Euskaltel: Being a Reference for Managed Services

Euskaltel is the largest operator in the Basque country of northern Spain. In 2014, Euskaltel and ZTE entered into a strategic alliance by signing a ten-year network-wide managed services contract. The alliance is an essential step forward for ZTE's investment in Europe. ZTE will help Euskaltel with the transformation of its networks and services. How is the progress of the cooperation so far? And how will the partnership evolve in the future? Reporters Pan Xiaolin and Mario Bilbao recently interviewed Pedro Calvillo, CTO of Euskaltel, at his office.

Euskaltel is the leading operator in the Basque country. It has been ranked No. 1 in fixed telephony, broadband, and Pay TV, and No. 2 in mobile phone. What are the keys to your competitive advantages?

Understanding customer needs is the key to success of any company. Values such as closeness, proximity, availability, and quick response to customer needs are part of our DNA. We believe these and high-performance technologies and products are the keys to our success.

To gain the upper hand, operators are considering transforming their services and networks. What are the main challenges faced by operators in South Europe in their transformation? How can Euskaltel compete in this challenging environment?

The availability of new-generation networks is a reality in our country. These networks can offer high-performance products and services. Euskaltel has a network that covers 85% of households in the Basque country.
The products offered by these networks require going beyond the transmission quality or signal bit quality. The quality of massive audio and video during transmission presents a new challenge. Proper network optimization and operation are critical for gaining a competitive advantage. The evolution of benefits in the functionality offered to customers is another challenge that operators are facing.
To address these trends, Euskaltel is seeking an alliance with technology providers who can help us develop and adapt to these new demands.

Euskaltel and ZTE formed a strategic alliance in 2014 by signing a ten-year network-wide managed services contract. What is the significance of the strategic alliance to Euskaltel?

With this agreement, Euskaltel can go beyond collaboration for network operation. We intend having a collaborative partner to help us in the current network operation, optimization, and evolution, with the aim of adapting to the new competitive global market. This will allow us to offer the most advanced, highest-quality services to our clients and thereby secure the leading position in the telecommunications market.

Why did you choose ZTE as your strategic technical partner in the transformation?

ZTE provides a reference to telecom companies worldwide and has strong leadership. Our alliance with ZTE creates in the Basque country a new managed services company that will be a reference for Southern Europe. Moreover, the strategic technical alliance with ZTE will also create a wealth of qualified employment for Euskadi and related industries in the sector.

How do you comment on the progress of the cooperation so far and how is Euskaltel benefiting from it?

The partnership began in December 2014. We have just completed network transition and stabilization. The results to date have been consistent with our expectations.
We highly value being a reference center for managed services. In addition we have strong awareness of the techniques and solutions that are developed. All this means competitive advantage.
Besides the managed services contract, ZTE also assists us with network evolution. We are deploying a 4G network with ZTE's technologies and our own license that will cover our customers in the Basque country. We hope the first radio stations will be in service soon. We are also deploying ZTE's FTTH in several industrial areas and hope to put it into service. Finally, we have started migrating our core circuit switching to packet switching. With the three projects we have initiated a process of network evolution that will benefit our customers with higher-performance products and services.

What do you think ZTE can improve to create more value for Euskaltel's development in the future? What role will ZTE play in managed services in future?

Right now, ZTE is blooming in terms of new technologies for delivering managed services. The evolution from network operation center (NOC) to service operation center (SOC) and then to customer operation center (COC) is our objective. Technologies like big data, virtualization machines and functionalities, and data in the cloud can help us improve user experience. We believe that ZTE is called to be a global player in this type of evolution.