Decided to put a thread out there for professionals who work in telecoms, geographical location notwithstanding.
Are you an engineer, accountant, project/program manager, finance/business planning/marketing/regulatory/IT or CRM professional, or in whatever area, but work specifically in telecoms?
Do you work in in a fixed, mobile, IP operator? Or are you working for a vendor/service or solutions provider, or in consulting, specifically in telecoms?

Like I said, geographic location not particularly relevant, let's meet up and share experiences.

- Professional Electrical Engineer based in N.America in the Telecoms field.
- Manage projects to expand, upgrade and maintain a reliable network for SCADA and mobile radio.
- Use microwave, fibre and leased lines for transport.
- Also maintain a VHF mobile radio network.
- etc. etc.

Delta007:

- Professional Electrical Engineer based in N.America in the Telecoms field.
- Manage projects to expand, upgrade and maintain a reliable network for SCADA and mobile radio.
- Use microwave, fibre and leased lines for transport.
- Also maintain a VHF mobile radio network.
- etc. etc.

Sounds like you work in or for the oil industry, @Delta007.
I have a question for you. Why are the oil majors not going for next-generation stuff like PTT and M2M for their DCS applications, but are still clinging to terrestrial radio networks?

@ delta007 & Ajanlekoko
I am a no where near being a professional but I am very sure I could do with some hand holding. I studied electronics and computer engineering from a university in nigeria. I worked with an ISP back in 2005 and got some exposure to Cisco routers and switches. I concluded my term of compulsory youth service last year and presently work as an IT support person. I manage a server 2003 network. I have a fair knowledge of ubuntu linux. I dream of working in the telecomms industry in some capacity. I wrote and passed 70-620 three weeks ago and am currently studying for 70-290. Could you offer some advice on how to build a career in that direction

I thought I might add that I am a self-starter and plan to write my microsoft exams using a self-study approach. It was the same approach I used to learn most of all I know as an IT person. Thank You

I am an experienced Telecom/IT Network Infrastructure Roll-out and Corporate Real Estate,Project Manager, with a rich Civil Engineering Infrastructure design background across Real Estate, Telecom, Public and IT sector.

STRENGTH
• Excellent planning and design of Civil Network Infrastructures and intelligent buildings and systems this includes; Data Centres (BSC, MSC,) BTS, VSAT link, Radio Link, Earth Stations, Call Centres, AV system and Service/retail centres.
• Superior coordination of user acceptance testing of final facilities project deliverables, end product documentation and transitioning.
• Experience in Structural/Foundation Engineering design this include pile foundation, steel, reinforced concrete and strap foundation design
• Multiple Vendor management, SLA, SOW and contract management.

i am looking for a new project management contract opening in Nigeria in the telecom or Banking industry
you can contact me.on

ezeuloho@yahoo.com or 08034377115. check my profile on linkedin; http://www.linkedin.com/in/ezeafieroho

bijorium:

@ delta007 & Ajanlekoko
I am a no where near being a professional but I am very sure I could do with some hand holding. I studied electronics and computer engineering from a university in nigeria. I worked with an ISP back in 2005 and got some exposure to Cisco routers and switches. I concluded my term of compulsory youth service last year and presently work as an IT support person. I manage a server 2003 network. I have a fair knowledge of ubuntu linux. I dream of working in the telecomms industry in some capacity. I wrote and passed 70-620 three weeks ago and am currently studying for 70-290. Could you offer some advice on how to build a career in that direction

Hmm, Let me try and see if I can explain how the structure in a typical carrier works.
Modern carriers have this kind of structure
- Core Network: billing, intelligent network (IN),switching and OSS (operations support systems) environment. Traditionally the 'Central Office' in the older fixed networks. To work in this environment you need a good knowledge of systems (Solaris usually, mostly UNIX admin and scripting), database skills (likely to be Oracle these days). Of course you also need to understand the theory and structure of the core networks.

-Service Layer: Actually can be regarded as part of the core network, but this is what enables the value-added services (SMS, MMS, voicemail, data services, etc, etc). You find a lot of core IT guys ending up here. To end up here, stay with your Cisco track, and also try to upskill yourself with Java/Linux/Solaris.

For the core network (IN/switching), this is carrier side, so you can ideally only get experience in these areas by working in carriers. But to get VAS experience, you can find work with these content and application providers: Mtech, MobileXcetera, Cellulant, A3&O, Vas2Nets, all those guys. They are actually many but I don't know them all. Working in any of them can put you in good stead with an operator.



