Initial road-testing was carried out at Australia’s number three operator TPG Telecom
Following deployment in Australia, Ericsson has made available its extended Expert Analytics product, which introduces AI/ML-based troubleshooting in real-time to its range of capabilities.
Last month, Australia’s TPG Telecom and Ericsson announced a multi-year strategic partnership to introduce the cloud-native and AI-powered analytics tool incorporating Ericsson Expert Analytics and EXFO Adaptive Service Assurance, aiming to provide TPG Telecom with deeper insights into individual subscriber experiences.
The telco’s technology, network and care teams are using it to predict, prioritize, and resolve performance issues as they arise, potentially reducing infrastructure-based diagnoses.
The extended Ericsson Expert Analytics uses new data acquisition techniques to reduce the amount and frequency of data needed for analysis. It draws the necessary event data from the network functions using the software probes built into Ericsson’s dual-mode 5G Core, as well as additional information from Virtual Test Access Point (vTAP) data collection, delivering the data in real-time to the analytics function ready for CSPs to take action.
“Ericsson Expert Analytics takes troubleshooting to the next level; with its embedded intelligence and built-in domain knowledge, troubleshooting becomes effortless, with automatic incident generation,” said Ericsson VP and head of solution area BSS/OSS Mats Karlsson. “It is empowered with ML-based anomaly detection, enabling actionable insights for subscriber-centric analytics, and driving faster, more accurate, and more efficient issue resolution in network events.”
Better reactions
In TPG’s case, in the initial deployment phase the focus has been on integrating software probes into Ericsson’s cloud-native dual-mode 5G Core, aiming to enhance network visibility and issue resolution.
The solution currently monitors approximately five million subscribers, with plans for further expansion and additional enhancements in the coming phases. TPG anticipates automating issue detection and benefitting from AI-powered recommendations for issue correction in the future.
“Ericsson Expert Analytics gives TPG the ability to provide actionable behavioural insights to predict, prioritize and resolve customer impacting events,” said TPG Telecom GM cloud infrastructure and network services Chris Tsigros. “Going forward, we know that this is going to meet our customer needs and it’s going to be a great foundation for us to build upon for other areas of the network, as we grow.”
Growing portfolio
The extension adds advanced troubleshooting to the existing Ericsson Expert Analytics capabilities currently comprising subscriber insights, expert insights and automated insights applications. The vendor said the extension the latest version of the product delivers real-time experience insight at subscriber level using event data to collect specific information, enabling radical reduction in costs through intelligent and efficient data handling.