How we built a cellular network in Cambodia

View from the roof of a data center under construction in Cambodia

Beeline is not only in Russia, but also in several other countries. And if we have described the construction of the cellular network in sufficient detail (there is even a whole book about it), then there is little information about other countries. I have been developing the network in Cambodia, and will talk a little about it.

If you read Vernor Vinge, then remember the concept of the game about the development of technology on the underdeveloped planets, when the older civilization, using its knowledge, calculates the optimal path for the younger. For example, from stone axes to radio in 20 years, or from powder guns to the Internet in two years.
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We had a similar situation: it was necessary to launch the network from scratch in six months, using all the knowledge and practical developments . The country was definitely ready for such progress: after the war, it developed, simply by stepping over unnecessary steps. For example, in Cambodia there have never been wired telephones: they simply switched from telegraph to cellular.

VimpelCom had a goal to go international as an operator. I learned about this just a year before Cambodia and Vietnam, in about 2007. I just got an MBA and was very eager to steer. Before that, I was in charge of the e-commerce department, and had a fairly good understanding of user needs. Given this experience, I really wanted to get to the project in Vietnam. During the interview I learned two news: bad - in Vietnam all the vacancies were already closed, and good - I was offered to go to Cambodia.

Some colleagues, arriving in Cambodia for the first time, were scared to such an extent that they said: "No, I probably will not go there anymore." Before the trip, I was pumped up with various rumors, suggestions that there would be diseases, nightmares, and so on ... And somehow it turned out that our first visit was on one of the local holidays. As a result, Cambodia did not frighten me, but rather interested me. And then it turned out that what we say and write about Cambodia at that time, rather, there were more rumors, such horror stories. It turned out a beautiful country.


I ate it

During the first trip, we estimated the volume of problems and the volume of activities for IT. There was almost no office as such, only a couple of rooms. There was a shareholder who owned 10% of the company. He had the internet connected to his office. Sasha Akhmatayev, the technical director who had just taken shape, was also there.

Data center

The location for the data center was chosen near Phnom Penh, in the satellite city of Takmao (the closest analogy is Zelenograd and Moscow). The data center now occupies one of the large buildings of the former tobacco factory, and is located right on the banks of the Mekong. When we first came to see the site, there was only flooring for floors and, in principle, nothing more. In total there are 2 buildings, one of which became a call center and a technical office, and the second - just a data center with switchboard equipment.

One of the premises was set aside for backup battery and UPS batteries, equipped with an appropriate monitoring and exhaust system. Power has been planned sufficient to maintain the health of the billing, switch and call center for several hours. In the same place there were 2 reserve DGUs and a fuel supply for several days. Each of the generators was able to ensure the operation of the entire complex. So the autonomy was extremely high, like an icebreaker in the ice.

Then it turned out that the Mekong has a very pronounced seasonality. After the rainy season, the river changes its direction and spreads heavily. Once I had to be nervous: the water almost got to the communications. Probably another meter or two - and part of the data center would be flooded. In the following seasons so close the water did not fit.


Data Center Construction

At first, they lived for 2-3 months on diesel generator sets (this is a backup power vector), because supplying electricity is not a trivial task. Cambodia buys electricity in Vietnam, it was very difficult to negotiate power.

Cooling made separate for billing systems and switches. By the way, the place in general turned out to be very good in terms of climate: there are simply no big temperature drops, the whole year is about the same. In the daytime it is always 30-31, at night 27. We did not certify the data center: it was important to start up as quickly as possible, therefore all unnecessary operations were refused. The roof, by the way, was tiled with a second layer of thermal insulation under it - and this design is very unusual for Cambodians, so this is the case: during the last inspection of the roof insulation, one of the local workers simply fell into the engine room. Fortunately, there were no injuries and damage.

Network

HUAWEI equipment (towers, switches, etc.) was used for the network. In fact, the volume of the order was grandiose, and the speed of delivery and sweep is simply unique. The target date was maintained with all his might, as competitors from Kazakhstan were breathing in the back. Special agreements with HUAWEI led to the fact that for some time this Chinese giant worked only for Cambodia. The billing was used from Comverse, more precisely the convergent solution Comverse One, unique at that time and the first comprehensive installation, which allowed to combine prepaid-postpade, and subsequently equally convergently supported LTE network. AVAYA acted as a PBX to support a call center and some IVRs. Comverse was launched with the help of representatives of the manufacturing company and the tremendous efforts of our Russian integration team of experts, while simultaneously conducting training and certification of Cambodian staff, Avaya was launched with the support of our Russian colleagues.

