AIRCOM (News - Alert), an independent provider of network management tools and services, specializes in end-to-end network planning, sharing, outsourcing, and OSS optimization for IP and cellular networks. AIRCOM currently provides products and services to more than 220 carriers worldwide, including the world’s top-20 carriers and has offices in 18 countries.

 

AIRCOM President of the Americas, Marty Smuin, took some time to discuss the company’s products, the rising popularity of smartphones and WiMAX (News - Alert) and the tools network operators need to succeed in today’s tough economic climate.

 

MS: ASSET is the world’s leading radio planning tool used to design, optimize, and plan all wireless technologies including 2G, 3G, and CDMA. ASSET provides operators with a detailed analysis of voice and data service coverage provided by the operator and the capital required to achieve this level of service. As operators expand and introduce new radio access technologies, ASSET will be critical in designing this growth into the network. ASSET enables operators to maximize network quality and reduce network maintenance costs, thus improving the operators’ current network as well as positioning the carrier for additional capacity planning.

 

In addition, ASSET forms the foundation of an operator’s coverage and capacity planning. Through this tool, customers are able to simulate actual traffic growth in the network and relate that growth to new CAPEX expansion plans. Using the Advantage Automatic Cell Planning (ACP) module within ASSET, a customer can optimize and schedule CAPEX investments within the network in a way that maximizes end user performance. Using the Automatic Frequency Planning (AFP) module within ASSET, customers are ensuring their spectrum investments are maximized.

 

TMCnet: What do you think is the main driver for the growing popularity of advanced smartphones and PDAs?

 

MS: There are two main reasons for this:

 

Mobile networks are now providing high-speed and relatively low-latency data solutions at affordable pricing levels to the consumer. This is being done with the introduction of new wireless data access solutions such as HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) technologies where we are seeing speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps on the downlink and EVDO on CDMA. These technologies enable the delivery of data-based services into smartphones that meet with the customer experience required, which is to be near equivalent to that of an ADSL/Wi-Fi fixed broadband solution.

Smartphone technology has improved dramatically during the past 18 months, mainly fueled by the introduction of improved core-processing technology in mobile devices and the Apple iPhone (News - Alert), which addressed the user interface issues with previous smartphones. This evolution has led all the major handset manufacturers to bring in new models with higher resolution screens, and improved user interfaces, new applications, and faster responding devices.

 

MS: As a huge phenomenon, WiMAX is still in question; it is a very credible technology, but is still in its infancy in terms of its global reach, compared to 3GPP and 3GPP2 technologies. The growth of WiMAX will continue, especially as a technology, to provide broadband data access as an option where Wireline technologies, such as ADSL, ISDN and Fiber Optic, cannot reach. As a mass mobile technology, WiMAX will be dependent on the timing of LTE into the mass market, which is currently forecast for availability in 2010 and is presently the chosen technology of the world’s leading wireless providers such as Verizon and AT&T.

 

WiMAX is the first wireless 4G technology that delivers end-to-end IP communication. This has a huge impact for operators to simplify the overall network architecture, thereby reducing CAPEX investment needs and one of the largest components of their OPEX (News - Alert) costs – transport via an all-IP solution. The jury is out whether WiMAX will be able to sustain this network architecture advantage over UMTS by completing the ecosystem of handsets and applications required to be successful. If WiMAX does not maintain its lead before UMTS evolves to LTE (4G), it will remain a niche technology. However, with Intel (News - Alert) and other device OEMs supporting WiMAX, the proper foundation has been established.

 

 

MS: There may or may not be a significant challenge for the cellular network providers to meet the current demands. The network providers have highly skilled organizations that can address the bandwidth and optimization issues and meet the needs before they become problems. With support from independent and experienced companies, such as AIRCOM, network providers will be able to properly scale their infrastructures.

 

For example, the AIRCOM Optimization Solution is a software-based solution that enables rapid radio optimization of a network by using the information that the users of the network generate as they use their mobiles to automatically tune the radio parameters for that use, improving the quality of the network and increasing traffic carrying.

 

Specific to the demand for bandwidth, operators are already facing a dilemma of a tremendous increase in data traffic. The reason is that traffic growth is not directly correlated with increase in average revenue per user (ARPU). This decoupling phenomenon will become more evident with the release of iPhone-like devices that will simply mobile broadband and drive data traffic. Given that spectrum and network capacity budgets are finite and valuable resources, operators will have to “do more with less” if they are to be successful. Some ways this can be accomplished include:

 

Customer segmentation – Better understanding of customer profitability profiles through OSS and CDR solutions, and providing the best experience to the best-paying customers.

