ActixOne Next Generation RAN Management Oct 2012 FV

The journey from a network-centric to a holistic network optimization putting your customer at the heart of your network

Next Generation RAN

Management

Agenda

• Welcome & Introduction • Actix at a glance and vision for the mobile telecommunication industry • ActixOne – platform for the “traditional” optimization

– Optimization solutions based on Drive Test, Benchmarking and OSS and the power of correlating these data

– Understanding how to leverage your network data to roll-out Small- and Macro-cells to satisfy customer demand

• Live Demo

• Customer Experience Analytics – Establishing customer experience as integral part of your RAN Management

– Discovering what the network tells you about your customers: people, behaviours, locations and handsets

– Examining the customer experience improvements • bridging the gap between the core network and business

• Live Demo • Questions & Answers

Rüdiger Henn

Director Sales Europe

T +49 172 2623672

E [email protected]

Ricardo Fuentes

Sales Engineer Europe

T +49 172 7655456

E [email protected]

China Sales & Support Japan

Sales & Support

UK HQ, Sales,

Services, R&D

USA Sales, Services,

R&D, Support

Malaysia Sales, Services

Support

Germany Sales, Services

R&D, Support

Australia Sales & Support

Brazil Sales & Support

About Actix

25 of the top 30

We are proud to serve 25 of the top

30 mobile operators worldwide.

Actix has been developing Telecommunication Technology for more than 20 years

More than 400 Operator’s are Actix customers, 25 of the top 30 operators globally

FY12 ended Jan 31st 2012, Revenue: €43m (up 29%), Profit: 8% (up 30%)

270 employees, including dedicated research team

75% Revenue from MNO’s, 25% from NEPS (E///, Huawei, NSN, NEC)

Key partnership evolving rapidly @ Huawei

Research

• EASY-C: LTE Advanced & cooperative MIMO • Cool Cellular: Energy-efficiency in RAN • SON Coordination

Actix know-how

Publications

• scientific papers: 20+ • patents: 15+ • white papers: 10+

Standardization

• Member of NGMN • Trusted partner for operator alliances

• accelerating technology rollouts by optimizing cell plans & pre-launch deployed networks

• increasing operational efficiency by automating optimization processes with a single platform

• improving customer experience by rapidly optimizing the network based on customer data

everything we do is about optimizing mobile network performance

our focus

7

Actix Product Suite

ActixOne is a scalable platform providing a unified workspace for all network optimization activity

Analyzer Expert drive test post-processing for Network Optimization & Acceptance

Actix Desktop products deliver offline analytics to optimization experts

RadioPlan Expert automated cell planning using Network OSS, Drive Survey and Planning data

ActixOne

Web Web Web Web

CellOpt Expert automated frequency planning using Network OSS, Drive Survey and Planning data

increasing automation

Visualize

Analyze

Optimize

enabling operators along the path to self-optimizing networks

analytics to improve visibility & drive decision-making

analytics to automate problem detection & root-cause diagnosis

analytics to recommend solutions & what-if tools

SON

our vision

Pre-Launch Live Network

Actix Solutions for Mobile Network Life Cycle

Planning New technology

rollout Manage network

performance Technology

upgrades and swaps

Customer Experience Analytics

Improve the customer experience

The

Network

Places

People Phones

Network Acceptance

Reduce risk in network rollouts

On Time

On Quality

On Budget

Network Optimization

Optimize multi-vendor, multi technology networks

Self Organizing / Optimizing Networks

ActixOne Platform

• Supports multi-vendor, multi-source network data

• Highly scalable platform

• Web based interface

• Automates tasks using rules engines & optimization algorithms

• Integrated workflow to streamline activities

A unified workspace for optimizing the mobile network

Maps Drive Survey

Planning

ActixOne Repository

ActixOne Web Interface

Rules Engine

Optimization Engine

Visualize Analyze Optimize

Dashboards & Reports

Subscriber Trace

Workflow Engine

Network OSS

Instead of a lot of product slides how to move from a fragmented tools and data environment with no

processes in the engineering departments I will tell you a real customer story

Next Generation RAN

Management

The “CTO Challenge“ to Actix

• April 2010:

