Introducing F@st: Fiber Access Suite 4 Telcos 

The rising need of cooperation…

Everybody is into fiber now: the number of fiber installation companies is growing fast. New players are entering market almost monthly, often funded by deep pocket investors like pension funds and private equity firms.  

This has further divided an already fragmented market – and as a result, B2B cooperation has become a major strategic advantage. Most large carriers are still very strong in the installation and expansion of their own networks. However, being able to support wholesale and whole buy processes in parallel is a capability that no one can ignore anymore.

Every part of the value chain will need to become more flexible and agile – not only internally but also in the periphery of companies – and finally on a business model level. B2B2X-operations, having multi-business models for different demands like serving end-customers (ServCo), providing active networks (NetCo) and passive infrastructure (InfCo) are the new normal. Joint Ventures, cooperation and coopetition are everywhere.

…leads to a strong demand for open architectures

In the midst of this proliferation of alliances, one solution has become a must: the standardization of processes and APIs to enable collaboration and scaling for all partners involved.

At this year’s Digital Transformation World held in Copenhagen in September, Roland Schier and Samir Dorhmi, both Lead Architects Fibre of the Gigabit Program at Deutsche Telekom, together with Triantafyllos Kirtzakis, Method Lead Digital Customer eXperience at Capgemini Germany, introduced the “Fiber Access Suite 4 Telco: F@st” to the German and European market.

Introducing “F@st: Fiber Access Suite 4 Telco”

F@st is a multi-tenant, open-source, multi-cloud-native platform. Its flexible microservice architecture is built on an API-first approach based on TM Forum’s Open API program to ensure symmetry and equality of input (EOI) across the entire value chain.

F@st increases the efficiency of fiber infrastructure projects by bringing together infrastructure information, workforce management tools, best practice workflows and intuitive multi-lingual user interfaces to create the best possible customer experience for all stakeholders.

The plug-and-play platform ensures high standards in forecasting and scheduling the high volumes of repeatable tasks of the fiber installation process with ease. This, in turn, optimizes capacity, field resources and documentation – from attracting new customers and improving expansion decisions to making interactions with customers, landlords, agents and field resources more fruitful.

F@st keeps customers’ needs and total experience in the spotlight at all times. It uses mobile solutions and fully digitalized procedures to collaborate and connect with partners and customers, speeding up the overall process. The result is a workforce that is more productive, with fewer reworks and complaints. Today Deutsche Telekom and Capgemini are announcing our strong support for TM Forum’s Open API program. Together, Deutsche Telekom and Capgemini will continue to streamline processes to enable seamless connectivity, faster installation, interoperability and portability across the various ecosystems involved, improving scalable B2B2X solutions and collaboration models to support our joint, overarching goal: “We will not stop until everyone is connected.”

Read more: Becoming an API driven organization, Deutsche Telekom client story

Co-authors:

Triantafyllos Kirtzakis                 

Stefan Tausendpfund                  

Please contact the authors to learn more about F@st and open architecture solutions:

TelcoInsights is a series of posts about the latest trends and opportunities in the telecommunications industry – powered by a community of global industry experts and thought leaders.