Start Here — who’s in the room?

• Who is the primary sponsor or executive champion for this core transformation? Options: VP Network Architecture / CNO, CTO, Head of Network Engineering, Head of Cloud/Platform, Head of Procurement, Other
• What is the single biggest business driver behind this initiative? Options: 5G standalone / network slicing, Legacy core end-of-life / decommission deadline, Cloud-native transformation / containerization, Reduce vendor lock-in / TCO, Regulatory or compliance requirement, Other
• What is your target timeline for vendor selection and signing the multi-year agreement? Options: 0–3 months, 3–6 months, 6–12 months, 12–18 months, 18+ months
• Who will own operations after cutover (pick all that apply)? Options: Internal NOC / Ops team, Vendor‑managed NOC, Cloud provider managed, Hybrid (shared responsibilities), Third‑party managed services
• Briefly describe any hard decommission dates, regulatory deadlines, or executive constraints driving urgency.

Are you settling for 'good enough'?

• If you did nothing different, what critical capability would you lose in the next 12–24 months?
• Which existing technical limitation causes the most customer-facing impact today? Options: Throughput limits / bandwidth, Session scale / control-plane capacity, Lack of network slicing, High latency to edge services, Interoperability with RAN/transport, Vendor lock-in or roadmap gaps, Other
• How often have production incidents been traced back to the core over the last year? Options: Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Rarely, Never / no incidents
• Tell us about a recent incident or customer complaint tied to core constraints—what happened and what was the business impact?
• Which business consequence worries your leadership most if the core issues persist? Options: Enterprise deal losses, Revenue decline, Customer churn / SLA breaches, Regulatory fines, Rising OPEX/CAPEX, Reputational damage

Who really pulls the trigger?

• Who would actually say 'yes' to switching the network core—and what single thing would make them say it?
• Which stakeholders must approve vendor selection (select all that apply)? Options: CNO / CTO, VP Network Architecture, Procurement, Legal / Compliance, CFO / Finance, Head of Cloud/Platform, Security, Board / Executive Committee
• Which procurement or approval processes could materially extend the timeline? Options: RFP / formal tender, Quarterly capex cycle, Vendor prequalification, Regulated procurement, Ad-hoc executive sign-off, Public sector vetting
• Describe any contract structures procurement insists on (e.g., multi-year framework, SLAs, escrow, termination clauses).
• How would you describe the committee’s appetite for risk when it comes to core changes? Options: Very risk-averse (require long parallel runs), Moderately cautious (phased approach), Risk-tolerant (fast adoption), Undecided

Where do the technical landmines sit?

• What technical assumption about your current stack, if wrong, would derail the migration?
• Which elements are you most worried about for interoperability? Options: RAN vendors and interfaces, Transport / IP/MPLS, OSS/BSS integrations, Legacy PSTN/SS7 interconnects, Edge compute platforms, Virtualization / cloud infra, Hardware accelerators (DPUs)
• Do you have defined capacity baselines we must match in lab tests (sessions/sec, throughput, slice counts)? Options: Yes—detailed baselines available, Partial or estimated baselines, No formal baselines defined
• Please summarize the specific capacity and performance targets we must validate in the lab and production (include units where possible).
• Do you have fixed decommission deadlines for legacy cores or will dates shift based on migration progress? Options: Fixed and non-negotiable, Preferred date but negotiable, No formal deadline defined
• List any third-party vendors or equipment that are mandatory for interoperability (include contact points if known).

What would 'winning' look and feel like?

• If we delivered everything you asked for, what strategic change would happen across the business in year one?
• Which outcomes are non-negotiable for you and must be contractually guaranteed? Options: Network slicing support, Edge latency targets, Session and throughput scale, 99.999% availability / HA, API / service exposure for B2B, Measurable TCO reduction, Reduced vendor lock-in
• Which business KPIs will leadership use to judge success? Options: New enterprise revenue, Churn reduction, Time-to-market for services, OPEX reduction, SLA compliance/credits, Operational MTTR improvements
• What would convince your CIO or CNO that the new core is fully mission-ready?
• How quickly do you expect to see measurable business outcomes after cutover? Options: 0–3 months, 3–6 months, 6–12 months, 12+ months

Have we stress-tested your assumptions already?

• What did past lab or POC activity fail to prove, and why does that gap still worry you?
• Which validations have you completed to date? Options: Throughput / data-plane stress, Control-plane session scale, Interop with RAN vendors, Edge latency and placement tests, Geo-redundancy and failover, Security and compliance testing, None
• Where do lab results diverge from your production load profile? Options: Session churn characteristics, Traffic mix / packet size variance, Signaling storm behavior, Stateful handoff scenarios, Geo / microburst traffic patterns
• Share a key metric or result from your most recent POC (e.g., sustained TPS, max concurrent sessions measured).
• Which vendor roadmap items are deal-breakers if delayed beyond your timeline?

