Wade4Wireless

SLAs & NOCs


One thing to keep in mind is that the network will have to be monitored. I am not sure if you would use your own NOC or work with a partner. This is something the customer will need help with because P5G is a major undertaking. It is going to have a lot of moving pieces and most smaller businesses want to farm this out like they do the Cloud or Edge. 

This is where you can get ongoing OpEx money for supporting your customer over the long term.

Use this not only to maintain their network, but to do updates, upgrades, and add new applications. Take this as an opportunity to bond with your customer over the next 5 years  or so. You should be their shoulder to lean on and if necessary, cry on.

You will also learn that SLA (Service Level Agreements) matter. If you catch a problem, you may have to troubleshoot something within the first 24 hours, then you have to do it or suffer penalties. Suddenly, business hours versus after hours matter. If you’re writing the scope, then you need to be clear about calendar days and business days.

It would help to define BAU, (business as usual), in the agreement. While you may have a contract, chances are good that the scope will be part of the contract. It will be the defining point of your relationship going forward. 

The scope will outline the way you have to monitor and respond. If you’re responsible for repairs, then keep that in mind as well.

All the words matter about how you will respond. For example:

  • Will you monitor 24/7? Meaning 24 hours a day by 7 days a week? Maybe it will be 16/5, meaning 16 hours a day 5 days a week.  
  • Will you respond on holidays?
  • Will you alert the customer immediately or the next business day?
  • Is it up to you to repair something in a set amount of time?
  • Define repair by explaining if you’re only going to remotely connect or if you plan to send someone on-site to replace something. If you dispatch, what will the response be? 
  • Spare parts matter. Are you expected to have spares along with you or will you have time to order a replacement part? Advance replacements or return and repair?
  • Will you have live people at your NOC or simply a program that alerts you when there’s a problem?
  • Will you provide reports? If so, daily, weekly, or monthly?
  • Will you provide a live dashboard for the customer to look at anytime they want to?
  • Will you be onshore or offshore? Make sure if you offshore it’s allowed. 
  • Will the NOC workers have to be better? US citizens? Any other stipulations?

These are all things to consider. I hate to break it to you, but you can’t cover everything in the SOW (Scope of Work) contract. You think you have thought of everything, but until you have a few customers and learn how they think, not what you think, but actually how they think, then you write the next one better. 

We often look at the SLA thinking we are protecting while giving the best service to the customer. You always find loopholes, which generally work in the customer’s favor. 

Here is how you react to a loophole;

  • Look it over.
  • Estimate your cost for doing it and for not doing it. By not doing it, will you lose the customer or hurt good faith?
  • Think how it will affect your service going forward, meaning if you do it now will it eat into your margin moving ahead?
  • See how important it is to the customer. If you push back and they return the push, then weigh it out again. 
  • Will pushing back cause a bigger issue?If you do it today, you will do it going forward unless something changes.
  • Can you charge other customers for this going forward? Learning about something you didn’t think of isn’t a bad thing because it may be an option you can charge extra for moving ahead. Remember, you have to prepare for growth, new customers, and contract renewals. 

Eating a cost now may help you build new services in the future. Your first 3 to 5 customers are always a learning experience, so don’t beat yourself up.

NOC – Build or Outsource?

First off, what is a NOC? 

  • Network Operations Center

What does a NOC do? 

  • It can do several things
  • Network, Device, Alarm, Server, Application, and Website monitoring
  • Remotely support services like commissioning, integration, upgrades, application installation, testing, and so on.
  • Detect alarms, troubleshoot, and possibly correct them remotely.

What does a NOC need:

  • A staff to support, respond, and troubleshoot,
  • Servers and computers and routers, all the typical network stuff,
  • Software to monitor networks, alert team of alarms and outages,
  • Software to monitor performance and trends.

What is the difference between a NOC and help desk?

  • Both are concerned with network performance.
  • The NOC supports and monitors the network per the agreed upon SLAs.
  • The help desk consists of a team of people, maybe a few bots, that will interact with the customers, possibly via test, phone, or face to face. The help desk will help the customer resolve their problems, think of an IT help desk and how they work with you, either remotely or face to face. Today, many can ask simple questions using a Bot that will answer FAQs, (Frequently Asked Questions). Believe it or not this takes care of many customers who are just trying to get over simple hurdles. 

What tools do you need?

  • Internet connectivity, preferably a huge pipe.
  • All the physical infrastructure, servers, routers, hubs, and so on. You may rely on the Cloud for some of these services and that’s fine, the Cloud is a great way to offload what you can. Maybe moving to the EDGE could also serve you.
  • A ticketing system to track issues.
  • A reporting system to update customers regularly of problems, trends, outages, and so on.
  • An infrastructure monitoring system to monitor whatever it is you plan to monitor.
  • Process automation to help you limit the amount of human interaction and build efficiencies on the go.
  • A good solid knowledge base. This should be somewhere where everyone and everything has access to it. Remember this will always be growing and you will add new customer information to it as you grow.
  • IT Management and User Performance systems could help you improve your customer experiences. 

