With IP-based services at the core of its expansion strategy in Latin America, Telefónica has now chosen NPAW’s business intelligence and analytics solutions to support growth across the region.
The giant telco has tapped Barcelona-based NPAW (Nice People At Work) to develop a tailored solution to monitor its IPTV network in Latin America, while NPAW’s YOUBORA analytics technology will be used to monitor over-the-top (OTT) services performance.
YOUBORA will collect data such as plays, errors, package loss, device activity and device certification from IPTVs and transform it into actionable insights.
This enables Telefónica to pinpoint whether given problems are occurring on set-top boxes or on their network, empowering customer-service agents to quickly identify problems, and manage network issues remotely.
The Telefónica-NPAW agreement is an extension of an initial partnership last year in Brazil, where NPAW deployed monitoring solutions for the telco’s IPTV service.
“Trying to monitor TV service through unmanaged and managed networks is what kept us up at night. After building the infrastructure to collect data from IPTVs and set-top box management we move a step forward,” said Javier Izquierdo, global director of video operations at Telefónica. “Now we can not only identify issues, their root causes, but also customer service and technical teams are proactive using real time insights to manage TV service.”
Telefónica has several fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) and IPTV operations under deployment in Latin America. While Brazil is its largest fibre powerhouse (nearing half a million IPTV subs), the telco is also rolling out FTTH in Argentina and Colombia, and has been betting on OTT video as an added-value service for both fixed and mobile customers.
“We pushed beyond what was thought possible to pioneer new technologies,” pointed out Luis López Chousa, VP product solutions at NPAW. “After building this custom solution for Telefónica's IPTV service we are uniquely positioned to offer full visibility on video services regardless of networks used.”