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NOC vs SOC Infographic

The changing role of the telecoms network operations centre with the advent of the service operations centre

The Changing Role of the Telecoms Operations Centre

Today’s mobile network operators are certainly familiar with change within their operations centres; they have rapidly transitioned from a single technology, single service network to a multi-technology, multi-service network in just a few decades. And now they face their next big operational change; the advent of the Service Operations Centre (SOC).

Continuing the Zen evolution, the launch of Zen Release 7 in 2020 brought major new features to the Zen Operational Intelligence Platform. As a part of the Zen Telecoms Software solution, the Zen Service Operations Centre Solution offers the ability to unite network-focused and customer-facing cross-functional teams, who have traditionally worked in isolation.

So what is a Service Operations Centre (SOC) and how does it differentiate from existing Network Operations Centres (NOC) in telecoms?

The Transition to Service-Centric Operations

To differentiate in today’s highly saturated marketplace, network operators need to deliver superior services to their subscribers.  To do this, they must transition from network-centric operations to service-centric operations; instead of optimising the network for improved performance per network domain, they must optimise the network for improved performance across each service.

This means that operational teams need to monitor the network from end-to-end rather that in domain specific silos. They need to become more commercially aware, introduce new service models and monitor a whole host of new metrics. To achieve this, Service Operations Centres are formed, focusing on the correlation of service performance thresholds alerts, network element fault alarms and probing data to quickly locate issues, and prioritise workload based upon service impact and customer affected.

SOC Engineers also need the functionality to take a highly proactive approach; instead of monitoring issues as they occur, they need to be able to predict what is going to happen and how significantly it will impact the business. They can then provide recommendations based on the potential financial impact. In effect, the SOC facilitates the bringing together of OSS and BSS.

The Difference Between the NOC and the SOC

The advent of the Service Operations Centre (SOC) does not mean the end of today’s Network Operations Centres (NOC). They run parallel to each other, each with a different focus, skill-sets and objective. Some network operators may choose to integrate their SOC with their NOC, and some may choose to run them separately.

Since there is no defined format for how a SOC should operate, we have created a handy infographic to explain some of the major differences between the NOC and SOC.

 

NOC vs SOC in telecoms - infographic

Zen Release 7 Zen SOC Features Zen Platform Zen Telecom Solutions