Head, Transport Engineering at Airtel

Level: Mid-Senior level

Job Purpose

• This is a vital position to head and manage design & planning of network unit and providing technical solutions for connecting cell sites and enterprise customer locations for excellent customer experience.
• This person will be interacting with the Partners’ teams’ very extensively. Robust, flexible and state of art fiber and microwave transmission network planning & delivery is the essence of the role

Key Accountabilities
Microwave and Fibre Network Design/Network Architecture & Design:

• Transmission Design based on optical fibre network and Microwave.
• Design the MBPN and data network
• Pre-qualification & participation in the ordered network elements based on engineering and commercial aspects.
• Definition of network reference architecture designs for Airtel OpCo transmission and transport networks to support IP/TDM based mobile voice/data, enterprise and other services, with the aim at delivering clear design targets to the Africa operations to plan and execute against.
• Identify and evaluate converging technology opportunities as well as study and evaluate market trends that apply directly and indirectly to the Airtel OpCo of assignment.

Planning & Configuration:

• Defining the Transmission planning strategy based on the company objectives.
• Defining the required network elements type, configuration and capacity.
• Defining the Transmission standards.
• Defining the network future expansion requirements based on traffic Forecast.

Vendor Selection & Management:

• Responsibilities include evaluation of and selection of vendors for transmission and transport network solutions, considering vendor’s current position within the Airtel product portfolio, strength of technology offering, and positioning of the vendor in the African continent as well as organisational needs into the future.

New Technology Evaluation:

• This includes but is not limited to point to point PDH/SDH microwave transmission, SDH/DWDM fibre transmission, VSAT, point to multi-point microwave, and ILD connectivity for Africa.
• To formulate and assist in the creation of strategy, design, planning and optimisation of Transmission Networks to achieve a cost effective network design and rollout aimed at providing adequate transmission network capacity, high grade / level of service. To formulate and direct design specification(s) and value engineering of the Airtel Africa Transmission network.

Regulatory (NCC) & Spectrum Management:

• Responsibilities include ensuring accuracy in semi-annual spectrum validation with NCC.
• Provision of support during annual field validation exercise by NCC.
• Ensuring type approval certificates are obtained for all TXMN NE elements on the network
• Ensure effective management of the Airtel network spectrum and putting controls in place to ensure strict adherence.

Skills & Knowledge
Educational Qualifications & Functional / Technical Skills:

• Bachelor of Engineering Degree in Electronics & Communications Engineering
• Sound knowledge of fibre optics network for Mobile & Enterprise Network - Planning

Relevant Experience:

• Bachelor's of Science in Telecommunications
• 10 years telecommunication experience
• More than 6 years’ experience in Transport Planning.
• Experience in optical fibre networks design, DWDM
• MBPN and IP design
• Ericsson or Huawei Transmission experience is required.