Astellia Optimizes Bouygues Telecom's Radio Network

Astellia announced recently that it "..affirmed today its position as preferred vendor for network optimization by performing successful, in-depth radio optimization campaigns for Bouygues Telecom, France. Astellia’s monitoring solution is already deployed on Bouygues Telecom’s 2G, 3G and 4G networks and analyzes network performance from RAN to Core. 

Astellia now further strengthens its partnership with Bouygues Telecom by performing well targeted radio optimization campaigns. Astellia’s highly skilled radio experts analyzed the activity of more than 2 million subscribers to optimize RF coverage & quality of Bouygues Telecom’s 2G and 3G networks in Paris. 

Astellia’s radio optimization activities focused on the detection of cell overshooting, crossed sectors, PSC/BSIC clashes. Reducing the need for costly drive tests, Astellia pinpointed coverage holes, traffic hotspots and detected bad RF conditions.

See "Astellia and Bouygues Telecom strengthen partnership with collaboration on radio optimization" - here. 

Astellia to Optimize Telefonica Group's RAN

Telefonica Group global presence 

Astellia announced that it has ".. entered a global framework agreement for RAN optimization with Telefónica .. the two-year framework agreement establishes Astellia as a qualified global supplier and enables any of Telefónica’s Operating Companies (OpCos) to benefit from Astellia’s solution and expertise in network optimization.

With this agreement, Telefónica reinforces its focus on making network quality a core component of its customer experience policy. Astellia’s radio optimization expertise in multi-techno, multi-vendor environments will help Telefónica prevent any quality degradation of their network and hence improve the customer experience". 

Astellia's  Nova RAN Optimizer is a multi-technology & multi-vendor radio optimization tool which uses network equipment Call Trace files to measure RF coverage & quality of the network. It facilitates daily radio optimization tasks by automating recurrent analysis and reduces drastically the number of drive tests.

Geo-located Radio Coverage

See "Astellia signs global framework agreement with Telefónica Group" - here.

Ericsson - Improve QoE by Radio Access and Transport Network Interaction

 
A new paper by Stefan Dahlfort [pictured], Shahryar Khan, Jonas Rosenberg, Anton Smith, Shuo Yang Y, Mats Forsman, and Tomas Thyni, all from Ericsson, presents a new concept for QoE Imprvement.

"The demand for mobile-broadband services is causing network congestion. While such congestion tends to be temporary, it has a significant impact on user satisfaction. By adopting a holistic approach to network architecture, one that enables the radio and transport domains to share information, proactive measures to avoid congestion can be put into place, increasing the number of users at or above the desired QoE level"

"Our concept for radio access and transport network interaction [RTI] is a two-step process that first attempts to proactively avoid congestion and then address any congestion issues that cannot be avoided. For example, if information about transport path congestion can be included in the handover decision, moving users to a cell with congested transport can be avoided. But to do this, the RAN needs to be transport aware and the transport network needs to be RAN aware"

See "Radio access and transport network interaction – a concept for improving QoE and resource utilization" - here (full article - here)

Amdocs Integrates RAN Management and Optimization Solutions

Amdocs announced an ".. integrated solution to optimize multi-vendor, multi-technology, heterogeneous networks (HetNets). The Amdocs Centralized Management and Optimization solution is the only radio access network (RAN) optimization solution that embeds multi-vendor network intelligence to enable mobile network operators to deliver optimal coverage and capacity in complex, multi-vendor networks across 2G, 3G, and LTE/ 4G and deliver a seamless quality of experience (QoE) for customers.

The Amdocs Centralized Management and Optimization solution includes: 

• Amdocs Customer Experience Geo-Location [see "Amdocs Acquires Actix ($120M) to Provide Geo-located Network Information" - here] - reduces customer experience issues by up to 75 percent by automatically building traffic and quality of experience maps that enable the identification of congestion hotspots, quality issues and network problems, linking to customer data to allow service providers to focus activities where they will drive greater profitability
   
• Amdocs SON  [see "Amdocs Positions Actix/Celcite as its SON Solution" - here] - reduces dropped calls by up to 20 percent by simplifying network management and maximizing network potential through automated optimization, enabling service providers to deliver effective customer experience improvements by targeting optimization based on customer revenue and business value.
   
• Amdocs Automatic Intelligent Correlation (AIC) - a RAN management solution that reduces time to diagnose network problems by up to 86 percent through automatic detection problems, proposing short-term operational and maintenance fixes along with long-term optimization solutions.
   
• Amdocs Benchmarking - provides automated benchmark diagnostics to enable an up to 80 percent2 reduction in processing time to plan network improvements, correlate benchmark results with subscriber experience and improve the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.
   
