Role

UX Architect & Designer (Solo)

Organization

Radisys  

Duration

6 months  

Tier-2/3

Target market - underserved BSPs

2-3 OLTs

Designed for small scale operators

6 Months

Concept to production ship

Full FCAPS

Complete NMS functionality at lower cost

The Problem

Tier-2 and Tier-3 Broadband Service Providers — serving non-urban, rural, and tribal areas — could not afford the enterprise Network Management Systems available in the market. Without affordable NMS, smaller operators couldn't efficiently manage their fiber broadband networks, directly limiting broadband expansion in underserved regions.

"BSPs want to expand their fiber broadband networks in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. Capital expenditure is the most significant pain point — existing NMS products are priced for Tier-1 scale operators."

Market Context

THE MARKET GAP

Tier-1 operators had full-featured NMS solutions. Tier-2 and Tier-3 BSPs — serving non-urban, rural, and tribal areas — were priced out entirely. Capital expenditure was their single biggest pain point, confirmed by a Heavy Reading 2023 survey.

THE ENABLER

The US federal BEAD program introduced funding specifically targeting broadband expansion in underserved areas. BSPs were now more open to capital investments — but only if the product cost was proportionate to the scale of their network.

Research Approach

Direct access to Tier-2/3 BSPs was limited early in the project, so research used two sources: surveys with Pre-Sales acting as customer proxies, and third-party market data from Heavy Reading's 2023 survey of broadband service providers. Key finding: the majority of Tier-2/3 BSPs wanted to expand fiber networks but needed a full-featured NMS solution at a fraction of the cost of existing products.

Design Decision

CORE DESIGN CHALLENGE

CBAC Lite had to deliver the full power of an enterprise NMS — complete FCAPS functionality — while remaining usable by short-staffed teams who were not network management specialists. Simplifying too aggressively would make it useless for real operations. Keeping full complexity would defeat the affordability and accessibility goal.

Decision: Leverage the existing personas and workflows from RMS as a foundation, then prioritise the MVP feature set specifically for 2–3 OLT operations. This let us ship in 6 months while maintaining full FCAPS coverage. Pre-Sales acted as customer proxies throughout concept validation — a pragmatic choice given limited direct access to Tier-2/3 BSPs early in the project.

The Product

CBAC Lite is a role-based web application delivering complete FCAPS functionality — Fault, Configuration, Accounting, Performance, and Security management — optimised for networks of 2–3 OLTs. The interface is designed for short-staffed teams without dedicated NMS specialists.

Fault Management — Alarm Intelligence

The alarms dashboard needed to surface severity and distribution across the network at a glance. The solution pairs a sunburst hierarchy showing device-level severity breakdown with a ranked bar chart of top alarm codes — giving operators immediate situational awareness without drilling into individual device logs.

Configuration Management

OLT configuration spans seven tabs covering all parameters. Site location uses a draggable map pin with auto-updating coordinates. A persistent hardware render panel at the bottom maintains physical device context throughout configuration workflows.

Performance, Security & Accounting

Security - Access Control

Results & Impact

Shipped in 6 months

Early stakeholder validation and high-fidelity mockups enabled the UI team to ship in record time with minimal rework

Full FCAPS at lower cost

Complete fault, configuration, accounting, performance, and security management — affordable for Tier-2/3 operators

Currently in pre-sales

Active discussions with potential BSPs — quantitative adoption data not yet available at time of writing

Smooth development process

Early concept validation with all stakeholders eliminated late-stage design churn

Lessons Learned

Using Pre-Sales as customer proxies was a pragmatic constraint, not an ideal research method. They understood the domain deeply but their perspective skewed toward sales objectives rather than actual operator workflows. If I revisited this, I'd push harder for at least 2–3 direct sessions with Tier-2/3 BSP operators early in the process — even one session would have sharpened the MVP feature prioritisation.

The key learning: early validation of UI concepts with all stakeholders — Product Managers, Pre-Sales, Technical Architects, and the UI team — was the single biggest reason we shipped in 6 months without late-stage rework. Getting everyone aligned on high-fidelity mockups before development started paying off significantly.