-Access Network: Basically the outdoor wired or wireless environment, and the transport networks that carry traffic from the last mile (customer) to the core network. For wireless you probably have to have some radio network experience or know-how. Could be HF or microwave radio, WLL (wireless local loop) or TDM, even spread-spectrum radio experience and satellite technologies. You need to have a good understanding of the technologies, (frequency and time division multiplexing, all that stuff you learned in school), beyond the basic modulation/fourier series stuff, the real digital comms.

How do you enter this side of the business? In Nigeria, you have to set your sights on organizations that are doing some sort of wireless. The service providers I know that do a lot of radio work are Briscoe, Dizengoff (Motorola), RCN (MKO Abiola's company), Harris Stratex, Alcatel Lucent, and maybe Telnet/Resourcery. DCC, a subsidiary of Computer Warehouse, is into VSAT I think, and the environment is good. You may have noticed I didn't mention Ericsson, because they are working directly for the carriers, and I'm not sure they recruit freshers per se. You might find the other guys a bit easier to access.

Many ISPs in Nigeria, prior to the evolution of GSM and CDMA carriers, used to have some sort of radio network to deliver data to their subscribers. In the past it was spread-sectrum radio in the ISM (Industrial Scientific and Medical) band, now many of them are into IEE 802.16e (WiMAX). So one of those ISPs might be good for you. Maybe Direct on PC, IPNX, Swift Broadband, or the new one, Cobranet.

You can see that 'work plenty for front'. Like I said earlier, stay with what you're learning, and try to expand your scope a bit. Also find out which other companies asides the ones I listed, are specialist in those various areas. The most important thing is that you're moving towards your goal, regardless of what you're currently doing.

Pls can body help me find or direct me some Telecom vendors,Telecom Companies,i can fix myself.I am into IT,but i want to switch to pure telecom,as that has been my heart desire.Pls.my email address is:kulasbenta@yahoo.com.I live in lagos,Nigeria.

I onces work as a base station engineer in one ISP down south south. There i was introduce to cisco router and gateway, E1( spread spectrum) WIMAN Radio(old), WIFI radio and also LAN networking. I am currently a network admin in oil servicing company. I manage over 100 workstation with 5 servers with win 2003 such as ISA server (firewall), DC, SAP Server (an ERP) FTP etc. I realy want to go into Telecomm i want to have all this experiece mention above. BSC, BTS, Switching all these core networking in Telecomm. I have tried my best getting job there but all effort failed. Do u have any advice for me

Thanks AjanleKoko for your insight, let me quickly point out something as regards ericsson, for freshers, they take mostly first-class graduates and put them in a management-trainee program.
Before now, i worked in a telecomms firm in the NOC department with the cisco routers,billing servers and internet gateways, there i was a junior sys admin. Now I work in an ISP providing services using licensed RF/Vsat providing VPN links to corporate organisations and public institutions etc.
I'm the senior sys admin also working in the NOC in charge of our Backbone infrastructure and all of our production and application servers(hardware/software).
I took a course in telecomms last year/this year and i must say it's a very interesting field for me. I'm looking at taking a more comprehensive course in telecomms in India(5months course, cheap and good lecture delivery) because i really have a passion for it but i'm currently torn between going to india and forfeiting my current job. My employers are unwilling to grant me a 5month leave of absense even without pay so it's a difficult decision to resign and start job hunting 5 months later when i'm back in Nigeria.
I'm currently being wooed by a lucrative career as an SAP consultant i'm currently making enquiries and spending lots of time in the NL "About SAP" thread. Now i know that tough decisions make a Man.

AjanleKoko:

You may have noticed I didn't mention Ericsson, because they are working directly for the carriers, and I'm not sure they recruit freshers per se. You might find the other guys a bit easier to access.

@AjanleKoko - man, you know your stuff. Thumbs up. Meanwhile, you forgot to mention Huawei and NokiaSiemens. These guys are slowly gaining ground in the struggle for part of the operators networks. Although Ericsson is still number 1 in terms of market share, they are struggling to keep it that way

Original Software Vendor in the Largest IT Mart in west Arfica(Computer Village) and Also a Trainer in Accounting Packages,
Attached is a list of Availabal softwares

Epiphany:

@AjanleKoko - man, you know your stuff. Thumbs up. Meanwhile, you forgot to mention Huawei and NokiaSiemens. These guys are slowly gaining ground in the struggle for part of the operators networks. Although Ericsson is still number 1 in terms of market share, they are struggling to keep it that way

yes o.

