an integration and the adjustment of the future in terms of its suppliers. In the case of ZTE, the entity already has experience with the group, since it has been managing Euskaltel’s cable network since 2014, which simplifies its task in view of the long experience they already have.