The first base stations were installed along the main roads, then to the main provinces, then statistics began to be collected, and the turn reached coverage in remote areas. The deadlines for the implementation of the stations were almost unique: it reached 30 stations per day. Enough and exotic. In Asia, a lot of solar panels and wind turbines are used. But first, we went the usual way - began to use DGU. Then they tried the solar panels, the benefit of the sun, of course, is a lot. The test of solar panels went perfectly well, so we switched to alternative energy for backup. By the way, in comparison with Vietnam, in Cambodia everything was much simpler: electricity was almost everywhere. And in Vietnam, for example, even the quality of the network sometimes suffered due to the lack of electricity.


The very first tower in Cambodia

The first tower we owned was near the data center, and we hung the first operating antennas right inside the data center, at the switch. The network across Phnom Penh was deployed according to the ring topology: there was an optics built into the ring, along which the main towers were installed. Usually, they leased the land or the roof of the building under the tower (all houses in Phnom Penh are private). In general, there are a lot of operators in the city, almost everyone has their own infrastructure - and therefore there are a lot of towers. Operators did not know how to sublet them, and we were the first to offer them such a scheme. Two years later, for the local market, our innovation has become the norm.

But during the launch, the number of towers in the city just went off scale, and we barely had time to deploy the planned volume, as the government issued a decree limiting the possibility of installing towers in Phnom Penh. The next stage was the deployment of a network along the main transport networks of Cambodia and the construction of optical rings already in the country. The last (distant) towers were tied over a microwave channel.

Further (almost simultaneously) rooting took place in secondary important cities, which are tourist centers - Sihanoukville and Siem Reap (Angkor Wat). In Angkor itself there is a restriction prohibiting the installation of towers, but this is the most visited place by tourists. Its topology - surrounded by the jungle and has a large area - was not fully suitable for the “classic” version with a “ring” of antennas aimed at the center of the temple complex. When we thought about how to solve this problem, we considered even the most fantastic projects, such as a balloon antenna. But we stopped at realistic ones, because we managed to come to an agreement and rented quite good places for the towers. Over time, a backup switchboard was built in another resort town - Sihanoukville, and then a dedicated line was laid to our operator in Laos. Further development went along the path of enhancing coverage in the areas determined by marketing research.

We were the first in VimpelCom to launch LTE integrated with billing (at the very end of the primary network deployment). A test zone was created in Takmao, it earned, we demonstrated it to the government. From the point of view of subscribers, it is completely transparent for GSM. By the way, as part of the test, the state gave us a chance to try new technologies for free: that is, we were spending, in fact, only on the hardware and software itself.

Since we started from scratch, you could actually do anything. As a result, we very seriously invested in IT: given that we were the newest player in the market, we quietly installed new equipment, knowing that other operators would need a serious upgrade to get around us.

Two problems of Cambodia: the rains and mentality

The towers during the rains sank. In a sense, there were strong risks of erosion of the base and the formation of flooding of the lower sections. Sometimes offices did the same. For me the first time it really was very unusual. In general, Asian rain itself is when a bucket of water pours down on you. And it flows for a very long time, a few hours. It is pouring at such a speed that roads that are 2-3 meters higher than the rest of the rest are still flooded with water. Water does not have time to leave. But we quickly learned from our mistakes: offices were made elevated, sometimes located on the second floor, plus in Cambodia they often build houses on stilts. Equipment and power were raised there to avoid the risks of a short circuit. The flooding of the towers quickly left and everything was restored. As a rule, everything dries out quickly in the sun, but lowlands can easily turn into lakes.

There were other problems, for example, with an optical cable. When, somewhere in the center of Cambodia, a tractor interrupts it, it is necessary to look for and splice it, which is especially fascinating when there is a jungle around. Therefore, we quickly came up with a new concept: rings. It was a very successful find of our technical director, Sasha Akhmatayev. First, an okoltsovka was made around Phnom Penh, then rings were made around Cambodia. And we had another connection with Laos on this system. Very helpful.