• Amdocs Network Acceptance implements automated, independent verification of network quality and detailed problem investigation prior to network launch, enforcing transparent and unambiguous KPIs, ensuring launch quality in LTE and small cell rollouts, reducing network acceptance time by up to 80 percent.

See "Amdocs Introduces Industry’s First Centralized, Intelligent, Multi-Vendor Network Optimization Solution" - here.

Astellia Enhances RAN Optimizer w/Geo-location & SON Capabilities

Astellia launched "Nova RAN Optimizer to maximize access network performance, while increasing optimization teams’ efficiency through automation.

As a result of the integration of Ingenia Telecom’s radio expertise [see "Astellia Expands Offering with the Acquisition of Ingenia Telecom" - here] with Astellia’s 15 years of RAN optimization, the Nova RAN Optimizer solution now empowers radio engineering teams with customer-centric geo-location and SON capabilities. 

RF coverage & quality maps (Geo-location)

 

The massive multi-technology & vendor agnostic radio optimization solution uses network equipment call traces and 100% of subscribers’ activity to provide automatic detection of RF issues, recommendation of parameter changes and uses geo-located network data to improve the customer experience. On top of that, Nova RAN Optimizer is Centralized SON (C-SON) ready which means that it can automatically push recommendations to the OSS".

Primary Scrambling Code Clashes Analysis

See "Astellia introduces Nova RAN Optimizer for automated and geolocated radio optimization" - here.

Procera Revolutionizes Location-based Mobile Traffic Management

Current congestion management and analytics solutions for mobile networks are usually based on core network located products, and are only partially aware to the real time location and congestion status of each user and base station. 

Some DPI and PCRF vendors announced solutions and partnership to overcome the lack of real-time  information, usually with the help of probes deployed in the access network (Sandvine; Flash Networks; Allot-Amdocs; Sandvine-RADCOM ; Amdocs-RADCOM; HP-RADCOM).

Procera Networks is announcing today a new solution and concept, based on QoE and real time location measurements taken at the User's device - in a crowd sourcing fashion. Subject to cooperation by the users, this can lead into a much more accurate traffic management solution, implementing a real "reasonable network management" policy with real-time and long-term capacity management options. 

Procera announced the "..launch of RAN Perspectives, a ground-breaking new Subscriber Experience solution for mobile broadband operators that delivers real-time location and RAN QoE awareness. RAN Perspectives is a software solution that provides real-time location and radio access network (RAN) quality of experience (QoE) data that can be leveraged to enhance the mobile broadband experience for consumers .. dramatically reducing their deployment of probes and the costs associated with drive testing while expanding their visibility into the RAN in real-time to gain insight and take action .. RAN Perspectives is available for beta testing, and is expected to be generally available in the first quarter of 2015"

Shira Levine, directing analyst, Service Enablement and Subscriber Intelligence, Infonetics Research said: “A device-based solution such as RAN Perspectives has the potential to more effectively manage congestion while enabling a broad array of additional services, solutions and applications, which could have dramatic implications for mobile networks.”

"Unlocking real-time location awareness and RAN signal quality measurements opens up a number of operational and service opportunities that Procera will roll out over the next 12 months, with the initial offerings including:

• Customer Care Insights solution with integrated RAN and IP mobile broadband-centric subscriber diagnostics for customer care teams
• RAN Perspectives-based view for Insights that delivers analytics for quality, congestion, applications, and out-of-coverage hotspots in the mobile network for marketing and engineering teams.
  
• RAN congestion management based on real-time location awareness to identify and take action on congested areas, enhancing subscriber QoE.
  
• Location-based service plan offerings including location-specific policy enforcement and charging for marketing teams.
  
• Crowd-sourced minimized drive testing and out of coverage registration for RAN engineering teams"

See "Procera Networks Launches Groundbreaking RAN Perspectives Solution for Mobile Network Operators" - here.

Amdocs Expands PCRF Deployments in Deutsche Telekom; Explains Celcite/Actix Business

Quotes from Amdocs' Q1 2014 earning call, by Eli Gelman [pictured], Director, CEO and President of Amdocs Management Limited:

• "We have similar trends [expanding inside large MNO groups] with Deutsche Telekom on our policy product that we implemented. We signed a contract with their corporate and then we implemented in certain affiliates. And now I think it's about 6 or 7 affiliates already of Deutsche Telekom all across Europe are using the same for policy standardizing on Amdocs as a certain component of the business. But not less encouraging is the fact that you see some business that we announced in Luxembourg or in Telekom Austria, A1 in Austria and in other places. So you see kind of variety of different businesses"
   