– “My objective of this meeting is to find out if Actix can realize the opportunity of Unassisted Optimization “

“unassisted Optimization means SON for 2G, 3G and 4G”

The Mission Preparing the organization for a new technology, consolidation of tools, data and processes and the transition to manage a unified network automatically: • Increase Efficiency

– A multi-user platform that supports a Unified RAN Engineering Workspace – Supporting process automation resulting in reduced spending – Provide additional bandwidth for the engineering departments to handle new

technologies (LTE, small Cells, HetNet) by maintaining the same quality in 2G & 3G

• Increase the quality of the network & Manage customer experience in a smarter network

– Adding customer-centricity to manage the network on demand – Re-use of Best Practices across the organization

• Supporting multiple integrated solutions to solve critical issues at lower cost – Network Rollout and Management – Assisted-/ Unassisted Optimization

Actix‘s approach

ActixOne Automated

Optimization _______

Open-loop

ActixOne SON

ActixOne Optimization

Solution

Semi-Automated

Optimization

ActixOne Rules based

Network Optimization

ActixOne , Drive Test,

PM, Call Trace, and Automatic

Optimization

Step-by-step instead bing-bang

Next Steps

• Embedding customer experience into the core of the network departments:

– Corporate Customers:

• Sales Process

• SLA Management

• Complaint Management

• Tailored Optimization

– Further Automation:

• Capacity Management

• Semi-Automated Optimization

ActixOne in “traditional” optimization

Next Generation RAN

Management

17

ActixOne Enterprise

A unified workspace for optimizing the mobile network

• Supports multi-vendor, multi-technology and multi-source network data

• Highly scalable platform

• Web based interface

• Automates work tasks using rules engines & optimization algorithms

• Integrated workflow to streamline activities Maps Drive

Survey Planning

ActixOne Repository

ActixOne Web Interface

Rules Engine

Optimization Engine

Visualize Analyze Optimize

Dashboards & Reports

Subscriber Trace

Workflow Engine

Network OSS

New data

source

18

ActixOne Survey Data Analysis

Receive

Drive Data

Investigate

Further

Manual input required

Automated in ActixOne

Activity

Diagnosis &

Classification

Coverage

Interference

Neighbour

Blocks

Quality

Drops

Identify

Problems

Pollution

Build Reports

Drive Survey

Loading &

Analysis

Drive Test measurements

• Drive Test data processing in ActixOne:

• Show binned data in the map

• Call Event Explorer: drilldown to L3

• Radio Network Analysis:

• Coverage: overshooting, crossfeeders

• Pollution

• Missing neighbors

• Network comparison:

• Different networks

• Same network, different technologies

• Same network, different time periods

• Reports

• Benefits:

• Centralization

• Correlation with PM, Call Trace, alerts...

• Drilldown to L3

• Survey Management and File Status modules allow access to individual files and their processing status

• New KPIs can be created using Actix Analyzer queries

20

Network KPIs, Benchmark Analysis

Benchmark dashboard focuses competitive quality

Network KPIs can be visualized, trended and reports on

Additional Information from Data Correlations

• Using Drive Test, PM-, CM and Call Trace data

• Handset analysis reporting and device dimension in Customer Experience

• Real-time capabilities:

• Call Trace data is loaded and aggregated with 1-min resolution

• Also PM KPIs can be used

• How fast we can load the data depends on the hardware:

• Typical delay for Call Trace is 1-hour

• It is possible to link information to sectors, e.g. Street View direct access

22

Engineering Workspace for LTE Diagnosis/Root Cause Analysis

Antenna pattern/tilt visualization & terrain profiling

LTE drill-down for root cause analysis (with playback)

