NCINGA worked with Dialog to upgrade part of their IPRAN network and support Sri Lanka’s transition to 5G. Dialog IPRAN is a dual-vendor network where NCINGA was contracted for the deployment of the CISCO Infrastructure.

Industry: Telecommunications
Location: APAC

Dialog Axiata Group (Dialog) - a subsidiary of the Axiata Group Berhard (Axiata) - is the largest mobile and broadband connectivity provider in Sri Lanka. Since its inception in the 1990s, Dialog has consistently sought to transform the telecommunications sector in the island, leading many regional firsts. It was the first telecommunications company in the South Asian region to launch 4G services. Dialog provides services to over 17 million Sri Lankans currently. The winner of six Global Mobile Awards, Dialog was recognized as Sri Lanka’s Most Valuable Brand by Brand Finance for the fourth consecutive year and has received numerous local and international awards including the National Quality Award and Sri Lanka Business Excellence Awards.

With its capacity to transform digital connectivity, telecommunications companies around the world are building the necessary infrastructure and trialing 5G services. Dialog commissioned South Asia’s first fully functional and standards compliant 5G pilot transmission in 2018.

Dialog worked with NCINGA to upgrade their network. This involved addressing several issues:

• Replacement of existing aggregation routers, all 1G access rings, and 1G capable cell site routers as Dialog specifically required a network with high-capacity aggregation and access networks.
• Unforeseen events - the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath. With the enactment of lockdowns and subsequent rise in online activities, traffic increased between 30 to 40% across Dialog networks within a short period of time.

Under such conditions, Dialog not only needed a network that would enable them to launch 5G services, but they also needed a robust network that could cope with the sudden surge in consumer demand.

Dialog and NCINGA established the following goals at the start of the project:

• In the immediate term, expand the bandwidth capacity of Dialog’s network to ensure that it can deal with ever increasing data demands without interruptions to services or decreases in network speed.
• Build a secure, unified transport network that uses the latest networks such as software-defined transport networks with segment routing capabilities and has low latency.
• The solution must reduce the cost per gigabyte, enabling Dialog to offer competitively priced services especially when 5G services are rolled out.
• Reduce the cost of operations through the automation of certain tasks.

NCINGA was involved in the entire project lifecycle - from the design and implementation to the migration and support. Cisco service provider solutions were used to upgrade the existing network and meet stringent latency and infrastructure security requirements of modern 5G transport networks. The NCINGA team organized several sessions with counterparts at Dialog to fully understand each of their requirements, gather the required feedback, and evaluate the progress at each stage of the project.

Despite multiple lockdowns, high data demands, and a short time frame, NCINGA and Dialog teams worked throughout 2020 and 2021 to complete the design and implementation in record time. Upon the completion of the project, NCINGA provided both router configuration and Cisco service model training to the Dialog team.

The upgraded network at Dialog - with its new routers, high capacity, and low latency - is now 5G ready. In March 2022, Dialog successfully trialed a 5G Standalone (SA) network - the first in the South Asian region. Today, 5G trial networks are available in several designated locations throughout the country.

5G brings benefits to people and businesses through increased broadband speeds and improved networks. With better connectivity, industries - especially ones that rely on connectivity - have opportunities to transform their services. Dialog has been at the forefront of providing innovative telecommunications and digital services in Sri Lanka. As the world shifts to 5G, Dialog aims to bring these transformative capabilities en masse to the country.

We commend NCINGA for their professionalism and commitment as they have delivered services to meet Dialog’s stringent quality and security standards with a great level of flexibility.