NSN (nokia siemens) I don't consider to be a serious vendor in this market for now. Any inroad they may have right now might be due to Siemens, since Nokia never considered the African market a target for its equipment biz. But they will face a stiff challenge from HW, as those guys are gradually gaining acceptance in mainstream wireless (GSM) and they have resources. Those guys literally throw Chinamen at every project.
My fav vendors in this market are Alcatel Lucent and Huawei, as they are really putting resources and technology into Glo and etisalat. Those two operators will have a smoother ride to the NGN than the Ericsson networks, given cost considerations.

Ericsson will however continue to be number one, since the top 2 pan-African networks (MTN and Zain) are Ericsson networks. With this new strategic outsourcing deal with Zain, that's assured.

AjanleKoko:

yes o.

NSN (nokia siemens) I don't consider to be a serious vendor in this market for now. Any inroad they may have right now might be due to Siemens, since Nokia never considered the African market a target for its equipment biz. But they will face a stiff challenge from HW, as those guys are gradually gaining acceptance in mainstream wireless (GSM) and they have resources. Those guys literally throw Chinamen at every project.
My fav vendors in this market are Alcatel Lucent and Huawei, as they are really putting resources and technology into Glo and etisalat. Those two operators will have a smoother ride to the NGN than the Ericsson networks, given cost considerations.

Ericsson will however continue to be number one, s[b]ince the top 2 pan-African networks (MTN and Zain) are Ericsson networks[/b]. With this new strategic outsourcing deal with Zain, that's assured.

not exactly. MTN uses Ericsson down south and Huawei up north, while Zain is spilt into three between Huawei, Motorola and Ericsson.
inside sources say it is for strategic reasons. so that Ericsson does not hold them to ransonm and for price reasons.
Huawei will offer you a cheaper price no matter what.
as for the quality, that one is another matter entirely.

Am not a techie but I work in the telecoms industry and presently in Iran on a project. When I arrived in Iran I noticed how Huawei was getting most of the projects and was concerned because I was not sure about the quality of their equipment and service. However it appears that the people here are happy with what they have done so far and in some instances ericsson equipment is being swapped for Huawei. I have also noticed that Huawei are very aggresive when it comes to pricing. There is no way the Ericssons of this world can compete with them when it comes to pricing.

@mbulela

I was referring to the core network, not the access layer.
For both Zain and MTN, the core network is 100% Ericsson, while the service layer (VAS) is a mix of products.
All the operators are using various access strategies, e.g etisalat is using NSN, ALU and HW. That's basically a cost management strategy.
Also, the quality thing is becoming rather relative. HW was regarded as a 'cheap' vendor for a very long time. One thing about those guys is that they 'look face' before they supply a product. Imagine, this is the vendor that powers TeliaSonera and Telenor in Europe (Finaland and Norway).
Anybody who knows wireless systems worldwide will tell you these networks are NGN pioneers and standard bearers where technology is concerned.

Look at the Ring Back Tone Service. Are you aware that Huawei powers this service in MTN, Glo, etisalat, Visafone, and Starcomms? They have the most advanced system for RBT in the world. Ericsson doesn't even have its own product.

NIGERIANS Una dey try well

mbulela:

not exactly. MTN uses Ericsson down south and Huawei up north, while Zain is spilt into three between Huawei, Motorola and Ericsson.
inside sources say it is for strategic reasons. so that Ericsson does not hold them to ransonm and for price reasons.
Huawei will offer you a cheaper price no matter what.
as for the quality, that one is another matter entirely.

Totally correct mbulela,as a matter of fact,it would have remained a straight fight between Motorola and Ericsson for Zain's market especially,but for the crashing of not just BTS,RF equipment etc prices by Huawei,but the chienese still crashed the prices for CW infrastructure.Like you said,the quality of their equipment is another thing

Presently engaged in the provision GSM and CDMA infrastructure,such as towers,RF and microwave antennae and cables,actual building of BTS ,MSC etc sites plus upgrades,VSAT and about to incoporate cellular network back hauling in conjunction with a Canadian company to provide support for GSM,CDMA,GPRS,EDGE,UMTS as well as combined 2G to 3.5G networks

@ AjanleKoko

U so inform. HW is doing quite well in the nordic states, some of my chinese guys working with them after graduation.
They come cheap and  increasingly improving on their products. Their edge is the accessibility to cheap labour - both research
and consulting. I'm afraid of their closeness - refuse to integrate with host nations except in Europe.

