Experience: advanced network operations in (Un)-connected remote communities

Diego Perino, Xiaoyuan Yang, Joan Serrà, Andra Lutu, Ilias Leontiadis

Abstract: The Internet Para Todos program is working to provide sustainable mobile broadband to 100 M unconnected people in Latin America. In this paper we present our commercial deployment in thousands remote small communities and describe the unique experience of maintaining this infrastructure. We describe the challenges related to managing operations containing the cost in these extreme geographical conditions. We also analyze operational data to understand outage patterns and present typical operational issues in this unique remote community environment. Finally, we present an extension of the operations support system (OSS) leveraging advanced analytics and machine learning with the goal of optimizing network maintenance while reducing costs.