(And a sneak peek at something new: Award Aware)
It was raining hard as we headed home from a dinner out. I was driving on the freeway, across a bridge —windshield wipers working overtime — when a car just ahead of me started to fishtail. In seconds, it spun sideways, collided with an SUV in the next lane, and my adrenaline went through the roof.
Somehow, both vehicles stayed upright, but one of them lost its entire front bumper, right in front of me – forcing me to brake hard, and swerve sharply to avoid becoming part of the incident. My wife was already on the phone with 911 before we’d even fully processed what had happened. Thankfully both cars seemed okay, and were able to limp to the shoulder.
We were lucky. We saw it coming just early enough to take action.
In the moment, it was instinct and reaction. But as I reflected afterward, I realized how much this parallels what we do in telecom operations. Because in a network, just like on a rainy freeway, things can go wrong fast — and being able to spot the warning signs early can make all the difference.
Trouble rarely shows up unannounced
In our line of work, serious problems almost never appear out of nowhere. A call routing failure, switch crash, or billing outage is often preceded by small signs: an error in the logs, a pattern of dropped calls, an alarm that went unnoticed.
The challenge is that these early signals are easy to miss—especially if you’re juggling day-to-day tasks, or if the information you need is scattered across different systems (or worse, buried in email chains).
The result? You don’t see the trouble until you’re swerving to avoid the wreckage.
What if you could see it coming?
We’ve been thinking a lot about this, and we’re excited to share that we’re working on something new: a service we’re calling Award Aware.
The goal is simple: to help our clients become more proactive by collecting key information from your network and presenting it in a clear, centralized dashboard. That way, instead of waiting for subscribers to report issues, you’ll have visibility into what’s happening — before it turns into a crisis.
We’re still in the early stages, but here’s what we’re planning:
- Collecting logs and configuration data from key systems (like your softswitch, SBCs, and IP networking equipment).
- Monitoring for patterns or errors that could indicate developing problems.
- Presenting a clean dashboard view of system health and alerts.
- Providing recommendations or escalation paths if we spot something concerning.
In short, we want to give you the same kind of situational awareness that helped me avoid that accident — except in your network.
Why this matters
Over the years, we’ve seen firsthand how much easier it is to fix problems when you catch them early. We’ve also seen how difficult that can be when every system has its own logging format, its own web interface, and its own set of alerts (which may or may not be configured correctly).
And let’s face it: telecom teams are stretched thin. You don’t always have time to go hunting for issues—you need them to surface clearly and early, while there’s still time to react calmly and effectively.
That’s what we’re aiming to provide with Award Aware.
Avoiding the pile-up
The near-miss on the bridge was a good reminder: sometimes bad things happen even when you’re doing everything right. But the difference between disaster and a close call often comes down to awareness. Do you see the danger in time to act?
In telecom, we think the answer should be yes. And we want to help you make that happen.
If you’re interested in being one of the early adopters of Award Aware—or if you just want to talk about how to improve monitoring in your current environment—we’d love to hear from you. Just fill out our contact form and we’ll get back to you.
