Juniper Networks, a provider of secure, AI-driven network solutions, has announced it has been selected to design and deploy a significant network capacity expansion and upgrade for Telecom Egypt across its national infrastructure, serving a customer base of 9.8 million for fixed line services, 6.9 million for broadband and 7.3 million for mobile.
According Juniper Networks, the partnership is in line with the sustained exponential growth of bandwidth demand and service quality expectations faced by Telecom Egypt, coupled with its ongoing pursuit of a root-and-branch Digital Transformation programme as a key element of the Egyptian Government’s Digital Egypt and ICT 2030 initiatives.
The overriding principle of Juniper’s latest deployment for Telecom Egypt is to invest in a customisable, automated high-performance network that can scale up and scale out with assured service experience in step with exponential growth and future demands.
Juniper Networks stated that the deployment is an automated, flexible infrastructure that collects, analyses, interprets and responds to real-time data reporting its own health status and traffic patterns. As a result, Telecom Egypt will operate much more efficiently and cost effectively, while delivering a consistently exceptional user experience for its business and residential customers alike.
To meet Egypt’s booming bandwidth capacity requirements, the network will be equipped with 400G interfaces from Juniper’s purpose-built IP transport portfolio using custom silicon to deliver high density, reliable data throughput and low cost-per-bit. This will be complemented by Juniper’s standards-based automation portfolio that delivers a superior operational experience along with an assured end-user experience. Together, the 400G routing portfolio and the automation portfolio deliver the ability for Telecom Egypt to drive its Digital Transformation strategy based on best-in-class performance and user experience.
Mohamed Alfowey, Chief Technical Officer, Telecom Egypt, said: “Telecom Egypt believes that the ability to respond to rapidly-changing customer needs is a key competitive differentiator, so improved infrastructure agility is key. A faster, more resilient and predictable network, in the context of remote working trends and skyrocketing demand for cloud-driven, 5G-ready, data-rich applications and services, enables Telecom Egypt to deliver this and meet SLAs, while controlling operational cost and complexity. We believe that Juniper’s innovations in cloud routing and network automation help us overcome this challenge now and for the long term, enabling us to deliver an exceptional end-user experience.”
Telecom Egypt’s strategy is to deploy a closed-loop automation suite as a step towards simplifying the entire network lifecycle. By eliminating manual tasks and human error, network reliability, agility and flexibility are increased while reducing operational expense which will help to improve customer experience and eliminate the cost of churn
Taking automation a step further towards AI/ML and self-driving networks, Telecom Egypt is introducing powerful, flexible traffic engineering capabilities provided by the Juniper Networks NorthStar Controller. This gives Telecom Egypt granular visibility and control across the network. This solution will also provide proactive monitoring, planning and explicit routing of large traffic loads, helping to achieve and maintain consistent performance.
Juniper’s HealthBot, an automated, open and programmable network diagnosis tool, will also be deployed by Telecom Egypt. HealthBot provides end-to-end operational intelligence, translating real-time analytics into actionable insights
Together, these solutions will help enable Telecom Egypt to deliver an exemplary end-user experience for its large and diverse customer base 400G interfaces will be provided by the Juniper Networks MX Series Universal Routing Platforms, equipped with MPC cards (Modular Port Concentrators). Together these solutions provide the flexible, high-capacity foundation for Telecom Egypt’s efficient, cost-effective new network. I addition, high-performance security is also provided with the MX Series’ inherent MacSec capability, which enables inline, automated threat detection and mitigation without impaired data throughput speeds.
The entire deployment uses Junos OS, a consistent, unified operating system across each solution. This approach delivers operational simplicity for Telecom Egypt, while remaining fully open and programmable.
Raj Yavatkar, Chief Technology Officer, Juniper Networks, said: “The challenge faced by Telecom Egypt is shared by many service providers globally – how to run their network ever ‘hotter’ and faster while meeting customer SLAs and maintaining predictability and resilience, yet controlling operational cost and complexity. Juniper believes that our innovations in cloud routing and network automation help to overcome this challenge now and for the long term. Telecom Egypt is investing in a dynamic, customisable high-performing automated infrastructure that is able to scale upward and outward in step with exponential growth and future demands.”
