Migrating Pepephone's ADSL network from Vodafone to MásMóvil.

This project represents a critical case study in the history of telecommunications in Spain: the transition from leased infrastructure (Vodafone) to an in-house and partner network following the acquisition by Grupo MásMóvil.

Context

After Grupo MásMóvil acquired Pepephone, keeping ADSL running on Vodafone's wholesale network no longer made economic sense: the group had its own network and partners (Jazztel plus its own rollout). The challenge wasn't technical in the abstract, but rather to carry out the move without the customer — accustomed to the minimal friction that defines Pepephone — noticing the change. Any spike in incidents or churn would have wiped out the cost savings that justified the migration.

Technical breakdown and responsibilities

As the technical lead for the process, my role was the bridge between service continuity and operational cost savings (OPEX).

Core and access migration: Coordinating the transfer of ~50,000 ADSL customers from Vodafone's network to MásMóvil's ADSL/FTTH rollout (using Jazztel assets and in-house deployment).

Provisioning and logistics: Overseeing the mass shipment of new preconfigured routers and managing appointments for the line drop change in cases of fiber migration.

Service assurance (QA): Minimizing downtime during the network change window to maintain the low churn rate that characterizes Pepephone.

Outcome

The move of the ~50,000 ADSL customers was completed while preserving service continuity and the low churn rate that distinguishes Pepephone, all while the group eliminated the cost of the leased wholesale network. The key was treating the migration as a project of operations and communication as much as of network engineering: staggered change windows, preconfigured routers shipped in advance, and coordination of line-drop appointments for the jump to fiber, so that the bulk of customers had nothing to do.