Who will run this when the lights are on?

• If the new core shipped tomorrow, what would your operations team struggle with first?
• Who will own day-to-day operations and incident response post-migration? Options: Internal NOC / Ops, Vendor-managed NOC, Cloud provider managed, Hybrid (shared), Third-party managed services
• How mature are your in-house cloud-native skills (Kubernetes, CNFs, CI/CD) for running production network functions? Options: Mature and proven, Developing with some experience, Limited, None
• Describe your runbook and rollback expectations for the first 90 days after cutover.
• Which operational capabilities must be in place before cutover (select top priorities)? Options: Observability and telemetry, Automated scaling, Fault-injection testing, Backup and recovery, Security monitoring, Playbooks and runbooks
• Are you open to vendor-delivered managed services during the initial operational phase? Options: Yes—preferred, Open to it, Prefer internal ownership, Depends on SLA and costs

Which deal terms make you breathe easier?

• What contractual assurance would make you willing to accelerate approval by 3–6 months?
• Which commercial or legal elements are highest priority? Options: Performance SLAs with credits, Multi-year framework agreement, Vendor roadmap commitments, Source code / escrow, Flexible termination clauses, Interoperability guarantees
• Describe any procurement, legal, or regulatory constraints we should know about (e.g., data residency, government vetting).
• Would you accept phased acceptance gates tied to milestone payments? Options: Yes—works well for us, Maybe—depends on criteria, No—prefer full acceptance after cutover
• What governance cadence do you expect during implementation? Options: Weekly technical working group, Biweekly leadership review, Monthly steering committee, Ad-hoc as needed
• What specific evidence or deliverables would trigger executive sign-off at each acceptance gate?

If we started next week, what would block us?

• What single hidden dependency would stop a fast-start plan cold?
• Do you have access to testbeds, RAN equipment, and transport labs for interoperability work today? Options: All required testbeds available, Partially available, Not available—need vendor support, Not available—requires procurement
• Are regulatory approvals, partner SLAs, or third-party commitments required before testing or cutover? Options: Yes—regulatory approvals required, Yes—partner SLAs required, No, Unsure
• List the top three internal approvals or signatures required to begin lab interoperability testing.
• What is the single clearest sign your organization is ready to move forward? Options: Budget allocated, Executive sponsor committed, Procurement clearance, Operational readiness validated, Fixed decommission date

Next small bets — what we propose together

• Which small, low-risk step would prove momentum and remove the largest unknown fastest?
• Which of these quick wins would you prioritize first? Options: Lab interoperability session with RAN, Focused load/scale test, Roadmap alignment and gap workshop, Edge pairing proof-of-concept, Commercial terms and milestone negotiation, Pilot in a non-critical region
• Who should be on a 30-day mobilization team from your side (names or roles)?
• What timeframe would you expect for a first lab POC from kick-off? Options: 2–4 weeks, 1–2 months, 2–3 months, 3+ months
• What measurement or artifact from that first step would convince leadership to commit to the next phase?

Start by Painting Your Core Canvas

• In a few sentences, describe your current core architecture and where it's deployed (on-prem, public cloud, private cloud, edge locations).
• Which core types are active today across your footprint? Options: 5G Standalone (5GC), Evolved Packet Core (EPC), Legacy circuit-switched (MSC/HLR), Hybrid mix (5GC + EPC), Cloud-native VNFs only, Proprietary appliance-based core
• Who are the primary vendors for your core, RAN, and transport layers? Options: Vendor: Ericsson, Vendor: Nokia, Vendor: Huawei, Vendor: Samsung, Vendor: Cisco, Vendor: Juniper, Vendor: ZTE, Vendor: Vendor-neutral OSS/BSS providers, Other/Proprietary
• How are your core functions instantiated today (select all that apply)? Options: Containers on Kubernetes, VMs on OpenStack, VMs on VMware, Bare-metal appliances, Hosted in public cloud (AWS/Azure/GCP), Managed service from vendor
• Where are your edge compute locations relative to the core (metro POPs, regional DCs, customer premises, none)? Options: Metro POPs, Regional data centers, Centralized national DC, Customer premises, No edge footprint today, Third-party edge partner
• Which orchestrator and telco-cloud stack are you using (if any)? Options: Kubernetes (k8s), OpenStack, ONAP, Vendor-managed orchestrator, Proprietary orchestration, None / manual workflows

What Keeps Your Network Awake at 3AM?

