Zain Sudan is a cellular service supplier in Sudan, serving 23 million prospects. It’s a subsidiary of Zain Group, a number one cellular and knowledge companies operator within the Center East and North Africa.
The issue:
In early 2024, Sudan was plunged into an escalating civil battle that triggered a nationwide cellular connectivity blackout. This left hundreds of thousands of Sudanese residents with out entry to crucial communication or cellular cash companies, deepening the humanitarian and financial disaster. Three of the nation’s MNOs, together with Zain Sudan, had been unable to revive these companies, leaving communities remoted and weak throughout a 40-day blackout interval.
The disaster was monumental in scale, affecting dozens of hundreds of thousands throughout city and rural areas. With cellular wallets serving as the first monetary instrument for a good portion of the inhabitants, the blackout disrupted financial transactions and exacerbated monetary instability. The shortcoming to speak additional hindered entry to emergency companies and humanitarian support, compounding the challenges confronted by the folks of Sudan.
Zain’s incumbent vendor projected a six to nine-month timeline to revive connectivity, citing the necessity to ship and set up {hardware} at a brand new knowledge middle, deploy engineers to handle the setup, and implement the software program. This highlighted the vulnerabilities in Zain’s present on-premise infrastructure, together with excessive prices for catastrophe restoration and restricted flexibility.
Zain wanted an answer that might quickly restore companies, guarantee enterprise continuity, and considerably cut back operational prices, all whereas sustaining compliance with native rules in a risky setting.
The answer:
Confronted with the urgency of restoring cellular connectivity in a a lot quicker timeline, Zain Sudan approached Totogi to discover how a public cloud-native charging can go reside quick and guarantee resilient and protected connectivity.
Simply 18 days after signing the contract, Totogi efficiently restored Zain’s companies to its prospects, showcasing the ability of its revolutionary, cloud-native method.
On the core of the answer was Totogi’s true SaaS platform, constructed on AWS. In contrast to conventional setups that depend upon {hardware} housed in native knowledge facilities, Totogi’s structure leveraged the scalability and adaptability of the general public cloud. This enabled Zain Sudan to bypass the bodily and logistical challenges posed by the disaster, making certain swift deployment of important cellular companies.
The method concerned migrating Zain Sudan’s cellular companies to the general public cloud, establishing a strong and scalable communication community. Totogi’s AI-powered Charging-as-a-Service resolution performed a pivotal function, providing a contemporary, productized SaaS method. Its out-of-the-box performance and simple configurability allowed Zain Sudan to quickly onboard over 20 million subscribers, setting a brand new normal for velocity and effectivity in disaster response.
Totogi’s resolution is designed to adapt in real-time to unexpected challenges, eliminating the necessity for pricey {hardware}, prolonged customization cycles, and intensive skilled companies. Its multi-tenant structure helps seamless scaling, whereas its pay-by-the-use pricing mannequin ensures affordability. By enabling steady integration and supply (CI/CD), Totogi ensures ongoing innovation and rapid deployment of latest options, holding the system agile and up-to-date.
For Zain Sudan, Totogi’s know-how not solely restored crucial companies but in addition modernized its BSS stack to resist future challenges. By offering unmatched velocity, scalability, and resilience, Totogi empowered Zain Sudan to satisfy pressing humanitarian wants successfully, redefining the function of telecom companies throughout emergencies.
Challenges concerned with implementation and the way these had been overcome:
Restoring Zain Sudan’s cellular connectivity in simply 18 days required overcoming vital challenges, together with 24/7 operations, cross-border collaboration, and infrastructure limitations. The workforce labored tirelessly throughout a number of time zones, leveraging real-time instruments and agile workflows to take care of momentum. By making use of the 80-20 rule, they prioritized core functionalities and duties that might ship the best outcomes, making certain fast deployment.
As a substitute of counting on conventional knowledge facilities, Totogi used its cloud-native SaaS platform on AWS to bypass logistical hurdles, enabling quick, scalable, and resilient service restoration. AI-driven automation additional expedited onboarding, demonstrating how the mix of revolutionary pondering and know-how can drive crucial options in occasions of disaster.
The end result:
Emad Elsheikh, Zain CTO, stated: “Partnering with Totogi allowed us to not solely navigate this disaster but in addition emerge stronger, holding our prospects linked and operations uninterrupted. Totogi’s revolutionary know-how, mixed with an unwavering dedication from their workforce, has been pivotal in connecting folks throughout Sudan after they wanted it essentially the most.
“Transitioning over 20 million subscribers to Totogi’s platform was executed with exceptional velocity and effectivity, showcasing the agility and effectiveness of their resolution in managing large-scale subscriber bases below demanding situations, significantly in occasions of disaster when conventional on-prem methods are more likely to fail.”
The Zain Sudan / Totogi collaboration delivered each monetary and operational advantages. Totogi’s efforts restored community operations, permitting Zain to renew income era whereas enhancing the shopper expertise with profound human affect. It was not nearly re-establishing connectivity however restoring the lifelines of communication, commerce, and hope for hundreds of thousands.
Tens of millions of Sudanese folks regained entry to crucial communication companies, cellular cash, and emergency sources. This took them from full isolation — unable to make calls, ship messages, or entry cellular wallets — to regaining very important connections with household, companies, and emergency companies. New subscribers may very well be activated in document time in comparison with conventional strategies, serving to non Zain prospects entry communication companies in addition to present prospects.
Native companies may function once more, making certain livelihoods had been protected, and emergency companies may as soon as extra attain these in want. Regulatory compliance was additionally swiftly reinstated, making certain uninterrupted service sooner or later.
Throughout the blackout, Zain Sudan was dropping roughly $12 million per week. As soon as the Totogi system went reside, Zain recouped half of this loss. In comparison with the 6 month timeline prompt by the incumbent vendor, that is near 100m USD income generated, recovering the corporate’s monetary outlook.
By migrating charging environments to the cloud, the necessity for {hardware}, infrastructure, and ongoing upkeep was nearly eradicated, leading to a discount in its complete value of possession (TCO) by round 76%. Moreover, catastrophe restoration bills – beforehand a major value – had been lowered to a fraction due to the inherent resilience and scalability of the general public cloud.
One other vital worth of shifting to the cloud was the discount of carbon emissions by 96%, utilizing 100% renewable power by AWS.
This implementation set a brand new normal for resilience in operations below excessive situations. Totogi’s Charging-as-a-Service went reside and restored connectivity for Zain and its prospects simply 18 days from challenge initiation, in comparison with 12 – 24 months for related options. Totogi’s know-how demonstrated how cutting-edge innovation may meet pressing humanitarian wants, providing a beacon of resilience within the face of a nationwide disaster and reworking the lives of the communities it serves.
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