• ".. the topic or the space of RAN optimization, radio access network optimization, have been on our agenda for quite some time. We just eventually managed to find the right assets and we completed this deals [see "Amdocs Acquires Actix ($120M)", here, and Amdocs Acquires Celcite for $129M" - now reported as "cash consideration of $141 million", here]
    
• The nature of these deals are relatively different from the one you expect on BSS transformation or even OSS transformation project. Usually, each one of the deals are relatively small. Could be in the $1 million, $2 million, $3 million each. Usually, the tendency is to augment it with addition projects. Now in some cases, you will see a company streamlining around an Actix product, for example, for 3G optimization, 3G network optimization. And they will then pay a different or subsequent license for the 4G and then LTE. That could be something different from small serves and different technologies. Same goes about the regions. It usually could be pure segments of market or subsets of markets. And that's kind of the trend with the Actix product.
   
• With the Celcite, it's similar but on the services side. So usually, we provide optimization services around Celcite tools and now we're combining it with the Actix infrastructure product but we'll basically offer the services to a certain market or submarket for a certain technology, sometimes certain network equipment providers. 

See "Amdocs Limited Management Discusses Q1 2014 Results - Earnings Call Transcript", by SeekingAlpah, here.

Avvasi Enhances Analytics with RAN-Aware QoE Visualization

Avvasi announced the ".. release of Xperium Maps, a radio network QoE visualization tool .. Xperium Maps offers unprecedented capabilities, allowing mobile network providers to visualize in real-time and historically the evolution of video QoE at the Radio Access Network (RAN) level. 

Mobile service providers, when confronted with the growth of mobile video in their networks, are often at a loss to pinpoint the impact of the traffic on their subscriber’s Quality of Experience, especially in video. The feature allows them to detect video quality loss at a very granular level and to plan for capacity expansion or traffic management efficiently. This feature allows network operators to identify where media is consumed in their networks and whether video quality issues tend to appear in isolated areas or in QoE hotspots"

See also "Avvasi Launches Video Analytics Service Gateway - w/Location (RAN), Device and Subscriber Awareness" - here.

See "Avvasi launches leading-edge RAN-aware quality visualization" - here.

JDSU Acquires Arieso for $85M to Increase Visibility to the RAN

  

JDSU announced it has "acquired Arieso, a global leader in location-aware software solutions that enable mobile network operators to boost 2G, 3G and 4G/LTE network performance and enrich the mobile subscriber experience. JDSU acquired Arieso for $85 million in cash .. the acquisition advances JDSU’s mobility strategy by extending visibility all the way to the subscriber location, providing critical intelligence that allows radio access network (RAN) optimization teams to maximize return on investment by identifying ideal locations for small cells and other self-optimizing network enhancements with surgical precision, across the widest range of technologies and vendors".

Related posts:

• NI Deployments [163]: O2 Ireland Uses Arieso to Optimize Cell Sites and Reduce Congestion - here
   
• Arieso: MNOs Need New Investment and New approaches to Manage Growing Data Demand - here

"With the acquisition, JDSU will expand its portfolio of high-value mobility software with the following solutions:

• AriesoGEO– Multi-vendor, location-aware network monitoring and optimization solution that delivers intelligence for more effective network performance engineering.

• AriesoACP– Automated network planning technology that searches all possible configurations to deliver optimum network designs.

JDSU will integrate Arieso’s products with complementary solutions such as PacketPortal, JDSU’s open software platform, providing end-to-end visibility across mobile networks. Arieso’s products enhance the value of PacketPortal by enabling it to capture network intelligence beyond the edge, creating a competitive advantage for mobile network operators and equipment manufacturers seeking a more cost-effective way to improve mobile service and reduce churn".

JDSU Packet Portal 

See "JDSU Acquires Location-Aware Mobility Solutions Provider Arieso" - here.

[Analysys Mason]: DPI and PCC Needed in the RAN

A new report by Patrick Kelly (pictured), Research Director, Analysys Mason, concludes that "IP and Ethernet technology provides networks with flexibility to scale up in order to support traffic growth as mobile operators deploy lower-cost IP-based radio access technology. Furthermore, growth in mobile data services has also put pressure on mobile operators to reduce their backhaul cost, and many mobile operators are dealing with the difficulty of assuring quality of service and keeping operational costs under control".

".. deep packet inspection probes in the radio access network working together with the policy charging and rules function helps regulate traffic coming through the backhaul network, enabling mobile operators to avoid network congestion problems"

See "MANAGING BACKHAUL TECHNOLOGIES WITH FEWER TOOLS AND TECHNICIANS WILL REDUCE TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP FOR OPERATORS, ANALYSYS MASON REPORTS" - here.