Traffic smoothing – Better understanding of the traffic patterns in a network via OSS solutions and incentivizing customers to use the network in areas and times of non-peak capacity.

 

CAPEX optimization – Use of ACP- and AFP-intelligent tools to squeeze the most capacity out of existing spectrum, then plan and prioritize new investment and sites based on direct return on investment.

 

Effective Technology migration – With most networks operating a combination of 2G and 3G networks, with 3G being more spectrally efficient, an effective migration plan should be developed to transition both spectrum and customers to the 3G network. If the 2G network needs to be maintained, consider outsourcing the operations of this network with strict quality SLA (service level agreement) commitments, so that the workforce can be focused on 3G.

 

 

MS: Today’s network infrastructure inherently does not meet the criteria of being capable to upgrade quickly. Therefore, we need to be able to very closely monitor the traffic conditions in the network and plan appropriately to keep ahead of growth and allow the time to proactively plan new elements into the network. AIRCOM provides solutions that empower and support the customer throughout the life cycle of the network, and we supply software solutions for both the planning phases of the network, such as ASSET, as well as tracking performance and traffic growth.  These products come under our Operation Support Systems (OSS) products, and two of our key software products that address the issues outlined are Optima and Datasafe. 

 

Optima is a network performance and analysis tool that continually gathers performance data from all the network elements, from the switches and transmission network, to the radio access elements. This information is processed into several key reports to enable network providers to monitor performance and very accurately trend network growth from a single radio station that may cover a small suburb, to a large city, such as New York. This flexibility enables a network provider to accurately predict when it needs to upgrade.

 

Datasafe addresses the issue of adding new and rapidly changing elements into a network. It is a configuration management tool that automates and optimizes the addition of these types of elements. Just as we use Optima to predict the new capacity when that capacity is needed to be added into the network, we use Datasafe to ensure that the new capacity is installed into the network quickly and accurately. For example, adding a new radio base station could require an excess of 500 parameters to be added and adjusted to install this new capacity. This process is very time consuming and is open to user error. Datasafe performs this task in minutes with 100 percent accuracy, deals with the optimization of automation parameter changes, and adjusts to existing elements in the network impacted by the addition of the new capacity.

 

 

MS: AIRCOM optimizes those parts of the network in which we are deployed; however, the primary focus of AIRCOM is on the radio side of the network.

TMCnet: How is AIRCOM helping solve the telecommunication needs of today and tomorrow?

 

MS: AIRCOM is focusing on its core strengths and will introduce new software solutions that address both radio design planning and full end-to-end planning that is vital for wireless IP networks, including transmission, IP core, and data services. AIRCOM is currently planned to deliver the world’s first true end-to-end planning tool for carriers in mid-2009.  Featuring a multi-layering software solution built around an artificial intelligence engine that is designed and architected to optimize the hardware, AIRCOM has based its solution on the technical and business requirements of a carrier.

 

 

MS: Yes. The current economic situation is impacting the end user, so it will have an impact on the carrier. However, as the mobile phone has inched its way into being considered one of the necessities of life, we do not feel that the current situation will impact the telecom industry as dramatically as other industries. We expect to see less device churn and mobile data apps level out, but data consumption will continue to increase. 

 

The other side of the carrier world is third-party technology providers. Due to the tightening of the credit market and the requirement for companies to become cash flow positive, we will see many smaller entities go out of business, which will no doubt impact innovation for a period of time. 

 

MS: We will continue to see strong growth in smartphones and mobile data networks. However, we see that in order to meet the increasing demand and reduce the cost of delivery of data wirelessly, we will need to introduce higher bandwidth solutions such as LTE and WiMAX to support this growth over the next two to three years. Current solutions will not be able to financially sustain the current growth predictions while maintaining the profit margins for the network providers.

 

Mobile communications are already replacing landlines; many homes within North and South America are doing away with landlines all together and just using their mobile devices to serve home and business needs, which is a trend that will continue ensuring that the mobile industry continues to grow despite a challenged global economy.

 
Michelle Robart is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Michelle's articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Michelle Robart