Field-Operations Carve-Out Architecture Director — Fibre Networks

The mandate

The fibre estate is transferring to a standalone infrastructure company, but fault intake, dispatch optimisation, municipal permits, secure-site access, contractor accreditation and emergency spares remain shared with the seller’s mobile operation. Transaction schedules define systems and headcount without showing how a fibre cut is restored at 02:00 when the control room, permit evidence and depot key sit across the boundary.

The deliverable is a Field-Operations Carve-Out Architecture containing service inventory, fault-to-restoration decisions, regional capacity, contractor and depot boundaries, Day-One control bridges, transition-service measures, stand-up requirements, exit criteria and fallback states. It must preserve wholesale customer priorities and public-safety interfaces while preventing either party from relying indefinitely on informal mobile-business relationships.

Milestone one at week five accepts the service-and-decision baseline; regional demand and capacity close at week nine. Day-One controls are approved at week fourteen, ten regional models at week twenty, and contractor, permit and spares exits at week twenty-six. Four outage rehearsals run by week thirty-three; final architecture and service-exit pack close at week thirty-six.

Acceptance requires standalone teams to restore unseen metropolitan, long-haul, secure-site and multi-party faults within agreed safety, evidence and customer clocks, including deliberate loss of the seller’s dispatch service. The Separation Executive and Fibre COO sign only when every critical dependency has a named owner, measurable service level, tested manual fallback, funded exit and reconciled asset or access record.

The client provides sale agreements, transition schedules, asset and fault histories, route maps, customer commitments, workforce assumptions, permits, contractor files, depot inventories, access protocols, systems constraints and empowered regional owners. Exclusions cover live network command, permit applications, consultation, contractor selection, technology build, security certification, legal interpretation, property transfer, customer renegotiation and delivery of the standalone organisation.

Why this is external work

Seller and buyer operations teams are consumed by current outages and have different incentives around transition-service duration, cost and performance evidence. Independent architecture is needed to expose night-and-weekend dependency, arbitrate facts and define testable service exits without taking network control or advocating either party’s commercial position.

What you will own

• Trace fibre faults from detection through triage, dispatch, permits, access, location, repair, testing, customer update and closure.
• Quantify regional workload, travel, skills, contractor, depot and emergency-spares capacity across normal and surge conditions.
• Translate shared mobile services into measurable fibre decisions, service levels, evidence, owners and expiry conditions.
• Define Day-One bridges and standalone end states for dispatch, permits, secure access, accreditation, spares and escalation.
• Design ten regional operating cells with accountable coverage, handoffs, resilience thresholds and funded transition backlogs.
• Rehearse metro cut, long-haul break, secure-site denial, multiple damage and seller-dispatch withdrawal.
• Deliver the architecture, dependency register, regional models, control bridges, rehearsal record and accepted exit roadmap.

Candidate qualifications

• Architected telecom infrastructure separations involving field dispatch, contractors, permits, access and service assurance nationally.
• Understood fibre restoration across metropolitan, long-haul, secure-site and wholesale-customer operating conditions directly.
• Converted transition-service language into measurable decisions, capacity, evidence and enforceable exit criteria successfully.
• Designed manual fallbacks where dispatch, mapping, depot or access technology could not separate by Day One.
• Challenged seller and buyer assumptions while preserving network, safety, legal and security accountabilities carefully.
• Transferred an operating architecture through client-led outages including deliberate withdrawal of a shared service.

Non-negotiables

• Can lead ten regional design cells and four Johannesburg-governed rehearsals within nine months.
• Direct telecom field-operations separation experience is required; generic carve-out governance is insufficient.
• Will disclose network operators, tower companies, contractors, municipalities, investors and separation advisers.
• Will not command outages, apply for permits, select contractors, certify security or interpret agreements.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe a telecom separation dependency that appeared only during an after-hours fault.
2. 49 words maximum. How would you test withdrawal of the seller’s dispatch service before transition exit?
3. 49 words maximum. Which regional demand and access data must be available by week three?