Huawei has sealed numerous successful partnerships throughout its journey in the ICT industry. One of them is the partnership with Iceland’s leading mobile operator Nova. CTO Benedikt Ragnarsson gave a keynote speech at Huawei’s OTF 2022 at MWC22 to highlight the operator’s journey to OCS SaaS.
Nova has been endeavoring to deliver world-class network experience to its around 200 thousand mobile subscribers. The operator currently holds a market share of around 34% with both 4G and 5G deployed and commercialized.
In his keynote, Nova CTO identified four challenges that lead the operator to shift from the traditional approach to the SaaS approach. The first challenge was the recurring EoS/EoL issue which requires upgrades every 3-5 years that are time and cost consuming. Another challenge is the change and loss of staff which has a significant impact on the business, especially that the new staff will take some time before getting a grip of the work flow. Ragnarsson added that the third challenge is asset-heavy operations whereby heavy investment into H/W, DC, electricity O&M, among others, prevents lean operations. Enjoying new enhanced features can also be challenging, especially when it comes to transition to cloud and 5G.
All of these challenges didn’t allow Nova to meet its expectations and have a return on investment so it resorted to Huawei that offers comprehensive services that ease the complexity of moving to SaaS cloud by focusing on software and business requirements.
In his keynote, Nova CTO highlighted the value of the SaaS model that allows the operator to stay up-to-date without EOS, save infrastructure costs and avoid disruption, and monetize NSA/SA 5G network. It also enables a more customer-centric, business-focused approach and faster 5G innovation, in addition to enhancing agility.
Ragnarsson stressed the important role that Huawei played in helping Nova transition to a SaaS model thanks to its large experience and proven successful delivery with reduced risks. He confirmed that Huawei’s OCS has been supporting businesses for years and the SaaS model offers a you-see-is-what-you-get result. Moreover, Huawei is the ultimate 5G partner given its comprehensive 5G know-how, its huge influence in standardization and future-proof model. All of that fits Nova’s mid-long term business development goals.
Nova CTO concluded that moving to cloud requires a comprehensive value and cost assessment. He emphasized the need to transform the mindset rather than just changing practices. Most importantly, choosing the right partner that has a proven record and sustainable development approach is what really counts.
