The TIM Group global operator partnered compatriots Engineering Group to automate the processes of its Network Operations Center
Italy’s wholesale operator Sparkle has been running a project it dubs the Artificial Intelligence Sparkle Network Assurance (AISNA) and reckons AI has made a positive, measurable impact to managing and monitoring the international network. AISNA was aimed at implementing AI in the carrier’s Network Operations Center (NOC) and, working with systems integrator Engineering Group, Sparkle set about introducing intelligent automation into NOC processes.
AISNA enables the automation of monitoring, management and quality improvement activities, thereby reducing the risk of errors and misalignments, and allowing faster responses to customer support requests.
The two companies embraced an agile approach, built around co-defined use cases co-defined and developed iteratively with the direct involvement of the various stakeholders. Sparkle said this approach enabled the adoption of predictive and proactive models, streamlining NOC operational workflows and significantly enhancing efficiency in alarm management, troubleshooting, and escalation processes.
With the agile and DevOps approach, they implemented a multi-product platform using IBM Watsonx (generative AI), IBM SevOne/AIOps – for performance and fault management – and Ansible for configuration automation. The project increased the level of automation in network operations and improved service quality, “with further developments planned for new strategic use cases”.
Sparkle reckons that by simplifying access to information and automating more repetitive tasks, the solution has reduced the operational handling time of alerts at the NOC by 30% and the average execution time for massive network update campaigns by up to 80%. And, thanks to AI’s ability to analyse email content, summarise key information and automatically update tickets, it has been possible to reduce the time spent on customer reporting by approximately 3,000 hours per year and the time spent on RFO (Report for Outage) by about 700 hours per year.
This has inevitably allowed staff to focus more on direct customer interaction and problem resolution, with a positive impact on the overall quality of service.
“Sparkle is engaged in several projects aimed at improving customer and employee experience through AI, as well as enriching our market proposition. The AISNA project, focused on network management, has been a top priority for its impact on customers and operations,” said Sparkle chief information officer Lorella Scalcione.
“Thanks to this project”, said Sparkle head of operations Danilo Decaroli, “our NOC is now able to interact with customers even more promptly and transparently, while also operating more efficiently and with a greater focus, reducing the burden of repetitive activities in favour of customer care and problem solving.”
