It has been another strong year for the IP migration at Deutsche Telekom: Last week, Crnogorski Telekom in Montenegro announced that it had already completed its migration to an all-IP network in November. T-Hrvatski Telekom in Croatia followed shortly on its heels, successfully finalizing its own migration on December 1.
With Montenegro and Croatia, there are now already four countries in DT’s footprint which have made the transition to IP technology successfully, on schedule and in compliance with regulatory requirements. They bring the total of migrated lines to more than 12 million across Europe and put the broader IP project on track to achieve all of its remaining goals. “Montenegro and Croatia are just the latest milestones on the company’s way to becoming a leading, integrated European telecommunications provider based on technological leadership made in Europe,” says Claudia Nemat, Board member for Europe and Technology. “Within the Group, we have been switching up to 100,000 lines a week – which is the highest migration rate in Europe.”
The ultimate goal of the IP migration is to convert every network in DT’s European footprint to IP technology and migrate every line by 2018. Based on the success and timelines of the migrations in Macedonia, Slovakia, Montenegro and Croatia, there is every reason to believe that DT will also succeed in finishing this ambitious undertaking in time, as promised. The next country to finish the full transformation will be Hungary, where Magyar Telekom is due to go all-IP at the end of 2016.
Transforming the customer experience
“We strongly believe that our technological edge is driving the customer experience,” says Nemat. In fact, the all-IP network brings significant customer service benefits, for example by making it much easier and faster to book higher data transfer speeds or change a contract: It now takes just a few clicks and less than 15 minutes. This, in turn, shortens the activation time for new services or service upgrades and makes the whole process much simpler. IP technology also enables innovative smart-home and smart-city solutions.
By ensuring a seamless, integrated customer experience with the best network quality and an innovative service platform, the all-IP networks play a key role in securing the Group’s competiveness in the industry .