The automation program that reduced network congestion and saved $4M per year

An Australian internet service provider specialising in consumer and business internet services

as well as mobile telephone services. Their nation-wide network is made up of Australia’s largest Internet exchange and third largest metropolitan fibre optic network.

In a highly competitive environment, it has never been more important for telcos to provide exceptional customer experience

but technical issues were creating headaches for both team members and consumers. Network congestion was one of the highest drivers of complaints, with  the telco unable to react fast enough to effectively mitigate congestion during peak periods. Firewall change requests were also taking an average of 14 days to action following InfoSec sign off. This lead to a significant finance cost to the Telco; because every Mbps of NBN capacity over allocated to customers was costing the Telco $8 per month per Mbps.

Innovior deployed automation that enables real-time monitoring of network congestion

to predict peak data use and increase bandwidth before congestion happens. Customer journey mapping was conducted to identify pain points, which led to development of automation that allows real-time firewall changes. This was complemented by a change management program to ensure smooth uptake of the new process. Artificial intelligence and machine learning was used to predict customer bandwidth usage, taking into account contributing factors such as day of week, large game or software updates and weather and sporting events.

The pre-emptive strategy to predict and mitigate network congestion

led to a 90% reduction in daily occurrences of congestion and a subsequent drop in the number of customer calls, complaints and churn. Switching to real-time firewall updates means changes that previously took 14 days are now handled in real-time (once approved by InfoSec) and the telco is able to deliver value to the business faster.

Combining AI and automation to deliver real-time resolution of firewall updates has resulted in the telco saving $4 million per year in NBN bandwidth fees.