COVID-19 Response and Recovery
Our COVID-19 response plan
Given the sudden and significant impact to all our offshore teams and resources in March, we responded by resourcing these functions onshore as quickly as possible. We stood up an onshore team by reprioritising staff from other parts of our business, as well as recruiting additional team members including Telstra alumni. This has allowed us to build the capacity to get our levels of service back to our usual performance. In parallel we created and implemented a new work-from-home capability for our offshore teams, standing up a solution to support remote working for the first time. This was a critical and important project as our solution needed to conform to Telstra’s strict information security measures and controls to avoid any compromise of customer information. These plans have had a positive impact and I am very pleased to confirm the return of many of our offshore partners back into the workforce and working from home.
Assurance
Back in March we triggered our business continuity and resilience processes and developed a detailed escalation process to support customers impacted by, and also directly supporting, COVID-19.
Due to the effectiveness of the response and recovery plans implemented with our partners and onshore teams, we're pleased to let you know that from 27 May we returned to normal Assurance performance levels. Thank you for your continued use of our online tools, such as LinxOnline Service (LOLS) and the My Network testing tool which helped us to achieve this outcome.
During this crisis we captured some clear learnings including the need for more self-service tools, and we are now leveraging this insight to plan for several new initiatives in FY21. As well, we have now released a new web-based self-serve diagnostic tool, initially for nbn™ services, but copper and wideband services will follow.
Activation
From 22 March our team in India who supports ordering, provisioning, port, churn, ULL and transfer functions went off-line due to the nationwide lockdown. The successful and rapid recovery plans we put in place, have allowed us to meet some significant milestones by the end of May. Most activation functions are now back to business as usual processing times, and I trust you have experienced these improvements in your interactions with us. Our continued focus on backlogs and order throughput means that we will continue to improve throughout June and plan to be back to business as usual in the July timeframe, if not before.
Ordering and Provisioning (Data, Fixed, nbn, Churn and Transfer)
- Data Provisioning and Delivery : We are currently experiencing up to three days delay (down from 13 days in early April) in raising of orders, feasibilities and responding to emails to provisioning mailbox (TWService@telstrawholesale.com). To help you keep your customers updated on the progress of their wideband orders, greater commentary is being provided in the daily reports published on the TWCP. Also, we fast-tracked the roll-out of our new email notifications initiative, which has also provided more frequent and timely updates on order progress.
- nbn: We acknowledge there have been issues with rollbacks for some time, however this has been further impacted by COVID-19 restrictions. We are still experiencing longer delays in updates and completion of rollbacks, however solid progress was made in May and we expect further improvement on this backlog throughout June.
Assurance Diagnostic Self-Serve Tool Project
I am pleased to announce the release of a new web-based Diagnostic tool that will enable you to perform diagnostics tests easily and directly with your end customers.
In 2017 we launched our Diagnostic and Ticketing APIs and while many of you have built to these APIs, we appreciate that it still requires an investment to fully integrate your systems with ours. We are pleased to now offer the diagnostic tool in a browser consumable format.
The web-based self-service test tools allow you to perform diagnostics tests online, in real time, at your convenience. This solution will enable all customers to be able to leverage our Diagnostic and Trouble Ticket APIs in the backend.
This complete toolset will provide the capability to self-diagnose copper and nbn faults and raise a trouble ticket for the diagnosed issues in one central place; our Telstra Wholesale Hub. We believe these tools will deliver benefits such as, eliminate manual work, simplify communications and save you time identifying faults, freeing you up to focus on serving your customers. In alignment with our delivery framework this program will be delivered in Agile sprints.
- Our planned rollout schedule is as follows:
- July 2020 - diagnostics self-test tool for nbn™ products.
- Sept 2020 - diagnostics self-test tool for copper products.
- FY21 Q2 - Integration with ticketing function.
Please contact your Service Manager to let them know if you would like to be an early adopter.
Wideband Service Delivery
From your feedback we know that delivering services on time and knowing the delivery status of your order are the most important aspects of our Wideband delivery to you.
Our target delivery date for a Wideband order, the Telstra Commitment Date (TCD), was mainly based on standard provisioning times. We have developed a more accurate way to estimate the delivery date and we are now providing a Provisional Date Range (PDR) soon after your order is received using periodic data modelling which draws on recent delivery performance by product, geography, speed and scope. The PDR indicates a 10-business day range when the order will most likely be delivered, that will help to help you manage delivery expectations with your customer early in the delivery cycle. Following this, the TCD will be now be provided once the Detailed Design phase and, if required for more complex orders, a site visit is completed. Although the TCD will now be provided a few days later in the delivery cycle, it brings the benefit of greater accuracy and reliability.
From earlier this year we have provided Wideband Email Updates to advise the delivery status of your orders. These email updates come directly from our Design and Construction teams and reduce the time to receive updates from days, down to seconds.
Most Wideband customers are now using these email updates which have recently been improved to deliver the following features:
- Inclusion of your “Customer Reference Number” field to make it easier for you to link the update with your internal service records.
- Added the Provisional Date Range [PDR] prior to providing the Telstra Commitment Date [TCD].
- Simplified Templates with an improved look and feel of the emails.
- Highlighted what has changed since the previous email, eliminating the need to compare prior versions to see what’s changed.
I’d like to thank all eleven trial customers for their support. Your time and feedback has enabled us to improve the solution so that it better meets the needs of all of our wideband customers and delivers even greater value to you.
Moving forward, we will continue to work closely with you to improve the effectiveness of Wideband Email Updates.
Managed Disconnections
Due to significant disruptions, my team and I have proactively worked with nbn co and our customers to ensure no services were disconnected from the 19 March when the COVID-19 Managed Disconnection Moratorium was announced.
