Network and Telecommunication Management

Arun Das Karanath (TP026436)

Introduction
Network management refers to the activities, methods, procedures, and tools that
pertain to the operation, administration, maintenance, and provisioning of networked
systems.(Clemm, 2006, p. (8)). Network Management is considered to be a complex topic.
In todays diverse networking infrastructure the network has to handle more instances of
unified communications, virtualization and video. The emergence of the Internet in the mid
1990s as well as the development of Intranets and Extranets forced airlines to refocus their
strategy on technological innovations in order to enhance their competitiveness. Airlines
identified the Internet as a major opportunity to tackle distribution costs and to reengineer the
structure of the industry. The current airline industry very much depends on Information
Communication Technology for its operations, namely computer reservation system, call
center systems, In- Flight network system, enterprise resource planning system. Malaysia
airlines are one of the biggest airline operators in Malaysia which takes around 37,000
passengers daily to some 80 destinations internationally (Malaysia Airlines, 2010).

Current Scenario
Malaysia airlines Information systems are installed and maintained by third party
companies. The software systems for the entire airlines is developed by SITA, their call
center systems are developed by Avaya and their SATCOM Connectivity is developed by
Thales, the website maintenance is done by Akamai to provide faster web experience and the
network communication is handled by Nortel Communication systems. The whole
Information System infrastructure is developed and maintained by Tata Consultancy Services.
The back bone of the whole information system is their communication network, if the
network is not properly maintained the whole system may even crash and can make huge
losses to the company. Network and Telecommunication management is considered to be one
of the important factors to run the business hassle free. The physical centralization of all the
key departments was done to enhance its communication among departments to make it

responsive to events such as schedule disruption. The centralization was done by Tata
Consultancy Services along with SITA Labs.

Communication Network
According to the Malaysia airline business turnaround plan, they have invested in
Nortel Communication systems for a communication solution. A significant component of
this transformation is the upgrading of the legacy IT network infrastructure at Malaysia
Airlines to enable and support strategic and critical airline business activity. Nortel's
switching

platform

optimized

it

by

intelligently

prioritizing

real-time

business

communications like voice, video and multimedia services. With lower power consumption, a
consolidated management platform and a cost-per-gigabit five times less than that of the
competition, the Nortel solution will helped Malaysia Airlines achieve its Five Star Value
Carrier objectives. Malaysia Airlines' new enterprise communications infrastructure is built
around Nortel Ethernet Routing Switch 8600 (ERS 8600), a resilient terabit-class enterprise
switch that scales to 384 Gigabit Ethernet ports. Also implemented were the Nortel ERS
8300 and ERS 4500. All are managed by the Nortel Enterprise Network Management
System, which offers a single management system for wired and wireless, voice and data
converged networks (Nortel, 2008). Nortel management system only deals with the
communication between the Information Systems.

In- Flight Network Communication

The communication between the airline cockpit and airport ground staff is differently
managed by another company called Thales (Thales Group, 2010), which provides In-Flight
connectivity using TopFlight SATCOM (TFS). TFS offers next generation of satellite
communication system. Basically they provide the hardware and communication software
that connects airline cockpit and cabin to the ground. The TopFlight SATCOM establishes a
new level of performance: this new ARINC 781 standard of SATCOM continues to support
Satellite Communication for flight deck voice and data connectivity. In 2008, Malaysia
airlines rolled out In-Flight mobile connectivity which allowed its passengers to use
BlackBerry type devices and mobile phones to send/ receive email and text message and to
make / receive calls.

(Source: Malaysia Airlines, 2012)

Malaysia Airlines will soon be implementing the Lufthansa Systems Electronic Flight
Bag (EFB) application suite on its brand new A330 fleet aircraft in its efforts to further
enhance safety of flight operations and reduce costs (SITA Labs, 2012). The EFB is
developed for cockpit environment of all sectors of aviation. It helps to reduce or eliminate
the use of paper form the cockpit, improve cockpit efficiency, safety and productivity. The
implementation of the EFB system will include dual systems with UTMS/HSDPA/3G cellular
communications module for on- ground data transfer.

Internal Communication
Indira Nair (2009), who is Senior Manager of communications in Malaysia Airlines,
has pointed out that internal communications are the key to change. According to Indira
the target audience for internal communications was their own employees and to achieve that
they implemented own intranet communication website called MH Pulse which helped to
bring the management and employees much closer. Internal communications of Malaysia
airlines helps the employees of the company to interact with the management much easily
than before. Also an Extranet was developed to access the system resources using internet
from any part of the world.

(Source: Malaysia Airlines, 2012)

Malaysia airlines website development and maintenance is done by Akamai (Akamai,
2009). And Akamai's Web Application Accelerator solution delivers website performance up
to five times faster than the origin Web infrastructure and handles the specific requirements of
dynamically generated content without a costly hardware build out. It provides customers
with a globally distributed platform of more than 48,000 secure servers equipped with
specialized software which is deployed in 70 countries. In-house communication channels
such as the MH Pulse Intranet and U-voice electronic memo were also engaged to keep
employees in the loop on the latest happenings in the company. An aggressive turunpadang culture or management by walking about is being encouraged to improve staff and
management interaction and communication.

Call Center Systems

Call center systems for Malaysia airlines are been managed by Avaya (Avaya, 2011)
since after the deal was done with Malaysia airlines. The partners of Avaya - Jebsen & Jessen
Communications were selected by Malaysia airlines to deploy new integrated communication
system at Kuala Lumpur call center office. Malaysia Airlines also rolled out the Avaya Aura
Call Center 6.0, a core application that enables the company to track productivity of the call
center, handle transactions and share customer information in real time. It also deployed the
Avaya Call Management System (CMS), an application that presents real-time, graphical

contact centre status charts and an overview of each agents operational status to check
whether if the agent is available or busy with another call.

