Deploying a transmission network cost management system for TTMLMB - Mobifone

1. Context and Needs

As telecommunication infrastructure continues to expand, managing transmission network costs has become a major challenge for managers. MetaApp’s client – the Northern Network Center of Mobifone, under Mobifone Telecommunications Corporation – required a solution to:

• Centrally manage the transmission network system, including stations, network routes, and transmission infrastructure.
• Standardize processes for data governance and cost management, eliminating manual errors.
• Analyze and calculate costs per station and per transmission channel, with the goal of optimizing transmission expenses across each route and station.

2. Challenges

Currently, the transmission network system at the Center manages nearly 20,000 stations, tens of thousands of cable routes, and hundreds of thousands of transmission infrastructures. The volume of data is enormous, but some of it still lacks dedicated management tools and is handled manually. Before implementing the new system, management data was fragmented across multiple systems and software, updated manually, and difficult to consolidate. Reconciliation and analysis required significant time, were often inaccurate, and delayed budget control and cost optimization. Contract management for leased transmission infrastructure and cable routes was only performed at a high level, without details down to individual components.

3. Solution and Implementation

To address the client’s requirements, we conducted a comprehensive system analysis before implementation:

• Assessed current business processes at the Northern Network Center, evaluated the degree of digitalization, and identified key workflows for priority digitalization.
• Reviewed the entire data storage status, data models, and related systems connected to the required data.
• Engaged with the client to refine ideas, propose solutions, and finalize the most effective and fastest implementation plan.

Following the analysis, the client approved the system deployment with key requirements:

• Automated data collection and standardization: integrate with multiple internal data sources and automatically synchronize data. For sources without integration capability, the system must support bulk import and standardization from Excel/CSV.
• Centralized management: all data on stations, infrastructure, cable routes, materials, contracts, and transmission incidents must be managed on a unified platform.
• Intelligent reporting and analytics: the system provides multi-dimensional reports, real-time data, and intuitive visual dashboards to support timely leadership decisions.
• Scalability: the solution must be flexible, easily expandable with new management or advanced analytics modules, and future-ready for AI-driven automated analysis.

4. Project Phases

Due to the large and complex scale, the project was divided into three phases:

1. Data Management: build a system for managing station, cable route, and infrastructure data.
2. Cost Management: expand the system with modules for contract management, acceptance testing, and cost payment.
3. Modeling and Reporting: add modules for transmission network mapping, topology simulation, reporting, and statistics.

5. Key Project Achievements

We successfully built and deployed the Transmission Network Cost Management System for Mobifone’s Northern Network Center, marking a significant milestone in digitalizing and optimizing telecommunications cost management at the Center. Modern Microservices architecture: The system is designed using a Microservices model, consisting of over 40 independent microservices deployed on a virtualization platform. This architecture allows seamless horizontal and vertical scalability, and adding new features does not affect the overall system.

• Centralized governance: 90% of data sources are automatically synchronized and input standardized by data-processing microservices.

• Clear and transparent workflows: All processes are digitalized with clearly defined roles and responsibilities.

• Smart analytics: Operational data is fully separated from analytical data but is updated in real time through a Message Bus, ensuring readiness for analysis and reporting. Contract, acceptance, and payment costs are detailed by station, infrastructure, network route, and unit for in-depth analysis. The system also supports real-time interactive dashboards.

• Metadata-based data model – easy expansion: Entity attribute tables are designed with a main–metadata structure, enabling effortless extension of data attributes without impacting the existing database schema.

• Large-scale yet stable: Despite managing massive data volumes, the system has been deployed and operated stably, supporting cost management for hundreds of staff members at the Center.