1. Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010 Interoperability Challenges in ISPs Operations Tamer M. Kamel, Networks Operation & Maintenance Division, TE-DATA Egypt Manager Regional ITU Consultation on Conformance Assessment and Interoperability for the Africa region (Nairobi, Kenya, 30-31 July 2010 )

2. Agenda TE Data @Glance Multi-Vendor Environment Interoperability Experience Recommendation Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010 2

3. TE Data @ Glance Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010 3

4. 4 TE Data Market Market Leader as an internet provider and data communication solutions ~ 1 million home customers with 60% market share ~ 2000 enterprise customers with advanced solutions with 50% of Egypt market share ~ 100 Gbps of international bandwidth capacity with 70% of total internet capacity in Egypt

5. Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010 5 TE Data Services Basic Services ADSL Broadband WiFi Internet Internet Dial-up L2/L3 MPLS VPN Inter-AS VPN IP Transit

6. Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010 6 TE Data Services (Cont.) Value Added Services IPTV, VoD Clean Internet Video Conferencing Domain Names Virtual Call-Center for small business IP-Surveillance Virtual Branching Hosting Packages, Managed Data-center

7. Multi-Vendor Environment Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010 7

8. Multi-Vendor Environment Benefits Minimize Cost Reduce Risk Enrich Services Flexibility That Drives Innovation Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010 8

9. TE Data Multi-Vendor Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010 9 Core Access Data Center

10. Interoperability Experience (Time Bomb) Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010 10

11. Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010 11 1. LACP (IEEE 802.3ad) Failed to establish port bundle between DSLAM uplink (Vendor-A) and the access switch (Vendor-B) due to mismatch in LACP parameters. Impact: End customers experience instability Added operational cost and resources Loosing redundancy feature

12. Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010 12 2. MTU (RFC-1191) BRAS (Vendor-X) failed to establish subscriber sessions forwarded from MSAN (Vendor-Y); due to MTU mismatch Impact: Extra Configuration and customization Added operational cost and resources

13. Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010 13 3. SELT (ITU-T Study group 15) Couldn't perform copper line inspection by an application (Vendor- A) due to limited functionality of some DSLAM platform in SNMP and SELT test (Vendor-B) DSLAM Impact: No access to SELT services Difficulties in maintenance operations

14. Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010 14 4. xDSL (ITU G992.x) CPEs commit support of line-codes; while some are not functioning well Impact: Extra configuration needed Difficulties in maintenance operations

15. Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010 15 5. MAC Address (IEEE 802) many CPE brands use non-unique and fake MAC address during encapsulating PPP frame; causing duplicate MAC at DSLAM side and session may be dropped. Impact: Difficulties in maintenance operations Added cost to replace CPEs

16. Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010 16 6. SNMP ATM DSLAM (Vendor-X) not supporting the standard an complete MIB tree; causing poor discovery and management through the SNMP servers Impact: Hard to provision and to operate through management servers Added operational costs and resources

17. Recommendations Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010 17

18. Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010 18 Recommendations Operators should share their experience and knowledge regarding interoperability through standard bodies. ITU and Standard Bodies should make a program to enhance operator skills regarding standards in technology.

19. Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010 19 Recommendations (cont.) Local and international standard bodies help in establishing and accrediting regional LABs. Monthly Bulletin by local countries NTRA with vendors problems and actions

20. Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010 20 Recommendations (cont.) Hardware and software suppliers should mention the certificates of the products regarding the introduced features and its interoperability with other suppliers.

21. THANK YOU Nairobi, Kenya, 30 – 31 July 2010 21