(Source: Avaya, 2012)

With the implementation of the new call center system, the company has reduced its
call center operating cost by 18%. The Avaya Interaction Centre is integrated with the
airlines Microsoft Exchange Server, which enables e-mail communication between
customers and call centre agents. Malaysia Airlines has linked a payment feature to the IVR
system in the Avaya Call Management System. This enables customers to pay for their airline
tickets over the phone when they call the airlines Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur contact centres,
or using the website. Avaya uses the Nortel network as the infrastructure to use its call center
applications.

E-Ticketing system
E-Ticketing was implemented and Departure Control System was upgraded by SITA
Labs as a part of Malaysia airlines business plan. SITA labs successfully implemented eticketing within the time period, that IATA gave to Malaysia airlines and helped the company
to save around $6.00 per ticket purchase. In fact, with SITA's help, Malaysia Airlines was
able to complete the transition to e-ticketing in just 11 months, compared to the conventional
three-year process.

(Source: Malaysia Airlines, 2012)

E- Ticketing also helped passengers to book the tickets with the help of Internet,
which actually reduced the queues in the airline counters as well as the distribution cost for
the company. The only requirement for e-Ticketing was to have internet connectivity. SITA
Labs e-Ticketing solutions helped Malaysia airlines customers to purchase air tickets through
mobile. Even the check-in procedure was made easy by implementing web check-in and
mobile check-in.

Evaluation and Suggestions

In-Flight Communication System
Currently Malaysia airlines only provide only In-Flight Entertainment like movies and
music along with communication services like air-to-ground calls and making phone calls.
The In-Flight network provider, TopFlight SATCOM (TFS) enables data throughput to the
passenger seat for internet connection if Malaysia airlines has installed Thales In-Flight
Entertainment system. TopFlight SATCOM enables passengers to use their cellular phone
and Wireless high-speed Internet devices onboard short and long haul aircraft, including
regional and business jets. Sending E-Mail or surfing the Web with a PED (Portable
Electronic Device) or laptop computer will be easier than before. Since Malaysia airlines
have already installed TFS, Implementation of their In-Flight Entertainment will be easier.

TopFlight SATCOM Satellite Data Unit (SDU) uses Inmarsat's Swift Broadband services
which enable the above mentioned services. Linked to Inmarsat's new I4 series satellites, the
TopFlight SATCOM SDU offers high speed data capacity of up to 432 kbps per channel,
supporting up to two channels simultaneously. But still Malaysia airlines didnt fully provide
internet connectivity to its passengers.
(Computerworld, 2012)But there are always better choices, Honeywell and Inmarsat
have been working together to bring in improvements for In-Flight connectivity systems
where Honeywell will develop the onboard hardware that will connect to Inmarsat's Global
Xpress network that will increase the maximum bandwidth to 50Mbps (Mega bits per
second). To improve performance, the Global Xpress network will also use spot beam
technology, which in turn uses lots of smaller beams of data to communicate between the
satellite and the ground. Even the use of LTE (3GPP Long Term Evolution) will help the
company to make the data access much cheaper.

Unified Communications in Organization

Malaysia airlines dont use any unified communication solutions in the organization.
There were cases reported that the Malaysia airlines flight was delayed due to a
communication problem between the airport authorities and the airline company (Indian
Express, 2009). Unified communication helps to reduce the inconvenience and delays
associated with trying to find and contact with key contacts inside the organization. In
addition, Unified Communication solutions enable employees to filter and control the level of
contact that they receive giving them more control over their workflow.
There are a lot of companies providing unified communications solutions like Avaya
which is the current contractor for call center management systems, SITA and CISCO
collaborated solution, IBM Unified Communications and lots more. The recommendation for
this scenario is the use of SITA and CISCO Alliance Communication solution as Cisco and
SITA global alliance creates the airport technology of the future and unites the leader in
networking technology solutions (Cisco) with leadership in IT support dedicated to the air
transport community (SITA). Only Cisco and SITA have the networking depth and breadth
required to optimize the components that enable the infrastructure to work as a united system
throughout an airline and across its extended infrastructure. The solution might be a little

costly but the performance which it delivers will be unmatchable. Cisco has recently
launched energy efficient networking products will helps to reduce the power utilization as
well as reduces the environment emission.

Future of Airline Industry

Airline industry is one of the most interdependent organization and they need to use
technology strategically to integrate their operations and control and co-ordinate all their
business and management functions. Currently Mobile technology is advancing in all the
fields. In future Mobile device applications will likely take advantage of powerful features
such as video cameras, accelerometers, GPS, high-resolution displays, multiple wireless
radios, powerful processors, and large, solid-state memory solutions to create rich and
engaging interaction for passengers, partners, and employees. Augmented reality, which
combines elements of real and virtual worlds, will also be a powerful enabler of new mobile
experiences that provide directions to destinations, information about points of interest,
baggage clearance and routing information, and specials on travel-related goods and services
in a more intuitive and engaging fashion for both passengers and employees.
Also, integrating B2B applications to airline company systems helps to manage the
airlines more efficiently. E-Procurement is also a major force for Extranets. As airlines
regularly purchase products and services, such as fuel, aircraft parts, and catering, B2B
applications allow them to benefit from cost savings and efficiency. Developing B2B
applications and interconnecting extranet systems will support both airlines and their partners
to streamline them and reduce their turn-around time at the airport. Clarity of communication
and efficiency chain is critical for both controlling costs and delivering service.