What's the latest on the 2.3GHz licence that caused so much brouhaha between Akunyili and Ernnest Ndukwe? are they retaining the initial four successful companies now that Galaxy wireless has denied ever authoring the said petition,they should please retain them coss I've taken position to partner with one or two of them in their roll out

Nice thread guys,

Always been interested in telcomms from birth . . the 2 degrees I have are telecomms related.  did my internship with Multichoice sevral yrs ago, worked with 2 ISPS in Nigeria.  did CCNA and MSCE over 10yrs ago (old school abi?)

 I'm still in the wireless telecoms field as a Knowledge Management Analyst.

Does that count for anything?

kokoye:

Nice thread guys,

Always been interested in telcomms from birth . . the 2 degrees I have are telecomms related. did my internship with Multichoice sevral yrs ago, worked with 2 ISPS in Nigeria. did CCNA and MSCE over 10yrs ago (old school abi?)

I'm still in the wireless telecoms field as a Knowledge Management Analyst.

Does that count for anything?

Bros,
as you can see from the title of the thread, all telecom professionals are welcome. We look forward to enjoying your perspective.

rasputinn:

What's the latest on the 2.3GHz licence that caused so much brouhaha between Akunyili and Ernnest Ndukwe? are they retaining the initial four successful companies now that Galaxy wireless has denied ever authoring the said petition,they should please retain them coss I've taken position to partner with one or two of them in their roll out

Bros, you be real capitalist o!
Me I'm wondering what the license is supposed to achieve for the guys who are buying it. It's beginning to look like a lot of redundant licensing is taking place.

@ poster. thanks for the invitation.

I pray our govt takes the power / electricity thing seriously. Like I said, i worked with 2 ISPS back in the 90s when it was all dial-up access. The companies ran on generators virtually everyday and had to bribe Nitel staff daily. How do you run a profitable legit business that way??

Now I know we have bye-passed the dial-up thing mostly with wireless access n cabling but I'm sure most companies still have to buy diesel everyday and also pay heavily to secure cell sites. It will be difficult for prices to down in such situations.

God help us all.

I agree with all the posts alluding to the adoption of Huawei nodes, due to the price war with Ericsson. It was even said sometimes in MTN that the equipment Huawei provided was so similar to that of Ericsson, that you could just take off the Ericsson label and put Huawei on it - yet, Ericsson prices were so steep.

However, it is my understanding that NSN is presently employing people to work in their Nigeria office (Adeola Odeku) due to their 'growing' market in Nigeria/West-Africa. Is it true that they are in agreement with Etisalat to provide them with equipment and services? In fact, WHO PROVIDES ETISALAT WITH THEIR EQUIPMENT? SAME WITH JIM OVIA'S VISAFONE? (i hear that they are doing very well)

Apart from that, although not relevant to this thread, i hear that NSN is planning to buy Nortel - to expand their reach into the America's, where Nortel used to operate.

@ Epiphany,
both Visafone and Etisalat have Huawei as their core network vendor.
NSN. . . well, what I know is etisalat right now is using NSN as part of their BTS rollout vendors. I don't know if they have any plans of bringing NSN into the core network. That would be interesting to see. Regarding employment opportunities, since there's a major rollout planned by etisalat, definitely NSN would need to scale up their manpower to meet demands, and also brace for possible new opportunities.

Nortel is trying to sell their NGN business to NSN, as I've seen on the web lately. You know Nortel has gone bust basically.

AjanleKoko:

Sounds like you work in or for the oil industry, @Delta007.
I have a question for you. Why are the oil majors not going for next-generation stuff like PTT and M2M for their DCS applications, but are still clinging to terrestrial radio networks?

