Centralizing Data: How Telecom Providers Can Harness Multiple Data Streams

Posted by John Sarkis on Jan 17, 2024 1:31:24 PM

As society's dependence on telecom services intensifies, so does the surge in data volume generated by Communication Service Providers (CSPs)

Telecommunication networks often rely on a mix of backhaul vendors and technologies to ensure seamless connectivity, efficient data transfer, and robust network performance, thereby meeting the increasing demands of users. While this diversity brings benefits, it also introduces complexities in terms of monitoring, management, and issue resolution. 

Adding to the complexity, the data collected by CSP's from these vendors is sometimes scattered across numerous data lakes with various technology and vendor-proprietary formats. This abundance of data provides little benefit unless providers can extract meaningful insights from the diverse network elements embedded in their backend infrastructure.

In this blog post, we'll unravel the impact a centralized data dashboard such as our Event Storage & Analytics Platform can have in reshaping how telecom providers navigate their data operations.

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Topics: Big Data, ESAP, Machine Learning, Fraud Prevention, Data Plumbing

How Telecom Providers Can Detect Anomalies With AI

Posted by John Sarkis on Nov 8, 2023 2:51:47 PM

In the modern hyper-connected world, telecom networks are the backbone of the digital age, keeping us connected in our personal lives and running essential businesses and services. But disruptions like fraud, outages, or dropped calls can cause some serious headaches to both the service provider and their customers.

Traditionally, anomalies within telecom networks were only uncovered at the end of each billing cycle, if detected at all, requiring analysts to comb through seas of data. But now thanks to Machine Learning (ML), we can process and analyze huge stacks of data records to spot trends, detect suspicious outliers, and create connections that humans may have overlooked.

In this blog post, we'll explore how our Event Storage & Analytics Platform (ESAP) puts statistical analysis and machine learning to work for telecom companies, unlocking valuable insights that were previously hidden within their data.

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Topics: Big Data, ESAP, Machine Learning, AI, Artificial Intelligence

CALEA Compliance and Cost Reimbursement

Posted by Ryan Guthrie on Mar 3, 2020 11:00:00 AM

Did you know that the costs of complying with federal, state and local subpoenas can be passed along to the requesting authorities?

The big providers of telephone, cable, and data services process hundreds of law enforcement requests for data every month. If you are a smaller provider, you may not get that many requests but when you do it’s a major disruption to your operation. We have had several requests from smaller clients to support them in their efforts to comply with subpoena requests so we thought we would summarize how the CALEA process works.

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Topics: Regulatory, Big Data

Next Time Call A 'Plumber'

Posted by Ryan Guthrie on Aug 21, 2018 11:00:00 AM

Tell me if this story sounds familiar. You have an idea, a hunch, a theory that you'd like to 'flush' out. BUT, in order to do so, you need access to data from last month, maybe it's CDRs, billing data, smart meter data, etc. The emails, conference calls, and requests you'll have to make to get your hands on that data are daunting at best. But it's your data right? Why should you have to jump through so many hoops to get access to it? By the time you can even figure out who "owns" the data, you're onto the next task and your great idea is wasted, yet again.

Over the years, I can't tell you how many times the 'data access' issue has delayed or even completely stopped a project we've been involved with. Not because the idea didn't make sense or the business case didn't prove out, simply because getting the data from 'Point A' to 'Point B' was going to take too much time and effort. This is the definition of a 'data plumbing' issue. Big data tools are getting better, faster, cheaper, and more available every day. But the challenge of extracting and integrating data from a variety of sources has become an issue that organizations simply can't ignore. It's the ugly truth behind data analytics - it often takes more time and energy to extract, clean, and integrate the data than it takes to do the analytics itself.

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Topics: Telecom Data Analytics, Big Data, BigQuery, ESAP, Data Plumbing

How Can Cloud Storage Benefit Your Business?

Posted by Ryan Guthrie on Feb 5, 2018 2:15:27 PM

Cloud storage has been around since the 1960s, but it’s only in recent years that we’re beginning to understand and deploy the technology to its full potential. For telcos coming to grips with the advantages of having access to big data, the cloud offers a range of benefits.

Cost Benefit

Cloud storage has become cheaper over the years, with giant providers like Google and Amazon able to leverage economies of scale and keep the market competitive. Since data sets are likely to get bigger as time goes by, managing the cost of storage is crucial to enable companies to remain competitive in their target markets. Using the cloud results in lower operating costs, reduced overheads, and lower hardware and maintenance expenses.

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Topics: Big Data, Cloud, ESAP, Cloud Storage

What Does Data Driven Mean For The Telecom Industry

Posted by Ryan Guthrie on Oct 17, 2017 10:30:46 AM

Big data is big news in almost every industry, and telecom is no exception. The report “Big Data and Telecom Analytics Market: Business Case, Market Analysis & Forecasts 2014 – 2019” from Mind Commerce forecasts a 50% growth by 2019 in the big-data-driven telco analytics environment, which will deliver annual revenue of $5.4 billion. Apart from opening up a multitude of jobs for telecom data scientists, data will increasingly become a competitive differentiator for telcos.  

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Topics: Telecom Data Analytics, Big Data, ESAP, Data Driven

5 Reasons Why Big Data Analytics is Critical to The Telecom Industry

Posted by Ryan Guthrie on Sep 6, 2017 11:09:55 AM

The telecoms industry in the U.S. is expected to continue growing in 2017, according to Deloitte’s latest outlook report. Furthermore, we anticipate providers will work hard to remain competitive in the battle to attract customers and create new revenue streams. With data generated from every customer touch point ranging from calls to text messages, video downloads, mobile commerce and service calls, telcos have access to significant amounts of information. Implementing big data analytics (BDA) is critical to enable them to make use of this intelligence to get ahead.

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Topics: Telecom Data Analytics, Big Data

New ESAP Features Release Coming in June

Posted by Ryan Guthrie on May 5, 2017 11:51:52 AM

The most common issue we run into when beginning work with a new customer, whether they are a telecom or cable company, is gaining access to data records.  Call detail records (CDRs) and IP detail record (IPDRs) contain an enormous wealth of information that can be used to drive KPIs and analytics for almost any part of the business including operations, marketing, regulatory, revenue assurance, etc.  Unfortunately, we find that that majority of the time these data records are owned by a specific department and gaining access to them can take weeks, months, or in some cases even longer.  As a solutions provider, this can obviously be frustrating.  But when an internal group has the same issues accessing its own data, it can be downright debilitating and ultimately impact customer experience and revenue.

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Topics: Telecom Data Analytics, Big Data, Broadband, ESAP, Cable, Machine Learning

Who Are Your Customers?

Posted by Ken Babcock on Apr 25, 2017 9:35:00 AM

The title is most likely one that would cause certain readers who happen to be service providers to experience a little negative reaction upon reading it.  However, the title is not meant to be anything more than a cause for some reflection in that there is considerable amount of information about customers that is not always utilized to expose traits and trends that could be harnessed to generate increased revenue as well as to promote customer loyalty in an environment of ever-growing competition.

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Topics: Telecom Data Analytics, Marketing, Big Data

Nothing is Impossible with Cloud Computing

Posted by Ken Babcock on Apr 18, 2017 10:25:28 AM

The title is somewhat misleading in that I am sure there are many user tasks that go beyond the scope of Big Data and Cloud Computing to satisfy.  However, being a dinosaur-type with over fifty years of professional experience in the telecom environment, I am continually amazed by the capabilities and associated minimal costs with implementation of systems and processes that were only dreamed about when I started in the telecom business.

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Topics: Telecom Data Analytics, Big Data, BigQuery, Cloud Computing