Activity Newsletter Supervisory Board
July - August - September 2019
- Presentation of 2019 Annual Report
The presentation of the 2019 Annual Report for the Supervisory Board was held on May 30th at the Gallery of the Cardinal of Palazzo Colonna in Rome. The meeting was opened by President Maurizio Mensi, who presented the main results achieved in 2018. The meeting was attended by the TIM Chief Executive Officer Luigi Gubitosi, the President of Agcom Angelo Marcello Cardani, the Honorable Alessandro Morelli, President of the Parliamentary Transport, Postal Services and Telecommunications Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, and Pietro Guindani the President of Asstel (Telecommunication Operators).
- KPO definition
On March 19, 2019, a meeting was held at Agcom headquarters during which the Supervisory Office presented a proposal to both Agcom and the other operators related to a new method of defining KPOs (Key Performance Objectives) to be applied to the new non-discrimination KPIs based on a multivariate regression algorithm. The method is a useful tool for those who need to evaluate the equal treatment of KPIs related to 395/18/CONS.
During the months of March and April 2019, the Office collected comments from the Operators who attended the meeting on March 19th, including those from TIM, which subsequently became involved with the Authority.
The next meeting will be held following the distribution of the initial data from 395/18/CONS by TIM and will be preceded by a document commenting on the Operator observations.
- New software release testing
During the month of April, the Supervisory Board illustrated their considerations to the Authority Offices about the contributions presented by some operators with respect to monitoring the testing on new software releases on the new delivery chain proposed by the Supervisory Board at the meeting held at the Authority Headquarters on March 19. Consequently, the Supervisory Board has therefore suggested to TIM the request of the OAOs to call at least one annual meeting in plenary for the presentation of new services and the relative impact on the IT systems.
- Simplification of the KPI system
During this quarter, the information gathering stage (classification of the Agcom resolutions and from devices that define the KPIs) has been completed and a first draft of the document is being prepared, which contains a complete proposal for the rationalization and simplification of the non- discrimination indicators based on the information provided by Agcom.
- Meetings with Operators
Based on the discussions between Board of the Supervisory Board and TIM, it should be noted that the meetings held on April 18th and May 22nd were useful moments for discussions regarding the implementation of the Supervisory Board work plan for 2019.
With respect to meetings with other operators, during this quarter, the Supervisory Board - Wind Tre - TIM technical committee meetings continued, and on May 22, 2019 discussed the following issues: post provisioning failure of VULA FTTCab services on an active line; failure in assurance of the VULA FTTCab services;
- "Single Queue” onsite Verification activities
Determination n. 1/2019 was approved by the Council on January 23, 2019, and based on this on May 14, 2019 at the WOL Toscana Ovest (Pisa headquarters) the second “on site” verification was held to check for the correct management of suspended orders due to the lack of available network resources. During the inspection, there were no cases found of orders activated unduly outside of the queue.
- Onsite verification of saturated NGN nodes
Based on the equal treatment verification activities in the management of work orders which belong to areas served by saturated NGN nodes for the new VULA C services (Fiber to the Cabinet access), during this quarter the Supervisory Board performed two “onsite” investigations at two WOL (Wholesale Operation Line) at Toscana Est (in Florence, on May 21, 2019) and Milan (on June 12, 2019).
During these two inspections, the correct management of work orders was found based on the equal treatment of the OAOs and TIM Retail.
However, there were individual aspects of the process that could be improved to ensure greater transparency and better timeliness in the communication of information to the market. This leading to a better quality of services of the entire network.
- KPI calculation verification Resolution 395/19/CONS
On June 4, 2019, a meeting was held between TIM and the Supervisory Board during which the algorithms developed by TIM were analyzed in detail to implement the indicators required by Resolution 395/18/CONS.
The Supervisory Office verified that the implementation procedures for the new non-discrimination KPIs, put in place by TIM, are consistent with the definitions established by Agcom Resolution n° 395/18/CONS and Agcom’s communication of December 12, 2018 entitled “Request for clarification for the implementation of the non-discrimination Key Performance Indicator system defined by resolution n° 395/18/CONS.” (Original Italian title: “Richiesta di chiarimenti per l’implementazione del sistema di Key Performance Indicator di non discriminazione definito con la delibera n° 395/18/CONS.”)
- Meeting with Agcom
On June 20, 2019, the Supervisory Board met the Agcom Director of electronic communications networks and services at his office. The meeting was useful particularly for introducing the preliminary analysis of the KPIs ex. Resolution 395/18/CONS, for which the effects of “disaggregation” on the assurance TT (Trouble Ticket) must be verified.
- NetMap system performance evaluation
On June 20, 2019, the Supervisory Board Council approved the document entitled “Proposed quality and non-discrimination KPI set for evaluating the performance of the NetMap system”. The document outlines a contribution that was requested by Agcom from the Supervisory Board in the context of the 2019 Planned Works to define a set of indicators that allow for the evaluation of the reliability of the NetMap database that has been made available to all operators by TIM.
The proposal also includes an indicator to establish the equal treatment between the OAOs and TIM Retail in terms of use of the same database.
The document was sent as a letter to Agcom and TIM on June 25, 2019.
- Verification of the Delivery and Assurance KPI
Resolution 395/18/CONS planned for the implementation of a new non-discrimination KPI system during the first half of 2019. Since the new KPIs from Resolution 395 were not available, the Supervisory Board monitored the equal treatment between the OAOs-TIM Retail Det. 20/2016, Resolution 309/14/CONS (Delivery) e Resolution 718/08/CONS (Assurance).
TIM was requested to provide an in-depth analysis based on certain trends observed but no KPI behaviour was found that could be linked to unequal treatment between TIM Retail and the OAOs.
Monthly reports were presented to the Council of the Supervisory Board concerning the observation period between March 2019 and May 2019 and, once approved, the Technical Reports related to the delivery KPIs were sent to Agcom.
- Technical Monitoring of Technical Plans
The Supervisory Board has monitored the Technical Plans published periodically by TIM in order to verify the level of transparency and effectiveness in terms of information made available to other operators.
In particular, the compliance has been verified for Undertakings Resolution 718/08/CONS:
Programs and results of maintenance interventions related to quality assurance of the Fixed access network (Undertaking n. 5);
Programs and results of interventions for the development of the “traditional” copper and NGAN Fixed access network (Undertaking n. 6);
- Digitalization of the Provisioning and Assurance processes
The technological evolution of the delivery and assurance processes, also in instances in the market, has encouraged TIM to develop digital solutions for interaction with clients and operators. The Supervisory Board is carrying out an activity to verify and support the evaluation of benefits and the impacts on equal treatment. From the monitoring of defined indicators to evaluate the performance of the digitalized delivery services completed in the quarter in question, it was confirmed that a reduction of more than 40% in the average activation time of a digital order was achieved compared to services that use the human channel.
- Implementation of Resolution 396/18/CONS
During the Council meeting of June 25, 2019, the Authority revealed a technical solution proposed by TIM, modified by the Technical Committee, to implement Resolution 396/18/CONS, which consists of the encryption and tracking of all sensitive information. This complies with the directions outlined in the Resolution, and it is considered that this solution should be developed by TIM within four months of the notice. Within one (1) month, TIM will publish the new computer record plans which will become operational after 90 days. The Supervisory Board, based upon the request by Agcom, will support the Authority offices in supervising and verifying the effectiveness of the implementation phase of the new process in order to propose possible corrective measures if required.