• If you had to name the single most urgent interoperability or reliability risk in your core–RAN–transport chain, what would it be and why?
• How often do cross-domain incidents (core impacting RAN or transport) occur that require escalation beyond Level 2? Options: Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Rarely, Never tracked
• When an incident occurs, which domain usually drives the root cause (core, RAN, transport, OSS/BSS, cloud infra)? Options: Core, RAN, Transport, OSS/BSS, Cloud infra, Mixed/Unknown
• Tell us about a recent high-impact outage or interoperability failure—what happened, what fixed it, and how long did recovery take?
• Which observable symptoms worry your teams most during peak events (session loss, signaling storms, control-plane CPU spikes, user-plane throughput collapse, latency/jitter spikes)? Options: Session loss, Signaling overload, CPU/memory exhaustion, Throughput collapse, Latency/jitter spikes, Other
• How does an event like that make your executive team feel about the current vendor strategy and roadmap? Options: Urgent concern, change likely, Worried but tolerable, Acceptable risk, Not discussed at exec level

Where Are the Friction Points Between Core, RAN, and Transport?

• Which specific vendor pairings (core <> RAN, core <> transport) have required the most custom engineering or workarounds?
• Do you have documented interoperability matrices and certified software/hardware combinations for your live sites? Options: Comprehensive and current, Partial coverage, Outdated, None exist
• How do you validate RAN and transport interoperability today—formal lab integration, vendor white-box tests, field trials, or ad-hoc testing? Options: Formal lab integration, Vendor-provided interoperability tests, Field trials only, Ad-hoc/incident-driven testing, Third-party test lab
• Which interfaces or protocols have historically required special handling (e.g., N2/N3, Sx, GTP-U, PMIPv6, MPLS TE)? Options: N2/N3, GTP-C/GTP-U, Sx/Xn, PMIPv6, MPLS-TE, SRv6, Other
• On a scale from 'frictionless' to 'workarounds everywhere', where would you place your cross-domain upgrades and why? Options: Mostly frictionless, Occasional workarounds, Frequent custom engineering, Major manual effort each time
• What would you be willing to change (vendor, interface, topology) to reduce these friction points, and what is non-negotiable?

How Tight Is Your Capacity Window?

• Based on current growth trends, when do you expect to hit hard limits at peak for sessions, throughput, or CPU on your core platform? Options: Already at or above, 0–6 months, 6–12 months, 12–24 months, Beyond 24 months, Unknown/not measured
• Provide your current baseline metrics (peak concurrent sessions, control-plane transactions per second, user-plane throughput, average session duration).
• What monitoring and capacity-planning tools do you use to forecast headroom and trigger scale actions? Options: Vendor NMS/EMS, Prometheus/Grafana, Proprietary analytics, Third-party capacity planning, Manual spreadsheets, None
• How elastic is your core today—can you scale horizontally/vertically in production without service interruption? Options: Seamless elastic scaling, Some disruption required, Planned maintenance needed, Cannot scale without major work
• Which traffic patterns drive capacity concerns (IoT device density, enterprise slices, eMBB hotspots, M2M bursts) and when do they occur? Options: IoT/M2M bursts, Enterprise slice peaks, eMBB hotspots, Sporadic event-driven spikes, Consistent heavy load
• Have you modeled lab-to-production scaling margins? If so, what were the biggest surprises?

If We Needed to Cutover Tomorrow, What Would Break?

• What are the hard decommission deadlines or regulatory cutoffs driving this project (dates and consequences if missed)?
• Which services or customer segments must remain uninterrupted during cutover (prepaid, emergency services, enterprise SLAs, roaming)? Options: Emergency services (e.g., 112/911), Roaming partners, Tier-1 enterprise customers, Prepaid voice/data, Public safety/critical comms, All customers equally
• What existing dependencies would block a cutover (billing OSS, PCRF/PCF integration, HSS/UDM sync, lawful intercept interfaces, roaming interfaces)? Options: OSS/BSS dependencies, Policy & charging, Subscriber DB sync, Lawful intercept, Roaming interfaces, Back-office integrations
• Describe your rollback and fallback options—have you executed a rollback in the past and what lessons did you learn?
• What maintenance windows (duration and typical days) are available for major migration steps? Options: Nightly 4–6 hour windows, Weekend 8–24 hour windows, Single-day windows, No reliable maintenance window, Flexible with advance notice
• Which teams must be present and authorized during cutover (network ops, cloud infra, security, vendor support, CPE teams)? Options: Network Ops, Cloud/Platform Ops, Security, Vendor engineering, Field/CPE teams, OSS/BSS, Executive on-call

Who Really Owns What — And How Do Decisions Get Made?