It was necessary to "fight" not only with nature, but also with the local mentality. For example, somewhere in the province of “lightning struck”. And the local base station, judging by the monitoring, has all died. And when a brigade arrives there to reanimate it, the guard says to them: “The lightning struck, they hit, my TV turned off. Well, so I turned off the station generator too. All because of the lightning ... ”

What was happening on the market at that time?

There are a lot of competing operators in Cambodia. There were operators with a long history, local. There were those who entered the market almost simultaneously with us. We appeared on the Cambodian market with new proposals that were unusual for them and, most importantly, a new business strategy.

The fact is that at that time the main idea of ​​the market was that every call should bring income to the operator. We have shown that income can be built differently. For example, calls to another operator could be as cheap as calls within our network: you can simply set a single low price. As a result, when we called the subscriber to the numbers of local operators, we did not earn or went to minus, but this was compensated when the subscriber called Beeline to Beeline. Our task was simply to penetrate the market so that the profits generated in this way would constantly grow.

When the other operators realized what we were doing, they probably panicked. In the end, it ended up by trying to equalize rates between operators on calls. At the state level. The conflict was thus settled, but after the first shock, local operators began to think in a new way.


Our first advertisement

Further, we continued to develop our strategy, boldly using the capabilities of our IT analytics. We brought to the market any new product or tariff, and immediately began to copy the rest, literally with a delay of 3-5 days or a week. However, we knew why we were doing this, but competitors more often simply copied, not understanding why. And since they did not have our data, they often “burned out” on such a copy. And yes, it was incredibly pleased that we "dictated fashion" in this market.

Subscribers new strategy is very shaken. In the first five days we completed the monthly plan. We just had to reconsider all our forecasts for capacity, connection, marketing, because we already exceeded them several times. When they began to understand why subscribers are so easily connected, it turned out that: Cambodia is a “multisymbic” country. That is, any person has several cellular numbers, trying to have a number with each operator. And they try to make their number the same for all operators. That is, it makes sense for them to agree on the tariff, they are able to pay extra money so that this number is the same. Then we set ourselves the goal of becoming a “second SIM” in each phone, and went to this goal. It worked out perfectly, because the subscriber called from the “first” SIM card as he was used to, and from the second he made cheap calls to the networks of other operators - and we offered the best conditions both in the private and in the corporate sector. As a result, the subscriber kept the “first” SIM card familiar to him, but also actively used our services.

By the way, they spend a lot on communication in Cambodia. It should probably be said that Cambodians are very fond of expensive phones, in particular, apples. At the same time buy Chinese clones of iPhones are not in Cambodian style. If a local resident does not have enough money for the iPhone, he will buy, let cheap, but Nokia, and not an analogue of an iPhone with a TV antenna.

At this time in Vietnam ...

With Vietnam, we were going a parallel course at this time. The question even stood so that we did not know who would have time to enter the market before. The Vietnamese team started a little earlier than us, but the volume of both integration and purely territorial ones was still greater. Solutions were different there, differing in integration and project environment. But nevertheless some things were unified here, which allowed, in the end, to exchange both experience and specialists. Although the business scheme in Vietnam is different due to the specifics of local legislative restrictions.

The main question: I am a tourist, I have a striped sim card. Need to buy a new one in Cambodia?

No, don't. Sotelco is a Beeline operator in Cambodia, already registered in roaming agreements and Beeline cards purchased after the launch of the brand in Cambodia. If you have a SIM card older than two years, it may make sense to update it in any Beeline office, take a “fresher”, so that its firmware contains the necessary data. At the same time update and roaming agreements around the world. Now, as far as I know, the roaming tariff in Cambodia is the most advantageous in comparison with other operators.

Total

At the start we had 6 people: the general director, the head of the direction, the head of marketing, the technical director, the financial director and I, the IT director. By the time the network was launched, about 300 people worked, most of which were local residents. It was necessary not only to build a network, but also to train all new specialists and leave so that the local staff could manage the company. It sounded quite simple, but it turned out to be an incredible “quest” due to the peculiarities of the local mentality and culture. If it is interesting, I will tell you with a separate topic and differences in mentality, and about the consecration of the office, and about the completely wild attitude to death by our standards, and about other things.