Time Telekom's Network Inventory System: AM/FM/GIS in the big Durian
Chin Choon Moy
Project Manager, TIME Quantum Technology
Floor 6, Menara Maxisegar, Jalan Pandan Indah 4/2
Pandan Indah 55100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Dr. Robert F. Austin
President, Mercator Corporation
El Monte Mall, Tercer Piso, 652 Avenida Munoz Rivera
Hato Rey, San Juan, PR 00918-4149, USA
Abstract
TIME Telecommunications, a new communications company in Malaysia, designed
and implemented a completed Operations Support System (0SS) in tandem with fiber
network engineering and construction. An AM/FM/GIS was incorporated within the
0SS. Completion of the first phase (outside plant) required six months. The second
phase, in which inside plant was incorporated, required an additional five months. A
program of enhancementsand incremental adjustments was defined for the
subsequent eighteen months.
Deregulation in the telecommunications industry
Twenty years ago, AM/FM International conducted its first major professional
conference. The conference was dedicated to geographic information systems and to
applications of computer mapping technology to the information system needs of public
utilities and communications companies. At the time, monopoly was the rule in these
sectors of the economy, although the first signs of competition were visible in a few
countries.
In the present day, competition has become commonplace in the global
telecommunications industry. Indeed, the theme for the 1995 AM/FM International
conference was “Thriving in an Age of Competition.” Deregulation, privatization and
destateization are just a few of the terms associated with the trend to remove the
cumbersome machinery of monopoly and replace it with the price and service
advantages of competition.
The Federation of Malaysia is no exception to the rule of dynamic change in the
communications industry. Privatization was authorized in 1987. Seven years later
there were seven new companies providing telephone, radio paging, cellular and
satellite services. With one of the world’s most dynamic and coherent economies, and
one of the most technically sophisticated work forces, Malaysia understands the
importance of high quality telecommunications systems. The government has
encouraged investment and nurtured the growth of communications infrastructure for
several years. These efforts are bearing fruit with the rapid evolution of a thriving
industry that provides services throughout the nation.
Time Telecommunications SDN BHD (Time Telekom)
“TIME Telekom will be the leading private telecommunications company in
the region in terms of profitability and revenue, providing customers with
the highest quality telecommunication services and customer supporl at
competitive prices, and using leading-edge technology to continuously
improve it’s range of products and services.”
TIME Telekom Mission Statement
In 1988, the government of the Federation of Malaysia announced that a modern
superhighway would be built on the Malay Peninsula. The highway would unite the
country by linking the border with Thailand in the North with the Singapore causeway in
the South. In addition to the obvious benefits for long distance travel, the highway would
constitute an arterial route for local development along its entire length.
The construction and project management of this massive project, known as the l%ojek
Lebuhraya Utara Se/atan, or PLUS, was awarded to United Engineers Malaysia (UEM).
Responsibility for operation and maintenance of the toll highway also was assigned to
UEM. UEM is part of the Renong group of companies, Malaysia’s foremost
infrastructure conglomerate, as is TIME Engineering Berhad. The group decided to
make an additional investment in the future of the nation: they decided to construct a
high capacity, state-of-the-art fiber optic communications system during highway
construction.
Construction of that fiber optic cable was the basis for TIME Telecommunications Sdn
Bhd (TIME Telekom). TIME Telekom quickly moved to design and build the necessary
enhancements to transform that backbone cable into a fully functioning
communications network:. The company engineered the network using an architecture
called Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH).
An SDH network is, by design and definition, a resilient network. The system is
designed to route traffic throughout the network in pairs of counter-rotating rings, much
like a Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) local area network. Referring to Figure 1,
the normal flow of traffic on dual counter-rotating rings is shown in the first illustration
(A). If a ring is broken (B), traffic is rerouted automatically (C),
Figure 1. Synchronous Digital Hierarchy: Self-healing Architecture.
At the national level, physical resiliency is provided by a submarine cable laid off-shore
along the east and west coasts of the peninsular. At regional and local levels, physical
resiliency is provided by a set of nested rings. At all levels, logical resiliency is provided
by the switching and multiplexing technology used by the company. Figure 2 presents
a schematic view of the network architecture.
Figure 2. Time Telekom SDH Network
The TIME Telekom SDH network was built using a combination of transmission
technologies, including fiber optic cables, microwave systems, and very small aperture
terminal systems (VSATS) combined with earth stations. The physical network is
flexible by design. To provide the broadest clean-signal bandwidth and greatest
possible physical security, fiber optic cables are the primary transmission medium,
These cables are placed below ground at a depth of approximately one meter. The
cables are afforded physical protection by the cable’s outer sheath and by the duct and
subduct construction method used for placement. While these measures provide
reasonable security, they also make the act of locating the cables for maintenance and
repair problematic. This difficulty serves as one of the justifications for the construction
of a GIS for a telecommunications company.
The Master Plan
In the rush to build physical infrastructure, some telecommunications system operators
in other countries have entered their local markets without developing a master plan for
their internal information systems. This is unfortunate and can be extremely expensive
in the long term. The Information System Plans (ISPS) of the older, monopoly carriers
were developed through trial and error to satisfy real needs. The same real needs are
shared, or will be shared soon, by the newly emerging operating common carriers.
In the case of TIME Telekom, care was taken to define an ISP to minimize expenditures
685?and maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of all information technology
expenditures. TIME Telekom realized that, to achieve its Vision and Mission, it would
have to provide innovative products and world-class customer service. TIME Telekom
will only be able to achieve this if the systems that it developed supported the stated
Vision, Mission and the Critical Success Factors.
Quoting from the TIME Telekom ISP: “The ISP is a strategic business tool for TIME
Telekom. It translates the key corporate goals of the company to the IT systems
required. It ensures that the business strategies developed are enabled by the use of
IT. As TIME Telekom moves into value added and enhanced services, the systems will
often determine the packaging and presentation to customers.”
The task of implementing information technology was assigned to TIME Quantum
Technology (TQT), another member of the TIME Engineering group of companies,
With support from Andersen Consulting, TQT embarked on an analysis of
requirements. These studies were formalized in a draft ISP that was submitted for
review in stages through late 1994 and early 1995. The final draft of the ISP provided a
blueprint for the TIME Telekom 0SS. This blueprint, which matched TIME Telekom six-year
strategic plan, served not only as the template for system design, but also as the
basis for system integration.
