Head – Fault Management and Service Assurance (VP)

Head – Fault Management and Service Assurance (VP)
Function: Network
Location: India
Reporting to: SVP
Role
Head – Fault Management is accountable for end-to-end fault lifecycle management of Airtel’s
transport networks, ensuring high availability, low latency, rapid restoration, and minimal service
impact across Mobility, Broadband, Enterprise, and Homes services.
The role leads Airtel’s transition from reactive transport fault handling to predictive, AI-driven, and
autonomous transport operations, aligned with TM Forum Open Digital Architecture (ODA) and
accordingly shall drive Autonomous Network maturity targets.

Key Responsibilities
1. End-to-End Transport Fault Management Ownership
 Own and govern L2–L3 Fault Management processes for transport networks, ensuring
uniform and standardized execution across regions and vendors.
 Define, own, and continuously improve the end-to-end fault management lifecycle (detect,
correlate, diagnose, restore, close) in alignment with TM Forum eTOM Service Assurance
and Fault Management components.
 Exercise command ownership of transport outages (fiber cuts, router failures, power issues,
etc.).
 Drive service-impact-based prioritization across Mobile, FTTH, Enterprise, and Home
services.
 Lead war rooms in co-ordination with Ericsson GNOC, vendor escalations, and executive-
level updates.
 Ensure SLA / OLA adherence for internal teams and partners.
Establish and govern standardized fault management:
 Alarm & Event Management (Optical, IP/MPLS, etc.)
 Root Cause Analysis (RCA) & Problem Management
 Proactive fault prevention & network resilience planning
2. Multi-Domain Coverage with focus on trnasport
Provide unified fault oversight and drive cross-layer correlation (Physical → Optical → IP →
Service(including RAN and Core) across:
 IP/MPLS Core & Aggregation
 DWDM / OTN optical networks
 National Long-Haul, Backhaul, and Submarine cable systems
3. Incident, Problem, and Change Integration
 Ensure seamless integration between fault, incident, problem, and change management
processes, including automated ticket creation, routing, and closure.

 Lead or sponsor major incident bridges for high-severity outages, coordinating engineering,
field operations, vendors, and partners.
 Drive Problem Management for recurring and chronic issues through structured RCAs,
corrective and preventive actions, and closure tracking.
4. Alarm and Event Management
 Govern the complete alarm and event lifecycle, including creation, enrichment, prioritization,
correlation, deduplication, clearance, and archival.
 Drive alarm quality improvements and noise reduction using TMF642-aligned severity
models and event semantics.
5. AI-Driven & Autonomous Transport Operations
Lead adoption of AIOps for Transport Fault Management and align transport assurance to
Autonomous Network Levels (AN L2–L4+):
 Intelligent alarm correlation & noise suppression
 Fiber cut localization & blast radius analysis
 Predictive service degradation detection (BER, latency, packet loss)
 Closed-loop rerouting, protection switching, and auto-restoration
6. Tooling, Architecture & ODA Alignment
Own the transport assurance tooling strategy, including:
 Optical NMS / EMS platforms
 IP/MPLS NMS & telemetry platforms
 Centralized Event Management & ITSM integration
Ensure:
 API-driven, cloud-native, decoupled architecture
 Adoption of TMF Open APIs (Alarm, Event, Trouble Ticket, Performance)
 Alignment with TMF ODA components and reduction of tool silos
7. KPI Ownership & Operational Excellence
Define, track, and improve KPIs, and establish data-driven NOC performance management:
 Transport MTTR / MTTI / MTTA
 Network & Ring Availability
 Fiber Cut Frequency & Restoration Time
 Repeat Transport Incidents
 Customer Impact Minutes
 Alarm noise
8. Vendor & Partner Governance
 Manage OEMs, fiber partners, submarine cable operators, and MSPs.
 Enforce SLAs, penalties, and service credits.
 Drive elimination of chronic faults through structural and permanent fixes.
 Align vendor roadmaps with Airtel’s transport network evolution.
9. Post-Incident Learning & Continuous Improvement

 Institutionalize transport RCAs.
 Maintain a Problem Backlog for fiber, power, and equipment-related issues.
 Identify automation and resilience improvements from incidents.
 Publish executive-level transport stability insights.
10. Team Management and Capability Building
 Build, develop, and retain high-performing NOC fault management teams with clearly
defined L1/L2/L3 roles and competency frameworks.
 Drive continuous upskilling across network technologies, OSS tools, analytics platforms,
and industry frameworks (TM Forum, ITIL).
 Build expertise in optical, IP, telemetry, and AI practices.
 Foster a culture of ownership, speed, and zero-defect mindset.
Key Stakeholders
 Transport Planning & Engineering
 Mobility, FTTH & Enterprise Operations
 IT / Digital Platforms
 Circle & Regional Operations Teams
 Vendors, Fiber & Submarine Partners
 CX & Service Assurance Teams
Skills & Competencies
Core Skills
 Strong understanding of telecom network architectures and fault behaviors across mobile,
fixed, IP, transport, and cloud domains.
 Expertise in alarm and fault management platforms, correlation engines, monitoring tools,
and ticketing systems.
 Proven leadership in crisis management, stakeholder communication, analytical
problem-solving, and customer-centric operations.
Technical
 Deep expertise in Transport Networks (IP/MPLS, Optical)
 Strong knowledge of fault, incident, and problem management
 Experience with AIOps and transport analytics
 Understanding of ITIL, SRE, and observability concepts
 Familiarity with TM Forum frameworks and standards
Leadership
 Crisis and outage management
 Executive communication
 Large-scale operations leadership
 Transformation and change management
Experience & Qualifications
 15+ years of experience in Telecom Transport Operations
 5+ years leading large fault management or service assurance teams
 Experience operating Tier-1 national transport networks
 TM Forum / ITIL certifications preferred

Success Measures
 35–45% reduction in Transport MTTR
 50–60% alarm noise reduction
 ≥30% proactive fault prevention