Lucent puts management at the core: Network Reliability Center eases emerging carriers' management burdens

Lucent Technologies has launched a service that lets carriers outsource virtually all their network management tasks, providing an economical way for new service providers to offer the same degree of reliable management as established carriers.

Lucent has built what it calls the Network Reliability Center, a facility in Aurora, Colo., that can manage 200 to 600 digital switches. From this facility, the company will manage customer care, operations planning, network integration, service provisioning and other services.

"There's a tremendous emerging market for managed services across the full spectrum of service providers," said Ross Maturano, director of strategic services at Lucent. "By using the NRC for some or all of its network management needs, a carrier can concentrate its resources on marketing its business, reduce operational costs and guarantee its customers high quality and reliable service."

The center uses a number of Lucent's own management products, including its NetMinder network traffic management software and the Connectvu automated translation and provisioning system, but the center will not be a Lucent-only environment, Maturano said.

About 100 employees staff the NRC, and an additional 60 engineers and technicians throughout the U. S. provide on-site support and operations planning services.

"The density of talent lets us have someone on duty at all times who knows how to deal with any issues that come up," said Maturano.

ICG Communications, based in Denver, and WinStar Telecommunications, New York, are already using the center, and other carriers will soon follow, Maturano said.