This freeze on disconnections was put in place to protect the health and safety of end-users and front-line employees, as well as freeing up resources to support customers on existing services both nbn or legacy networks.
On 19 May we confirmed the hold on disconnections would remain in place until 30 June 2020 and shared the timetable for the recommencement of these activities. This was agreed to allow sufficient time for us all to get migration activities back on track as we continue to assist our customers with preparations. The situation will continue to be assessed as we move forward but if you have any concerns, please contact your Service Manager or the Managed Disconnection Team to discuss this further.
Wideband Single Upfront Quote
As part of the wider E2E Wideband improvement program we’ve undertaken an in-depth review into cost variability within an order lifecycle.
In the past we may have contacted you multiple times during the delivery cycle to request approval for one-off contributions as additional costs are identified. We know that this is not a good customer experience for you or your end customer.
- Over the past 6 months we have updated our site assessment process and invested in automating some back
of house applications which has enabled us to now provide a Single Upfront Quote covering:
- Network Linkage Charges.
- Commercial Works.
- Fee For Service.
- Inbuilding Network Extension.
We are confident that when we provide a you with a Wholesale Customer Contribution quote, we will not need to contact you to again for additional contributions unless there are truly exceptional circumstances encountered along the delivery journey. We trust that this will significantly improve the Wideband service you and your customers experience with us moving forward.
Wideband Customer Relief Package
During the challenges of COVID-19 many of you reached out to us for assistance and we were very pleased to be able to offer a package of commercial relief measures to support you and your customers during this crisis.
- Over fifty customers have taken up this offer of assistance, including:
- Additional capacity to support the sudden and massive shift in workers and students working and studying from home.
- Additional data for mobiles end users.
- Charging relief for you and your end-user customers in hardship due to temporary closure or temporary reduced trading.
- Flexibility in your payment terms.
- Relief from Wideband termination charges as a result of end-user business customers ceasing trade permanently.
We are grateful for all the feedback that you have shared during this time and hope we have been able to help support you and your customers. Along with you, we are cautiously optimistic as our economy starts back up again, a little quicker and stronger than many of us could have hoped for even a few weeks ago. We recognise our unique opportunity to be part of the solution as we move with you into a phase of re-growth and rebuilding, even as the future remains uncertain.
New Services and Product Launches
Wholesale Business Internet [WBI] Solution
We have listened to your feedback about your demand for the Wholesale Business Internet [WBI] Solution, and I'm pleased to let you know that we have recently relaunched it with revised pricing, speeds and features.
- Improvements in full:
- Reviewed pricing across all bandwidths.
- 1-year terms now available, with discounts on terms above 2 years.
- 100% discount on standard installation where WBI is acquired for 3 year+ terms and 50% where WBI is acquired for 2-year terms.
- Simpler pricing structure, no more zones and aligned with the rest of our data products.
- Choice of 6 bandwidths: 20Mbps, 50Mbps, 100Mbps, 200Mbps, 500Mbps and 1Gbps.
- Simplified ordering experience in the Managed Service Hub.
WBI offers a Layer 3 business grade internet access solution, to meet the needs of the growing Software Defined Wide Area Network [SD-WAN] market segment for small to mid-size business and branch offices of Enterprise customers.
Ethernet Access – mobile backup solution
In May we launched Telstra Wholesale’s Ethernet Access – mobile backup solution available for new Ethernet Access services. Co-created with customers and based on your feedback, we believe this is a unique wholesale solution designed to meet the redundancy needs for our Ethernet Access service. The service offers an automatic failover to Telstra Wholesale's 4G network coverage to keep your end customers online if the Telstra Wholesale Ethernet Access link fails.
Local Number Portability
Local Number Portability have been extremely challenging and disrupted with recent events which required us to temporarily pause porting activity from 25 March. However, we have been focused on getting back to normal performance levels as quickly as possible.
The high level of automation supporting Simple Porting enabled us to recommence activities on 6 April. However, Complex Porting is a manual process, so our recovery plan has taken longer to achieve increased throughput capacity. Due to the aggressive recruitment and training plan we implemented, Complex porting re-opened on 18 May with a limited capacity of 10% of normal volumes and, from 9 June, capacity will be close to 40% for bookings. By the end of July, we will be back to business as usual performance including clearing any backlogs.
Thank you again to our LNP carriers, during this challenge. The amount of time our operational teams have spent together working through these issues has helped us navigate new situations quickly and efficiently while staying focused on minimising impacts to your customers as much as possible.
NEXTGen Update
We are now well progressed with the second stage of the Mobile Solution upgrade which will deliver integration of the new platform with the Telstra Network User Database, SMS, MMS and voicemail platforms. This solution will support the long-term growth of your mobile business with increased capacity, improved resilience through geo-redundant disaster recovery and support the integration of network technologies, such as VoLTE and new messaging solutions.
Due to COVID-19 related network and process resilience activities we have experienced some delays, but we are confident the upgrade will be completed by the end of September 2020.
A key driver for continuing to invest in our mobile platform is to increase capacity. However, these delays have placed additional pressure on our existing capacity. To ensure we can maintain the level of service you expect from us, we are proactively working with you to reduce the volume of inactive SIMs. I would like to acknowledge those of you who have already actioned this, which has greatly contributed to the current performance. If you can also assist in reducing inactive SIMs please do so, and further help by only loading when required.
Acting on your feedback, I am pleased to inform you that prior to any planned changes we make our team is now providing you with 48hr and 24hr notifications.
For further details, please take advantage of the documents we published and updated on the Managed Service Hub. If you have any further queries, please contact your Service Manager.