• When a cross-domain change is required, who has the final sign-off and how long does that typically take? Options: VP/Director Network, CTO, Procurement + Legal, Change Advisory Board (CAB), Local site owner
• Map your RACI for major migration tasks—who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed?
• How long do procurement and contractual approvals usually take for new vendor hardware/software releases? Options: <1 month, 1–3 months, 3–6 months, 6–12 months, >12 months
• What internal governance gates (security review, architecture review, budget signoff) will this project encounter? Options: Security review, Architecture board, Budget committee, Regulatory compliance sign-off, Procurement legal review, None formalized
• How does risk tolerance vary across stakeholders (network architects, operations, procurement, execs)? Options: Conservative (low appetite), Balanced (moderate appetite), Aggressive (high appetite), Varies significantly by domain
• Who should our team coordinate with directly for technical deep-dives, lab access, and change approvals? Please name roles and preferred contact methods.

Evidence: Where Lab Promises Break in Production

• Which lab test scenarios have you executed (scale session tests, mobility handover, network slicing, edge offload) and which remain untested? Options: Scale sessions, Mobility/handover, Network slicing, Edge compute offload, Interoperability with transport, Security/PII handling, None
• How closely does your lab environment mirror production in terms of topology, traffic mix, and third-party equipment? Options: High parity, Moderate parity, Low parity, No lab environment
• Share examples where lab results diverged from production—what metrics underperformed in the field?
• What acceptance criteria do you require from lab testing before moving to a pilot or phased production (KPIs, SLAs, test cases)? Options: Throughput targets, Session capacity targets, Latency/Jitter thresholds, Handover success rate, Interoperability pass/fail
• Who runs your lab tests and who signs them off—internal team, vendor, or third-party lab? Options: Internal lab team, Vendor lab, Third-party certified lab, Joint (internal+vendor)
• Would you be open to a joint lab roadmap to close parity gaps? If so, what are the top three scenarios we should prioritize?

What Would Success Actually Feel Like 12 Months Later?

• If the migration and new core are fully successful, what three measurable outcomes would you celebrate (e.g., 99.999% availability, 50% TCO reduction, sub-10ms edge latency)?
• Which KPIs will your execs use to judge success (select up to three)? Options: Availability (nines), Session capacity, Average user-plane latency, OPEX reduction, Time-to-market for services, Roaming success rate, Customer churn reduction
• How will you measure parity between lab and production—what tolerance window is acceptable for key metrics? Options: ±5%, ±10%, ±20%, No strict tolerance defined
• What internal processes would change if the new core meets expectations (operational handoffs, runbooks, automation, vendor support model)?
• Which customer-facing capabilities are highest priority to enable quickly after migration (network slicing, edge cloud for enterprises, reduced service activation time)? Options: Network slicing, Edge compute for enterprises, Faster service activation, Improved roaming, IoT scale services
• How will you communicate success externally (to customers, regulators, partners) and internally to keep momentum?

Practical Constraints and Non-Negotiables

• What regulatory, security, or contractual constraints must we design around (data locality, lawful intercept, export controls, vendor exclusivity clauses)?
• Are there certification or compliance standards the new core must meet before production (e.g., specific national telecom certifications, security accreditations)? Options: National telecom certification, Security accreditation (e.g., ISO/IEC), Operator-specific security policies, None formal
• Do you have constraints on where workloads can run (on-prem only, specific cloud regions, edge only), and what sovereignty rules apply? Options: On-prem only, Specific cloud regions allowed, Edge-only for certain services, No restrictions
• Which licenses, feature entitlements, or existing roadmaps are fixed and cannot be changed during migration?
• What security controls or toolchains must be preserved (SIEM, IAM, encryption, HSM) and who manages them? Options: SIEM, IAM, Encryption at rest/in transit, HSM/Key management, Vulnerability management
• Are there budgetary or procurement windows that will constrain when we can execute major phases? Options: Quarterly budget cycles, Annual capex approvals, Ad-hoc approvals possible, Strict multi-quarter procurement lead times

Let’s Tackle the Unknowns That Could Sink This Project

• List the top three unknowns we must resolve to de-risk the migration (technical, organizational, contractual).
• Are you willing to provide configuration extracts, capacity reports, and topology diagrams for a joint discovery? If so, what level of NDA or data handling is required? Options: Yes—with standard NDA, Yes—with stricter data handling, Maybe—need approval, No
• Who will be our day-to-day technical contact and our executive sponsor, and what are their preferred response SLAs?
• What timeline do you consider realistic for completing a full current-state map, lab parity plan, and pilot (choose the closest)? Options: <3 months, 3–6 months, 6–9 months, 9–12 months, >12 months
• What level of joint testing support do you expect from us (lab engineering, field engineers, 24/7 on-call) during pilot and rollout? Options: Full on-site support, Remote joint engineering, Third-party test lab engagement, Limited vendor support
• What would make you immediately confident to proceed to a formal lab engagement with our team?

