Fibrus to deploy Deepfield network analytics, monitoring

Fibrus, a provider of broadband services across Northern Ireland and Cumbria, has signed a five-year agreement to deploy the Nokia Deepfield offering across its growing network, following a successful trial.

Claimed to be one of the fastest-growing broadband companies in Northern Ireland and Great Britain, connecting its first customer in 2019, the stated mission of Fibrus is to bring full-fibre broadband to homes and businesses across the nation. It brings fibre optic cables all the way to the premises, linking to Wi-Fi 6 technology and the Amazon Eero routers.

The operator and technology company have been working together for over five years, and in 2020, Fibrus selected Nokia to support the delivery of high-speed broadband services to underserved rural and regional homes and businesses in some of the hardest to reach areas of Northern Ireland.

The firm has been a key provider of access technology and resources to deliver future-proofed and industry-leading connectivity, which underpins Fibrus’s service.

As Fibrus expands its network, which has already connected over 100,000 customers and delivered connectivity to almost 400,000 premises, the Nokia Deepfield offering is regarded as providing critical network analytics capabilities, giving the operator greater insight into the nature of the traffic flowing through its infrastructure.

Deepfield is designed to correlate large data sets and infer “hidden” knowledge about a network, services and its subscribers, making this knowledge available for users to investigate through customised queries and on-the-fly visualisations. This is said to give an “un-siloed”, holistic view of a network, peering and transit, and all content delivery network (CDN) flows.

The Deepfield Cloud Genome will give insight into how a network delivers services (from CDN servers in a network) or internet-based application and content services to end systems, users and subscribers. All of such capability, said Nokia, would allow Fibrus to optimise network resources, ensuring that customers continue to receive reliable, high-performance broadband.

The deployment will also see Fibrus proactively manage the rapid growth of its network, driven by what is said to be a 50% take-up rate of fibre to the home services, including 2 Gbps products. Additionally, Nokia said the scalability of the Deepfield offering will enable Fibrus to cost-effectively manage future service expansions, such as 25/50/100G passive optical network technologies.

“Our commitment to guarantee exceptional service for our customers means we’re always looking for ways to innovate and improve our network,” said Shane Haslem, chief operating officer at Fibrus.

“The Deepfield solution from Nokia gives us the tools to understand our traffic better, protect against potential threats and reduce operational costs,” he added. “This partnership allows us to future-proof the digital infrastructure in the areas we serve, maintaining the highest level of service and security for our 100,000-strong customer base.”

Paul Alexander, vice-president and country general manager for the UK and Ireland at Nokia, said: “The Nokia Deepfield solution brings advanced network analytics, ensuring that Fibrus can maintain a secure and reliable network. This successful roll-out with Fibrus demonstrates the reliability and robustness of Nokia’s technology in supporting the company’s goal of delivering an enhanced customer experience.”