Operations Support

Active Demarcation

Our Active Demarcation philosophy allows us to fully manage your service from end-to-end, including over any third party capacity. All international capacity, either from PPC-1 or from our upstream providers, is terminated with the Cisco ONS 15454 Multiservice Transport Platform. The Cisco devices serve two main functions:

Service aggregation

Generally speaking the majority of international and domestic DWDM backbone networks are constructed from 10 Gbps wavelengths. Services of lower speeds and different protocols need to be converted and groomed for backbone transmission enablement through selective hardware deployment within the demarcation devices. PIPE International is ready to deliver services into Australia of virtually any bandwidth and protocol.

Performance management

As opposed to delivering customer services on third party leased-tails, PIPE International has deployed the Cisco demarcation devices, enabling service edge performance management. This functionality allows the PIPE International Network Operations Centre (NOC) to non-intrusively monitor the end-to-end performance of any service. This information is collated in to a monthly report and sent to each customer for their reference.

Monitoring the Network

The NOC monitors the entire network around the clock, providing world-class efficiency levels to address network and customer concerns. The primary NOC, based in Brisbane, is designed to be scalable in order to cope with future demands. A secondary NOC within the Sydney CLS provides redundancy and business continuity as required.

Typical functions include:

  • Active network surveillance on a 24/7 basis
  • Fault management and customer trouble resolution
  • Network event notifications (planned or otherwise)
  • Customer enquiry
  • Planned works management
  • Configuration management
  • Capacity activations
  • Change management (e.g. software and hardware upgrades, record keeping)
  • Network management and operational support system administration

The wet maintenance and fault-rectification works are carried out through an agreement with Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks. Their cable ship is based permanently in the South Pacific region which provides rapid response times. The dry maintenance and fault-rectification works are carried out through a Tyco-approved contractor, covering all landing sites.