Getting Comfortable Before We Start

• Who will be the primary operational owner we should coordinate with for this deployment? Options: VP Network Architecture, Chief Network Officer, Head of Core Operations, Site Reliability Lead, Program Manager, Other — specify below
• What non-disruptive and maintenance windows do you typically allow for test and verification activities? Options: Weekday overnight (local), Weekend window, Rolling micro-windows (nightly), Fixed maintenance day each month, No standard window — we decide case-by-case
• Which of these environments do you already have available for vendor-led testing? Options: Full production mirror, Partial production slice, Isolated lab with synthetic RAN/transport, Staging environment with live data, Cloud-hosted testbed, None of the above
• Briefly describe your current authorization process for granting access to testbeds and who approves it.
• Who signs off on testbed readiness and what documents or checklists do they expect? Options: Head of Core Ops, Network Architecture, Security/Compliance, Program Manager, Executive sponsor, Other — specify

If This Goes Wrong, Where Will It Hurt Most?

• Which single outcome of a failed deployment would be most damaging to your business? Options: Subscriber service outage, Loss of enterprise SLAs, Regulatory breach, Billing/service reconciliation failure, Long-term reputational damage, Other — explain
• Which services or customer segments absolutely cannot tolerate interruption during migration? Options: Emergency services / public safety, Enterprise slices / SLAs, Wholesale roaming, IoT critical infrastructure, Consumer data services, Other — specify
• How long can any of the above services be degraded before triggering escalations or penalties? Options: Minutes, Under 1 hour, 1–4 hours, 4–24 hours, Greater than 24 hours
• Tell us about a past migration or cutover that didn’t go as planned — what happened, what hurt, and how was it fixed?
• Who on your team has the authority to call an immediate rollback if risk thresholds are exceeded? Options: Program Manager, Head of Core Ops, CNO/CXO, Site Lead, Emergency Response Team

Are Our Testbeds Truly Production Twins?

• On a scale from 'loose sandbox' to 'true production twin', how would you classify your primary testbed? Options: Loose sandbox, Representative but limited, Close parity with exceptions, Near-identical to production, Full production mirror
• List the top three technical differences between your testbed and production that we must compensate for.
• Which performance baselines must the testbed reproduce for you to feel confident (choose all that apply)? Options: Throughput (Gbps), Session concurrency (M/peak), Control-plane transactions/sec, Latency percentiles, Packet-loss at scale, Interoperability with specific RAN/transport
• Which third-party equipment, vendors, or subsystems must be integrated into test scenarios to validate end-to-end behavior? Options: RAN vendor A, RAN vendor B, Transport/MPLS vendor, OSS/BSS systems, Policy and charging systems, Edge compute platform, Other — specify
• How will we create realistic traffic at production scale for verification—synthetic generators, replayed traces, or live shadowing? Options: Synthetic traffic generators, Replayed production traces, Live shadow traffic, Headless emulation, Combination

Data Migration: The Invisible Heavy Lifter

• Which data categories are critical to migrate prior to cutover (pick all that apply)? Options: Subscriber profiles, Policy rules and slices, Billing/charging records, Subscriber authentication state, Historical logs and metrics, Configuration and object stores
• Estimate the total volume and number of objects we need to migrate for initial cutover (choose best fit). Options: <100 GB / <1M objects, 100GB–1TB / 1M–10M objects, 1TB–10TB / 10M–100M objects, >10TB / >100M objects, Unknown — we need help quantifying
• What windows exist for data synchronization or freeze periods (e.g., nightly, weekly) and how flexible are they? Options: Tight — only short nightly windows, Moderate — weekend windows available, Flexible — can schedule extended freezes, No formal freeze windows
• Describe your data validation and reconciliation approach post-migration—what checks are mandatory?
• Are there regulatory or retention constraints that affect how data must be migrated, anonymized, or stored? Options: Yes — strict regional residency, Yes — retention/erasure policies, No special constraints, Unknown — need legal input

Cutover and Sequencing — Who Calls 'Go'?

• If a cutover decision were a political vote, who holds the decisive veto and why? Options: Program Manager, Head of Core Ops, CNO/CXO, Security/Compliance, Cross-functional readiness board, Other — specify
• Describe the ideal sequence for switching core services (e.g., authentication, policy, user plane, charging).
• Which of the following cutover strategies best matches your tolerance for risk? Options: Big bang cold cutover, Phased parallel runs, Blue/green with traffic split, Canary by region, Hybrid approach
• What concrete backout criteria will immediately trigger a rollback during cutover (choose up to three)? Options: SLA breach on critical service, Unrecoverable data inconsistency, Loss of core connectivity, Security incident, Unacceptable latency/error rates, Executive direction
• Are there fixed external deadlines (regulatory decommission, contract expiry) that make certain go-live dates immovable? Options: Yes — regulatory/decommission date, Yes — contract/migration penalty, Yes — major customer requirement, No immovable deadlines, Unknown

