Dark Fibre Africa

Ciena helps a large fibre optic company resolve complex network issues

When a premier open access fibre optic company in South Africa needed expert advice, they came to Ciena.

Dark Fibre’s Dilemma

Dark Fibre Africa (DFA), a wholesale, open access fibre network operator and services provider based in South Africa, required a single integrated solution for monitoring and reporting all their services.
The ability to leverage existing network and systems deployment for the delivery of real-time reporting for their customers—without any significant additional resource deployment—was a key requirement.

Ciena’s timely solution

DFA selected Ciena's Insights Service because a single integrated solution provider offered a single point of contact for their monitoring and reporting requirements.
Insights Service’s SLA Portal was deployed for visibility into the network infrastructure through asset identification, topology discovery, and routing configurations for overall network optimization requirements and enable efficient execution.

The results

Monetizing on bandwidth utilization

With the ability to monitor the bandwidth utilization for each and every service, DFA is now able to monetize over-utilization of network services they provide to their clients. If customers exceed the bandwidth they have purchased, the tool sends a notification; after three notifications, customers are automatically billed at the relevant bandwidth rate.

Higher resource efficiency

The SLA Portal has contributed to increased levels of resource efficiency at DFA. Reporting automation has freed employees’ time, enabling them to focus on more strategic projects instead of time-consuming and error-prone, manual reporting processes.

Improved customer experience

DFA’s customers now have a transparent view of services statistics which has enhanced the customer experience.

Key Takeaways

Insights Service’s SLA Portal enables DFA to proactively identify and resolve network and service assurance risks.
It helps DFA to adapt with the changing business needs just like Ciena’s vision on adaptive networks.
Resource utilization and efficiency is enhanced significantly—fewer dedicated resources are needed on operations and can be deployed to focus on critical and strategic matters in the business.
DFA could reduce network congestion as well as scale their network according to changing business needs.
DFA can now better manage customer expectations.
DFA has also deployed Ciena’s Blue Planet Orchestration and Network Automation Virtualization services this year and is very happy with the quality and speed with which deployment took place.