Chief, I know you understand it's not as easy as it sounds to migrate especially when you have a system that is tested, trusted and relatively reliable. It's not that we have a customer base or data that is growing astronomically every minute. However, most manufacturers are gradually moving to IP based systems. This is our challenge as we are left with no other option(s) than to take a hard look at this "new" trend. We are currently "fighting" with Alcatel cos they have made a business decision to shift their focus solely to MPLS and are no longer going to be supporting our network of TDM muxes worth several millions of dollars. I can see machine-to-machine technology being implemented down the road (definitely not now). There are some security and regulatory issues with IP that are currently being sorted. Most FEP are IP based now and IP is slowly but gradually creeping in. These are same challenges facing most telecoms depts in the utilities and oil platforms today (out here in the West).

You also have to realise that there are several other field devices like RTUs, etc in remote areas with skinny banwidth and no IP capability because they were installed in the days of Abraham. It takes lots to make such decisions. Funny enough, the shareholders and BoDs are looking at their dollars and they hardly fathom why you want to spend $10million to upgrade a network that is relatively stable & reliable and does not significantly increase revenue. The Telcos have a different playing field.

I'm in the utilities industry and control all generating (hydro, coal, windfarms, etc) stations & substations from a Control Centre; still Energy but not oil. Although in Nigeria we are used to outages, power outages in the Western world is not a norm; even with natural disasters (hurricanes, storms etc), you still have to answer questions why there was an outage and why it took so long to get it back on. Hence, we must maintain a very robust and reliable network; that's one major reason why utilities have their own terrestrial radio network and are not eager to give it up. The oil platforms are driven by profit and can hardly afford any downtime either.

MOBILE VAS SPECIALIST IN THE HOUSE, WORK WITH ONE OF THE TELCOs IN NAIJA.

AjanleKoko:

@ Epiphany,
both Visafone and Etisalat have Huawei as their core network vendor.
NSN. . . well, what I know is etisalat right now is using NSN as part of their BTS rollout vendors. I don't know if they have any plans of bringing NSN into the core network. That would be interesting to see. Regarding employment opportunities, since there's a major rollout planned by etisalat, definitely NSN would need to scale up their manpower to meet demands, and also brace for possible new opportunities.

Nortel is trying to sell their NGN business to NSN, as I've seen on the web lately. You know Nortel has gone bust basically.

They are a lazy bunch when it comes to flexibility. Huawei is definitely the most admired in the industry now when it comes to IN and VAS services.
You're right, their CRBT is one of a kind, though i was presented with a very competitive offering from a vendor by the name - TELENITY- their Caller Ring Back Tone service was brilliant too.

I know they're the total backbone of the visafone network, OSS & NSS, i dnt know about BSS.
As for price wars, they're monsters, only local vendors can compete with them when it comes to OSS solutions.

I'm Entry level position, in search of a world class career in Etisalat. However, brilliant professsional in Marketing communications. certified from skool'f media & Communication/LBS, APCON affilaite, 2yrs prof experience, howvr, Telecomms thrives and is sure for short/long-term career progressin. happy2join y'all!


stewie_G

AjanleKoko:

@mbulela

I was referring to the core network, not the access layer.
For both Zain and MTN, the core network is 100% Ericsson, while the service layer (VAS) is a mix of products.
All the operators are using various access strategies, e.g etisalat is using NSN, ALU and HW. That's basically a cost management strategy.
Also, the quality thing is becoming rather relative. HW was regarded as a 'cheap' vendor for a very long time. One thing about those guys is that they 'look face' before they supply a product. Imagine, this is the vendor that powers TeliaSonera and Telenor in Europe (Finaland and Norway).
Anybody who knows wireless systems worldwide will tell you these networks are NGN pioneers and standard bearers where technology is concerned.

Look at the Ring Back Tone Service. Are you aware that Huawei powers this service in MTN, Glo, etisalat, Visafone, and Starcomms? They have the most advanced system for RBT in the world. Ericsson doesn't even have its own product.

you are correct on the issue of core vis a vis access.
but on that issue of quality, i still stand to be corrected. Huawei is not rugged enough (i am restricting my assertion to access network).that is a fact that can be ascertained from the quality of access of MTN and Zain in the different regions.
one thing about the Huawei people na say dem sabi do business in the local style
i will not expatiate on that and they never take no for an answer.those chineese guys go worry you like bug until you give them a chance.
infact they will pretend they don't understand your english when it does not suit them.

on a general note, one admirable thing about Huawei is their flexibility.
they are always willing to tinker with the product to suit your need.

on a different note.
what is holding number portability in the GSM industry?
how do you see the industry panning out when it is introduced.

2ndly, what do you think is the most critical need of the industry at present? (i mean from a practitioner point of view)