Interoperability Challenges in ISPs

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Interoperability Challenges in ISPs Operations
Regional ITU Consultation on Conformance
Assessment and Interoperability for the Africa
region (Nairobi, Kenya, 30-31 July 2010 )

• Tamer M. Kamel,
• Networks Operation Maintenance Division,
  TE-DATA
• Egypt Manager

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Agenda

• TE Data _at_Glance
• Multi-Vendor Environment
• Interoperability Experience
• Recommendation

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TE Data _at_ Glance
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TE Data Market

• Market Leader as an internet provider and data
  communication solutions
• 1 million home customers with 60 market share
• 2000 enterprise customers with advanced
  solutions with 50 of Egypt market share
• 100 Gbps of international bandwidth capacity
  with 70 of total internet capacity in Egypt

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TE Data Services

• Basic Services
• ADSL Broadband
• WiFi Internet
• Internet Dial-up
• L2/L3 MPLS VPN
• Inter-AS VPN
• IP Transit

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TE Data Services (Cont.)

• Value Added Services
• IPTV, VoD
• Clean Internet
• Video Conferencing
• Domain Names
• Virtual Call-Center for small business
• IP-Surveillance
• Virtual Branching
• Hosting Packages, Managed Data-center

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Multi-Vendor Environment
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Multi-Vendor Environment Benefits

• Minimize Cost
• Reduce Risk
• Enrich Services
• Flexibility That Drives Innovation

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TE Data Multi-Vendor
Data Center
Access
Core
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Interoperability Experience(Time Bomb)
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1. LACP (IEEE 802.3ad)

• Failed to establish port bundle between DSLAM
  uplink (Vendor-A) and the access switch
  (Vendor-B) due to mismatch in LACP parameters.
• Impact
• End customers experience instability
• Added operational cost and resources
• Loosing redundancy feature

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2. MTU (RFC-1191)

• BRAS (Vendor-X) failed to establish subscriber
  sessions forwarded from MSAN (Vendor-Y) due to
  MTU mismatch
• Impact
• Extra Configuration and customization
• Added operational cost and resources

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3. SELT (ITU-T Study group 15)

• Couldn't perform copper line inspection by an
  application (Vendor-A) due to limited
  functionality of some DSLAM platform in SNMP and
  SELT test (Vendor-B) DSLAM
• Impact
• No access to SELT services
• Difficulties in maintenance operations

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4. xDSL (ITU G992.x)

• CPEs commit support of line-codes while some are
  not functioning well
• Impact
• Extra configuration needed
• Difficulties in maintenance operations

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5. MAC Address (IEEE 802)

• many CPE brands use non-unique and fake MAC
  address during encapsulating PPP frame causing
  duplicate MAC at DSLAM side and session may be
  dropped.
• Impact
• Difficulties in maintenance operations
• Added cost to replace CPEs

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6. SNMP

• ATM DSLAM (Vendor-X) not supporting the standard
  an complete MIB tree causing poor discovery and
  management through the SNMP servers
• Impact
• Hard to provision and to operate through
  management servers
• Added operational costs and resources

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Recommendations
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Recommendations

• Operators should share their experience and
  knowledge regarding interoperability through
  standard bodies.
• ITU and Standard Bodies should make a program to
  enhance operator skills regarding standards in
  technology.

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Recommendations (cont.)

• Local and international standard bodies help in
  establishing and accrediting regional LABs.
• Monthly Bulletin by local countries NTRA with
  vendors problems and actions

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Recommendations (cont.)

• Hardware and software suppliers should mention
  the certificates of the products regarding the
  introduced features and its interoperability with
  other suppliers.   
•   

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THANK YOU