MPLS VPN Service - Tata Communications

Case Study
MPLS VPN Service
Spice Telecom - Mobile Multimedia through MPLS
Mobile communications is one of the most
competitive industries in the world. Service
companies live or die based on their abilities to
develop the hottest new devices, support the
widest variety of applications, and provide the
best phone coverage at the lowest cost.
Spice Telecom is one of the leading in mobile
telephony provider in India, attracting millions of
sophisticated consumers to its full line of mobile
devices, attractive rate plans, and the latest in
value added services such as music and ringtone
downloads, live radio broadcasts, and over 12
television channels. Spice Telecom knows that
technology and creativity gives an edge in the
marketplace, but dependable and affordable
service is the bedrock for success. Today Spice
is one of the top GSM service providers in India,
poised to expand throughout the region.
Spice Business Challenges
Only a few years ago, Spice Telecom looked to
upgrading or replacing its legacy communication
infrastructure. The company needed a service
platform that could accommodate the many other
value-added services it hoped to introduce with a
rapid time to market. The older system was
costly, low performance and limited in this
regard. Spice sought a solution that could
accommodate multimedia solutions other than
mobile telephony, aid in its expansion of PANIndia service coverage, and bring down the
average cost per call.
Also, in terms of maintenance and operations,
Spice felt the current system was too costly and
potentially unreliable over the long run. In short,
the platform had outlived its usefulness. The
company needed a scalable, multimedia-ready,
and highly reliable service infrastructure that was
more cost-effective than its legacy system—all
this was quite a challenge. And to insure
customers were not inconvenienced, migration
to the new solution would have to be totally
seamless with no major service outages or
interruptions.
Tata Communications Innovative Information
Provider Approach
As Spice Telecom took on the challenge with its
innovation information provider approach Tata
Communications joined their mission. Tata
Communications and Spice IT team examined
the Spice infrastructure from the top down: first,
they evaluated the voice traffic history on the
existing network, and then evaluated the
upcoming service offerings and growth
projections. Based on this extensive analysis, both
teams jointly came up with an entirely new
infrastructure that would provide maximum
flexibility and scalability yet cut the current costs.
The new infrastructure was designed around three
major MPLS hub sites—Chandigarh, Bangalore,
and Dehli—while additional co-located IP routers
and media gateways were distributed throughout
the country. All international calls were routed
through the Delhi site where an international
gateway hub resides. As a result , Media gateways
in each region now translate TDM traffic to IP and
vice versa and route the voice and multimedia data
appropriately. All the hub sites are provisioned
using dual last miles to eliminate any single points
of failure in the system. Meanwhile, Tata
Communications' flexible bandwidth assignment
using traffic prediction techniques and traffic flow
control saves Spice Telecom bandwidth costs.
This along with co-location of media gateways and
routers rather than housing and support of its
legacy system also saves the company a
tremendous amount of capital, in addition to
increasing the overall uptime of the network.
Spice Telecom also benefits from the competitive
service level agreements from Tata Communications.
“Our customers are assured of the highest quality
calls and great reliability,” said Mr. R K Singh,
President, Projects at Spice Telecom. “This new
network infrastructure not only delivers the best
service, but has also drastically cut our delivery
costs.”
Tata Communication's one-stop
solution for Spice Telecom included
network infrastructure and flow
controls, co-location space, and global
connectivity. The transition from the
legacy system to the MPLS platform
was a tremendous success.
“Time-to-market is a key factor in this
industry. We know that we can depend on
the Tata Communications’ MPLS network
to deliver quickly and efficiently when we
need it.”
Mr. R.K. Singh, President - New Projects
Partners in Success
Replicating Success
Tata Communications and Spice worked together
in partnership mode to understand the challenges
and devise the best fit solution, which enabled
Spice to achieve key benefits including:
Because the new MPLS service platform has
delivered such rock-solid performance and
scalability in its initial stages, Spice Telecom is
looking forward to replicating this success
throughout the region, adding as many new
subscribers and patrons as possible with
additional gateways. “Time-to-market is a key
factor in this industry,” Mr. R K Singh further
commented, “We know that we can depend on the
Tata Communications MPLS network to deliver
quickly and efficiently when we need it.” With the
highly scalable and flexible bandwidth capabilities
of the Tata Communications MPLS backbone,
Spice Telecom is a solid mobile solutions provider
today and will undoubtedly continue its success far
into the future.
?
Increased focus on the launch of lot of
localized content & unique Value added
services
?
Increased Customer Base through bundled
offerings including flexi-tariff plans with
aggressive pricing strategies
?
PAN India expansion in the GSM Mobile
Space
?
Rapid Time to Market- Key Driver for today's
mobile market growth
Conclusion
Business Challenges of
Spice Telecom
Business Benefits of Adopting
Tata Communications’
MPLS Service
Bringing down the average cost incurred
per voice call.
Nearly 50% reduction in costs : Increased
Customer Base through bundled offerings
including flexi-tariff plans with aggressive
pricing strategies.
Migrating from legacy systems to a next
generation high performance infrastructure
capable enough to handle VAS solutions
other than the mobile telephony services.
New network enables unique value- added
services and localized content
Rolling out PAN India distribution & service
coverage, easy international expansion.
PAN India expansion in the GSM Mobile
Space with new infrastructure : Partnerships
with global service providers.
Exploring an innovative, cost effective,
reliable & scalable mobile backbone
solutions.
One-stop solution provider: Superior fault
tolerance and disaster recovery.
For more information on Global VPN Services,
visit www.tatacommunications.com
Tata Communications, a member of the $62.5
billion Tata Group, is a leading global provider
of a new world of communications. The
emerging markets communications leader
leverages its advanced solutions capabilities
and domain expertise across its global and
pan-India network to deliver managed
solutions to multi-national and Indian
enterprises, service providers, and Indian
consumers. Tata Communications’ range of
services include transmission, IP, converged
voice, mobility, managed network connectivity,
hosting and storage, managed security,
managed collaboration and business
transformation for global enterprises and
network, with connectivity to more than 200
countries across 300 POPs, and more than 1
million square feet of data center and colocation facilities. Tata Communications’
unique emerging market depth and breadth of
reach includes a national fiber backbone
network and access to network in over 60 cities
and 125 POPs in India, strategic investments in
South African converged services operator,
Neotel, Sri Lanka and Nepal and, subject to
fulfillment of conditions precedent, a 50%
ownership in China Enterprise
Communications (CEC) providing full country
VPN coverage in China. Servicing customers
from its offices in over 80 cities in 40 countries,
India, the Company was named “Best
Wholesale Carrier” at the World
Communications Awards in 2006, “Best PanAsian Wholesale Provider” at the 2006 and
2007 Capacity Magazine Global Wholesale
Telecommunications Awards and was awarded
“Best Progress in Emerging Markets” at the
2008 Mobile Communication Awards. Tata
Communications Limited is listed on the
Bombay Stock Exchange and the National
Stock Exchange of India and its ADRs are listed
on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: TCL).
www.tatacommunications.com