Overview
Managing central offices, Broadband Loop Carriers (BLC), or cell sites is a major challenge to any wireline or wireless carrier. When trouble occurs, a technician is dispatched to the site to diagnose and repair the problem. In metropolitan areas where distances may not be a factor, it still can take considerable time to navigate urban traffic congestion and reach a site. In rural areas, the distance that a technician needs to drive can be a major factor. In any case, the round trip time it takes to reach a site and return is costly and lengthens the time it takes to repair an outage. Since the problem area may be unknown until the technician reaches the site, a trip to the parts depot may be required, further increasing the time it takes to repair an outage. In addition, the problem may not even be at the site generating the alarm, or may be caused by a local independent operating carriers’ equipment (IOC), resulting in further delays and a wasted trip to the wrong site. Substantial savings in operating costs could be achieved if the true cause of the failure could have been identified before the technician left his work station or home (if the alarm condition occurred after hours.)
TelStrat’s PUMA (Platform for Unified Management Access) is the most powerful and flexible product on the market today, providing a secure, browser-based, vendor agnostic, single point of access and management of all remote network elements in a carrier’s network.
The PUMA platform allows both wireless and wireline carriers a substantial savings in the costs associated with Operations, Administration, Maintenance, and Provisioning (OAM&P) of remote network elements all by accessing a single IP address. This capability reduces a carrier’s operating costs by eliminating or reducing site visits (truck rolls) as well as reducing mean time to repair (MTTR) in the event of equipment failure.
PUMA unifies the management of access network elements. The PUMA platform allows real-time access, information, and control of every network element, whether local or at the most remote deployment. Using a secure IP, serial, or aircard connection, the PUMA platform lets techni¬cians, maintenance engineers, and network operations center (NOC) personnel configure, troubleshoot, and manage geographically dispersed network elements at any location, all from a single IP address.
With PUMA, service providers can centrally manage and provision services dynamically across multiple remote sites. Technicians can now remotely test, diagnose, and troubleshoot equipment before dispatch¬ing field personnel. This resolves network issues faster, reduces expensive truck rolls, and helps both wireless and wireline service providers anticipate events and prevent service disruptions.
In summary, the PUMA Platform provides the following functions:
- Network element monitoring, configuration, and maintenance, resulting in a significant reduction of site visits
- Fault identification and "smarter" truck rolls
- Remote network element provisioning
- Network element inventory management
- PUMA Network Address Translation (NAT) provides better use of ports and IP addresses
- Network element configuration backup and restoration
- Network element operating software upgrades and downloads
- Vendor software application hosting
- Security features to prevent unauthorized access to network elements
- Activity logs by user, network element, and time of day, assisting in problem identification and corrective action
- Network element polling and alarm generation
- Management reports
- Alarm aggregation, contact closures, voltage and current sensing
- Handling of TL-1 and SNMP messages
- Integrated RET controller for cell site antenna tilt control
- Video camera site monitoring
- On site storage of events on the SC-8100 in the event of communication failure with the CC-9000
All implemented in a single 1RU rack mounted package