American Tower: Bringing DAS Monitoring and Operations Together
Read article
Network Management Blog & News
How a single, vendor-neutral platform can simplify operations, improve visibility, and reduce costs across modern telecom networks.
Modern telecom networks have never been more complex.
Today’s operators are managing a growing mix of technologies, vendors, and infrastructure. A single network may include Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS), small cells, microwave backhaul, fibre, WiFi, routers, switches, private LTE, and IoT devices—all supplied by different manufacturers.
While this best-of-breed approach offers flexibility, it also creates a significant operational challenge.
Each vendor typically provides its own Element Management System (EMS), dashboard, alarm console, reporting tools, and workflows. Before long, Network Operations Centre (NOC) teams are switching between multiple applications just to understand what’s happening across the network.
This is why more operators are moving towards multi-vendor network management—a centralised approach that provides complete visibility across all network infrastructure, regardless of the manufacturer.
Very few telecom operators rely on a single equipment vendor.
As networks evolve, new technologies are introduced, acquisitions occur, and infrastructure expands. The result is an environment where equipment from multiple manufacturers operates side by side.
A typical deployment may include equipment from vendors such as:
Each solution serves a specific purpose, but each also introduces another management platform.
Over time, operations teams find themselves monitoring multiple dashboards instead of a single network.
Every equipment manufacturer understandably designs its management software around its own products.
While these platforms are excellent for configuring individual devices, they were never intended to provide complete operational visibility across an entire network.
This creates several common challenges.
Engineers often need to monitor several applications simultaneously.
If an outage affects equipment from multiple vendors, operators may need to compare alarms across different interfaces before identifying the root cause.
This slows investigation and increases Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR).
Every OEM handles alarms differently.
Some classify severity differently.
Some generate duplicate notifications.
Others provide limited context around the affected device.
Without a consistent alarm strategy, operators spend valuable time interpreting alarms rather than resolving issues.
Each platform stores its own data independently.
Performance metrics, configuration information, historical alarms, and reports often remain locked within individual vendor systems.
This makes it difficult to build a complete picture of overall network health.
Every additional platform introduces another user interface, another workflow, and another training programme.
New engineers must learn multiple systems before becoming fully productive.
This increases onboarding time while adding unnecessary operational complexity.
Instead of treating every vendor as a separate environment, a multi-vendor management platform brings everything together.
Rather than asking operators to monitor five different dashboards, information from multiple OEMs is consolidated into a single interface.
The benefits are immediate.
Operators gain a single view of the entire network rather than isolated views of individual technologies.
Whether the issue involves DAS equipment, microwave links, fibre infrastructure, or routers, everything can be monitored from one platform.
Instead of asking:
“Which vendor dashboard should I check?”
Operators can simply focus on:
“What is happening across the network?”
When alarms from multiple vendors are viewed together, identifying the root cause becomes significantly easier.
Related events can be correlated across different equipment types, helping engineers understand how one issue affects the wider network.
This reduces investigation time and speeds up restoration.
With all operational data stored centrally, reporting becomes far more valuable.
Instead of exporting data from several OEM platforms and combining it manually, organisations can generate unified reports covering:
Decision-makers gain a clearer understanding of network health without spending hours compiling information.
Consolidating multiple monitoring systems into a single platform can reduce operational costs in several ways.
Organisations benefit from:
Rather than increasing headcount as networks grow, automation and centralisation allow existing teams to manage larger, more complex environments.
One of the biggest advantages of a vendor-neutral platform is flexibility.
Telecom operators can adopt new technologies without worrying about adding another management system.
As new OEMs are introduced, they can be integrated into the existing operational environment instead of creating another isolated dashboard.
This approach protects technology investments while avoiding vendor lock-in.
It also gives operators the freedom to choose the best equipment for each deployment rather than being constrained by management software compatibility.
Modern NOCs are expected to monitor more devices than ever before while maintaining high service availability and faster response times.
Achieving this with disconnected OEM tools becomes increasingly difficult as networks expand.
A centralised, multi-vendor management platform allows operations teams to:
Instead of managing platforms, engineers can focus on managing the network.
Errigal’s IDMS platform is designed as a vendor-neutral network management solution that brings together equipment from multiple OEMs into a single operational environment. Supporting more than 1,000 device types across technologies including DAS, WiFi, microwave, fibre, routers, switches, private LTE, and IoT, the platform enables operators to manage diverse infrastructure through one interface rather than multiple vendor-specific tools. Intelligent alarm processing, centralised dashboards, reporting, workflow automation, and mobile access help organisations streamline operations while reducing complexity.
Telecom networks will only become more diverse as new technologies and vendors continue to emerge.
The question is no longer whether operators will manage equipment from multiple manufacturers—it’s how efficiently they can do it.
By moving away from disconnected OEM tools and embracing a vendor-neutral management platform, organisations gain greater visibility, simplify operations, reduce costs, and position themselves for future growth.
In an increasingly complex telecom landscape, managing the entire network—not just individual vendors—is becoming the new standard.
Related Articles:
Keep exploring
Talk to our team about your network environment.
A conversation about your network
Tell us a little about your priorities.
Your enquiry will go directly to the Errigal team.