Runbooks, Roles, and Real People

• Do you have runbooks and playbooks that cover normal cutover, rollback, and post-cutover stabilization? Options: Complete and practiced, Drafts exist but untested, We have fragments per team, No formal runbooks today
• Who will staff the command center during cutover and what are their primary escalation responsibilities?
• How many people per role (ops, network, security, vendor support) do you expect to have available for a live cutover? Options: 1–2 per role, 3–5 per role, 6–10 per role, Depends on phase — we'll provide a roster
• What SLAs or MTTR expectations exist for incident resolution during the migration window? Options: 15 minutes critical, 1 hour major, 30 minutes critical, 4 hours major, 1 hour critical, 24 hours major, Custom SLAs — define below
• How will we rehearse runbooks—tabletop only, dry-run, or full dress rehearsal with synthetic traffic? Options: Tabletop walkthroughs, Dry-run operational exercises, Full dress rehearsal with traffic, Combination phased rehearsals

Security, Access, and Compliance — Not Nice-to-Have

• What single security or compliance gap would most likely stop your team from approving pre-deployment access? Options: Missing audit trail, Unapproved remote access methods, Lack of encryption for sensitive data, Undefined IAM roles, Unvetted vendor controls, Other — explain
• Which access methods are approved for vendor engineers to reach test and production environments? Options: VPN with MFA, Bastion host with session recording, Dedicated fiber/MPLS peering, On-site access only, Zero-trust ephemeral credentials
• Which compliance or audit artifacts do we need to supply before testing begins (e.g., SOC2, ISO27001, data flow maps)? Options: SOC2 report, ISO27001 certificate, Data flow diagrams, Pen test reports, Vendor security questionnaire, None required
• What level of logging, telemetry retention, and evidence do you require for change windows and acceptance gates? Options: Full packet-level capture, Control-plane logs + metrics, Aggregated telemetry with alerts, Minimal logs due to privacy, Specific retention period — specify below
• Are there specific regulatory bodies or regional mandates we must inform or get approval from before migration? Options: Yes — national regulator, Yes — data protection authority, Yes — industry-specific regulator, No external notifications required, Unknown — need legal check

Acceptance Gates and Success Signals — How Will We Know?

• What are the top three measurable success signals that will determine a successful cutover? Options: Sustained throughput at 100% baseline, Session success rate >99.9%, Latency within agreed percentiles, No customer-impacting incidents for 72 hours, Interoperability with RAN vendors validated
• Which SLA metrics must be met in production for the first 30–90 days before final acceptance? Options: Availability percentage, Call/session setup success rate, Average & 99th percentile latency, Packet-loss thresholds, Throughput per site
• How do you want lab-to-production variance reported—absolute numbers, percent delta, or both? Options: Absolute numbers, Percent delta, Both, Prefer vendor recommendation
• Who is the final sign-off authority for acceptance and what post-acceptance obligations should be documented? Options: Head of Core Ops, Program Manager, CNO/CXO, Joint acceptance board, Other — specify
• What remediation window and priority-severity mapping do you expect for issues discovered during the stabilization period? Options: 24/7 hot-fix within SLA, Patch in next maintenance window, Workaround then scheduled fix, Depends on severity — define below

Hidden Dependencies and Vendor Commitments

• Which external vendor roadmaps or third-party deliverables are single points of failure for go-live? Options: RAN vendor features, Transport/MPLS upgrade, Edge compute orchestration, OSS/BSS integrations, Cloud provider services, Other — specify
• Are there product features that must land from any vendor (including us) before you will accept production traffic? Options: Network slicing support, Edge latency optimizations, Specific 5G SA control-plane features, Enhanced policy controls, No hard feature dependency
• What vendor commitments do you need in writing to feel comfortable (e.g., delivery timelines, roadmap SLAs, escalations)?
• Have you run a vendor technical or commercial risk review for this migration? If yes, what are the top three risks identified?
• If a vendor roadmap slips, which remedies or contractual protections would you expect? Options: Escrow code access, Accelerated fixes, Financial remedies/credits, Workaround delivery, Right to pursue alternative vendor

Final Check — Should We Press Proceed?