If you plan to build your own NOC, then you will have to create some process for people and networks.

  • Outline your team’s roles and responsibilities. You will need managers to create schedules for each shift, teams to escalate and respond to issues, coordinators for planning, troubleshooting teams for Tier 1 through 3 support, and possibly customer interface teams.
  • You may need software support as you tailor and improve your software to do more and refine it to work with your customer’s needs. 
  • Map out the process flows for the network, responses, people, and anything else where the process must be defined. 
  • Set priorities for alerts and communications. Will the customer call problems in or send a text or email? Will your team respond with text, email, or a phone call? Will you have meetings once a week, month, or year? How will updates and changes be communicated?

Think about the way you will analyze trends and network performance, not just yours but your customers. Remember that even if it’s not an alert, you may want to share trends and non-service affecting incidents with your team and customers. 

  • Number of incidents.
  • Average initial response times.
  • Average resolution times.
  • Resolution times for first time responses, second time responses, and so on.
  • Number of repeated alarms, incidents, or outages.
  • Average count of incidents resolved remotes and dispatches.
  • Track escalations, internal and customer.
  • Track SLA violations.

Always be Improving!

  • What is tracked can be improved, keep that in mind. 
  • Track network performance.
  • Track people performance.
  • Track customer performance. 
  • Track response times.
  • Create reports.
  • Share with the team and customers.
  • Look for what’s missing.
  • Discuss with the team and customers about improving.

Understand the business once you’re up and running.

  • Make sure your support requirements are realistic and match customer SLAs.
  • Make sure your service levels are satisfactory, within the cost limits of the business case, and serve the customer up to their expectations. This is very hard.
  • Identify what metrics matter internally and to the customer. Review these on a regular basis if possible. 
  • Measure your response times, repair times, and make reports that help improve it. In other words, don’t create reports with a lot of useless information, pick the KPIs that matter and can be improved. Remove obscurity in favor of the practical. 
  • Set your service objectives to match expectations.
  • Make sure you understand that each customer may have a specific SLA depending upon what they pay for and how big they are. Yes, in this case size matters.
  • If you can add new services, review it and see what you can add at no cost, (little value or cost), and what you can charge for, (high value). 
  • Constantly review customer satisfaction. Many NOCs get caught up in the internal workings and forget to communicate with customers. Ask your customer what they want and how you could do better.
  • Always be looking at costs. Network costs, people costs, communication costs, overtime costs, upgrade costs, and so on.
  • How do you measure and reward performance? Always be thinking about this. 

Finally, build or outsource?

I know, I threw a lot of information at you and I am just now getting to the question. Sorry about that!

I wanted you to see all the things above and let you determine what makes more sense, to take on your own NOC or to outsource. Either way you have to look at how to improve.

If you are making the decision, consider these questions.

  • How much money do you have? Enough to build your own or simply outsource?
  • Are you monitoring your own networks? If so, can you expand for other customers? Does the investment make sense?
  • If you’re signing up your first customer, can you meet their SLAs? Do you understand what they want? Will your revenue exceed your costs? Are you going to commit to this for several years?
  • If you outsource, do you have faith your contracted NOC can support you cost effectively? Will they add costs as you go? Look for hidden costs. Can they meet your customers’ SLAs? Do you trust them to interface directly with the customer or do you plan to be the middleman?
  • If you build, can you ramp up in time? Do you have the funding to cover all the things you need? Do you really have the understanding and commitment to stick with this for the length of the contract?

Smarter Systems & Automation

As we enter new AI features and ML improvements, we will increase automation. I mentioned above how a BOT will replace simple customer service functions, especially since so many people like to text when they want an answer right now, myself included. I think hat as these services improve, think Alexa and Siri, we will see automation improving response times.

We will also see the networks correct many of their own issues. This will become very important to the private network owner and the supporting group so they can improve downtime, response time, but also latency. So many problems are being resolved using ML today, imagine what the next generation will do in a few years. It will become smarter and more resilient. 

More Stuff:

Promos for a Win-Win:

First: do you want to sell or merge? I have partners looking to acquire or merge small businesses looking for partners or an exit.

  • Looking for companies in IT, Fiber (indoor or outdoor), wireless, Wi-Fi, FWA, Venue or DAS.
  • Looking for owners ready to sell or retire.
  • Smaller companies, maybe 4 to 15 employees.
  • Concentrating on the East coast, but open to US based businesses,
  • Email me at wade@techfecta.com.

Next, do you want to grow, expand, or purchase a business? Maybe you are looking to purchase a company, spark growth, or increase production and need an investment partner. This is how my other partner can help.

  • Here is who they want to help:
    • US based,
    • Someone looking for $10M and up,
    • Needing to grow, consolidate, or merge,
    • Email me at wade@techfecta.com.
  • About the Investment company;
    •  Made 155+ completed transactions,
    • $2.4B+ deployed,
    • $1.4B of assets,
    • Focused on Technology, IT, and Wireless,
    • Been around over 15 years.

Finally, here are some other updates.

Update on next book! I am putting together a new book on Private Wireless Networks. Hopefully by the end of January.

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