GO – Malta’s leading communications and entertainment provider – has just completed the migration to a Next Generation Mobile Core Network (NGN) supplied by world-renowned communications solutions giant, Alcatel-Lucent. The completion of the ambitious upgrade of its mobile core will evolve GO’s mobile network and boost the plethora of services it already offers. In line with GO’s technical strategy to retain the leading edge in network technology, the mobile network upgrade puts the company in an even stronger position vis-à-vis its ongoing drive to provide consumers with a flexible approach to using new services.
The NGN mobile core solution supplied by Alcatel-Lucent has a planned road map that paves the way to future enhancement and IMS – the multimedia subsystem that enables convergence of data, speech and network technology over an IP-based infrastructure. IMS will further evolve GO’s infrastructure and enable communications in a variety of modes including voice text, pictures and video.
Alcatel-Lucent – formed when Alcatel merged with Lucent Technologies some years back – is a global communications solutions company headquartered in Paris. It provides its customers with various communications solutions focussing on fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking hardware, IP technologies, software and services. The company boasts operations in more than 130 countries round the world.
The mobile core replacement project included the replacement of the circuit core network as well as the packet core network – both having geo-redundancy features – that hugely increases the resilience to faults and continues to guarantee first-class quality service to customers at large. The project itself included over 800 hours of training while its implementation required thousands of man-hours of preparation to ensure that the migration was totally seamless to customers. Actual migration was successfully carried out over a series of nights in January.
Speaking about the actual migration process, GO CEO, David Kay described it as: “A complex project, a one-in-a-decade multi-million initiative that engaged our best talent for thousands of hours.”
“The difficulty of the task was rendered all the more challenging in view of the fact that we had to perform ‘surgery’ on a live network where thousands of end users connected at the time expected nothing but flawless operation – irrespective of our network migration. We passed this test with flying colours and for our customers the migration was absolutely plain sailing and with no inconvenience whatsoever,” he went on.
Meanwhile, GO’s Chief Technology Officer, Joseph Bugeja said: “We consider Alcatel-Lucent a very established and reliable supplier in fact GO and Alcatel-Lucent have partnered on several projects over a long period. This multi-million investment in mobile technologies will prove to be an important footing for an even brighter future delivering powerful, innovative services to our customers in a scalable, cost-effective way.”
“This project is a key milestone and a vital factor in the future success of GO’s entire business ensuring that we continue to retain our customers and enhance the top-notch communications experience they enjoy with GO. Our new mobile network ensures that GO will keep its position at the helm of the local mobile market for years to come.”