• Given everything discussed, how would you rate your current readiness to move into an execution phase? Options: Green — ready to schedule, Amber — needs specific mitigations, Red — major blockers remain, Unsure — need a readiness review
• What single unresolved issue would make you delay go-live by more than two weeks?
• What one small mitigation or assurance would most increase your confidence in proceeding?
• Which documents, rehearsals, or approvals would you like to receive from us before a formal readiness review? Options: Detailed runbooks, Security artifact pack, Testbed parity report, Mock cutover replay results, Acceptance criteria checklist, Other — specify
• When can we schedule a joint readiness review to resolve outstanding items and lock the go/no-go decision? Options: Within 1 week, 1–2 weeks, 2–4 weeks, Flexible — propose dates

Tell Us About Your Current Validation Rhythm

• How often do you run full-scale acceptance tests today (lab or production-like)? Options: Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, At major releases only, Rarely / ad hoc
• Who typically leads and signs off on those tests inside your organization? Options: VP/Head of Network Architecture, CTO/Chief Network Officer, Network Operations (NOC), QA/Test Engineering, Vendor-managed team, Other
• Describe the last acceptance cycle where results surprised you—what happened and what was the impact?
• Which test environments do you use today for acceptance (select all that apply)? Options: Vendor lab, Our private lab, Cloud-hosted testbed, Carrier staging network, Production mirrored tests, Third-party test facility
• Which tools or systems do you rely on for measuring KPIs during validation (load generators, telemetry, OSS)? Options: IxLoad/Spirent, Vendor test tools, Prometheus/Grafana, Proprietary in-house tools, OSS/BSS probes, Other

Are You Confident Lab Results Will Mirror Production?

• If lab performance differs from production at scale, how much variance are you willing to accept before stopping a migration? Options: <5%, 5–15%, 15–30%, >30%, No tolerance — must match
• Which production behaviors have historically failed to appear in lab tests (e.g., signaling storms, tail traffic, intermittent packet loss)? Options: Control-plane signaling spikes, Bursting/spiky user traffic, Intermittent packet loss, Transport congestion under routing churn, OSS/EMS integration issues, Other
• How do you currently model user mobility, handovers, and multi-cell/state interactions in your acceptance runs? Options: Full mobility emulation, Partial scripted handovers, No mobility—static sessions only, Production replay
• What telemetry and observability must be present in lab validation to give you confidence (e.g., per-session traces, end-to-end latency at edge)?
• When lab results edge close to pass/fail thresholds, what escalation path or additional testing do you require before accepting them? Options: Extended soak tests, Field trials with small population, Third-party validation, Joint lab debug sessions, Reject until repeated pass

What Would Break the Deal at Cutover?

• If a single measurable issue could force rollback during cutover, what is it (be specific: percent calls dropped, latency spike, session loss rate)? Options: Call/session drop rate threshold, Sustained latency above limit, Control-plane instability, Massive signaling retry storms, Interoperability failure with RAN/transport, Other
• What are your acceptable service-impact windows during cutover (downtime per service, degraded period, user impact tolerance)? Options: Zero downtime required, <5 minutes, 5–30 minutes, 30–120 minutes, Flexible with mitigation
• Which commercial or regulatory consequences would be triggered by failing acceptance after cutover (penalties, SLA credits, regulatory notices)? Options: Financial penalties, SLA credits, Regulatory reporting, Customer compensation, No predefined consequences, Other
• If we hit a critical failure in production, what is your preferred rollback approach and maximum time-to-restore expectation?
• How should we document and sign off non-critical deviations that are acceptable to operate with remediation plans post-cutover? Options: Formal RCA + timeline, Temporary waivers with tech debt log, Executive-level approval only, No deviations allowed

Who Owns the Gate—Decision & Acceptance?

• If stakeholders disagree on pass/fail, who has final authority to accept a gate and why? Options: CNO/CTO, VP Network Ops, Program Steering Committee, Procurement/Legal, Joint vendor-customer panel
• List the internal stakeholders and external parties who must sign acceptance certificates (roles only).
• What evidence do each of those roles require to feel comfortable signing—technical logs, independent test reports, customer experience metrics, or legal assurances? Options: Detailed test logs, Independent 3rd-party report, Live field trial data, Contractual SLAs and credits, Vendor roadmap commitments
• What timeline do you need between final test completion and executive sign-off to review artifacts and approve go/no-go? Options: <24 hours, 48–72 hours, 1 week, 2+ weeks
• How do procurement/legal gatekeeping processes affect acceptance timing, and what approvals are usually the longest pole in the tent?

How Will We Prove Interoperability at Scale?

• Which vendor combinations must we demonstrate interoperability with before you accept (RAN vendors, transport vendors, OSS/BSS)?
• What are your non-negotiable interoperability checks (e.g., SIP interworking, Xn handover stability, 5GC N2/N3 behavior)? Options: SIP/IMS integration, Xn/X2 handovers, N2/N3 signaling stability, SLA-aware routing across IP/MPLS, Policy and charging interactions, Other
• How much of the interoperability testing must be executed in your environment versus a vendor lab or neutral testbed? Options: All in our environment, Mostly ours with some vendor lab, Neutral third-party lab acceptable, Vendor lab sufficient
• When you consider interop failures, do you prefer immediate stop-and-fix or documented mitigation with a re-test window? Explain your preference. Options: Immediate stop-and-fix, Document and mitigate then re-test, Decision depends on severity
• Which interoperability features are on your mandatory roadmap review (network slicing, edge locality, roaming behaviors)? Options: Network slicing, Edge computing locality, Roaming and inter-PLMN, QoS mapping across domains, Other

