Access 4.0: A valuable lesson in network transformation
The Access 4.0 broadband deployment by Deutsche Telekom has deepened its understanding of the intricacies of network transformation. The Access 4.0 team discusses what it has learnt and reflects on the issues a mass deployment raises.
Deutsche Telekom’s Access 4.0 platform has been delivering broadband services for nearly half a year.
But the operator has deliberately limited the deployment of the next-generation fibre-to-the-x platform to one central office in Stuttgart.
The system is fully functional, says Robert Soukup, senior program manager at Deutsche Telekom, but the operator wants to understand the processes involved so they can be automated before it starts the widescale deployment.
“Now we can see where the gaps are and what we need to adapt internally,” says Hans-Jörg Kolbe, chief engineer and head of SuperSquad Access 4.0 at Deutsche Telekom.
This will take the rest of the year. Only if this final check is successful will the Access 4.0 platform be rolled out across the operator’s 1,000 central offices in Germany.