Let’s Define the Acceptance Tests—Real and Measurable

• If acceptance criteria were reduced to 5 measurable KPIs, which would you rank as most important? Options: Session throughput (aggregate), Per-session latency (edge to core), Session setup success rate, Control-plane stability (retries/errors), Packet loss under load, Call drop rate
• For each KPI you chose, what numeric thresholds constitute pass, degrade, and fail?
• Which traffic profiles must be simulated during acceptance (e.g., elephant flows, massive IoT signaling, video streaming, interactive low-latency apps)? Options: Elephant flows (large throughput), Massive IoT bursts, Video streaming (ABR), Real-time low-latency apps (gaming, URLLC), Background best-effort
• How long should soak tests run at scale to validate stability (soak duration), and do you require night/weekend windows to simulate peak-plus-stress? Options: <1 hour, 1–4 hours, 4–24 hours, 24–72 hours, >72 hours
• What acceptance test artifacts do you require for records and audits (raw telemetry, summarized reports, test scripts, replay packages)? Options: Raw telemetry dumps, Summarized KPI reports, Full test scripts and configs, Replay packages for failure reproduction, Third-party validation report

Operational Readiness & Runbook Validation

• Who will be the operational owners for the new core day-1 (NOC, service ops, platform SRE, vendor-managed)? Options: NOC/Network Ops, Platform SRE, Vendor-managed operations, Hybrid (customer + vendor)
• If a new failure mode shows after cutover, how should incident response be structured (tactical war room, vendor-led debug, joint triage)? Options: Joint triage war room, Vendor-led immediate debug, Customer-led NOC response with vendor support, Escalation to executive crisis team
• What runbook rehearsals do you require pre-cutover (tabletop, dry-run with simulated incidents, full live drill)? Options: Tabletop exercises, Dry-run with simulated incidents, Full live drill including cutover steps, No rehearsal required
• How much training and handover do your ops teams need from the vendor before they are judged ready to operate independently? Options: None—minimal, Short training + documentation, Hands-on lab training and shadowing, Extended on-site runbook practice
• What monitoring and alerting maturity level must be in place before acceptance (per-service SLAs, per-session tracing, automated remediation)? Options: Basic health checks, Per-service KPIs, Per-session tracing and root-cause tools, Automated remediation playbooks

Timing, Dependencies, and Contingencies That Keep You Up at Night

• If a fixed external deadline (regulatory, vendor EOL, customer SLA) exists, list it and the hard date.
• Which upstream dependencies are most likely to delay validation (e.g., RAN firmware readiness, transport upgrades, third-party certificates)? Options: RAN firmware/features, Transport/MPLS upgrades, OSS/BSS API readiness, Security certifications, Procurement/contract approvals
• How should we prioritize acceptance gates if dependencies are staggered—must everything pass simultaneously or can we stagger domain-by-domain acceptance? Options: All-or-nothing final gate, Staggered domain acceptance, Prioritized critical services first
• What contingency budget or schedule slack do you have reserved for re-tests and remediation if validation fails? Options: No slack—fixed, Minor budget/time reserved, Significant contingency reserved, Unsure / needs confirmation
• Are there regulatory or enterprise reporting checkpoints that must be completed before acceptance can be recorded? Options: Regulatory filings, Internal audit sign-off, Customer notification/consent, None

Final Signals—How Will We Know Success Post‑Cutover?

• What post-cutover KPIs (first 30, 90, 365 days) would make you declare the migration a success?
• Which customer-facing indicators matter most to you after cutover (reduced call drops, improved throughput, lower latency, fewer incidents)? Options: Reduced call/session drops, Higher throughput per cell, Lower end-to-end latency, Fewer major incidents, Improved OSS visibility
• How frequently do you want formal post-mortem and lessons-learned reviews after acceptance (weekly, monthly, quarterly)? Options: Weekly (first month), Monthly (first 3 months), Quarterly, Ad-hoc as needed
• What ongoing vendor commitments or roadmap assurances do you require as part of acceptance (bug-fix SLAs, feature delivery windows, performance guarantees)? Options: Bug-fix SLAs, Firm feature delivery dates, Performance guarantees with credits, Joint roadmap governance, Other
• After we close acceptance, what communication channel and cadence do you want for escalations and enhancements (weekly sync, dedicated Slack/Teams, ticketing only)? Options: Weekly sync meetings, Dedicated real-time channel (Slack/Teams), Formal ticketing only, Hybrid: ticketing + weekly sync