Google Earth 3-D visualization of drive survey measurements & events

23

Using Drive Tests for accepting new technologies at high quality e.g. LTE G/NG

Reporting

Including Hard/Soft KPI’s evaluation, CSFB, Scanner, and Ericsson/ALU Parameter Audit

ActixOne in “traditional” optimization - Use cases -

Next Generation RAN

Management

25

Coverage and Over-shooter Analysis Launch radio coverage analysis for an area (e.g. RF Zone) with one click

One-click selection of coverage, over-shooter, crossed feeder analyses Antenna Visualization and

Down-tilt Analysis

26

Network/Technology Comparison & Historical Analysis

e.g. Smith Field area demonstrating significant decrease in Throughput

Comparisons: • Multiple networks • Same network over time • Different measurements on the

same network at the same time

27

3: Cell Overshooter Detection

Why

What

Churn zone

Detection of cells that have overshooting coverage (which allow calls to be initiated outside the planned coverage).

Reduce interference and number of dropped calls in the network (due to non-availability of neighbours), thus improving revenue.

After running several analyses the engineer will be able to recommend changes to sector parameters, i.e. downtilt the antenna, reduce antenna height, adjust the bore angle.

Outcome Visualise changes for

- Azimuth bore angle

- Mech/Elec Tilt

- Height adjustment

Exemplary Assisted

Optimization Use Cases

28

34: Drive Test Virtualization What

CEA can be configured to provide a virtual drive test, giving a statistically valid assessment of key routes and areas at a fraction of the cost of traditional drive testing.

Drive Testing is time consuming, costly and inherently inaccurate method of measuring a network.

Key routes and areas can be configured and up to date and accurate virtual drive tests can be made available for analysis by engineers. In addition summary reports can be made available to senior managers.

Why

Outcome

Conventional drive test routes.

Live Demo

Customer Experience Solution

Next Generation RAN Management

Where does poor data performance

result in VIP customer churn?

What is the iPhone dropped call rate inside key corporate HQs?

The network should answer business questions?

Network

Places

People Phones

What is the signal strength for roamer’s using data cards at

airports?

A Strong Belief from Actix

The Customer-centric approach changes many facts of planning and optimization, as well expanding to marketing & customer care

Network performance isn’t customer experience Cell DCR

A 1.5% B 1.8% C 1.6% D 1.4%

Corporate HQ

iPhone 4s

A

B C

D

Real customer experience

What modern networks can tell you

Unique customers using data

Call by call Customers & handsets

Geo-location

What a modern network can tell you …

about your customer’s service experience

Customer experience visualization Data hotspot identification

Trend performance and identify busy

hours on a per location basis

View hotspots based on

connections and data volumes

View where capacity issues are causing blocks and

drops

Establish the number of unique subscribers

and handsets generating network

load

Track VIP & advocates

• Track important customers, measure their experience and get notification when they drop

• Diagnose the underlying causes of dissatisfaction

Overview

• Ensure vocal brand advocates get the quality of experience to keep them onside

Benefits

Are my VIPs happy

Corporate Customers and VIP analytics

Detailed layer 3 analysis of calls on a message by

message basis

View call attribute and radio technology

specific charts

Investigate individual dropped

/ blocked calls

See where VIPs are experiencing call failures and their

cause

View how the network supports

VIP customers

Get proactive notification when VIPs experience problems

13: Handset/User Report

Why

What

Churn zone

Analyze handset performance and locations.

Detect poor performing handsets, areas where smartphones have bad coverage or low throughput or create a handset inventory. May also help negotiations with the handset vendors.

Areas to optimize based on handsets type and a complete report of different handset’s KPIs.

Analysis (for the handset

type) performed against a

polygon of interest Outcome

What a modern network can tell you …

for Next Generation RAN Optimization/ Management

Exemplary Assisted

Optimization Use Cases

18: Advanced Call Diagnostics

Why

What

Churn zone

Using the ActixOne diagnosis engine, detailed diagnostics can be performed for drops, blocks and other call failure events.

ActixOne provides information for identification and diagnosis of faults. This will reduce the time the engineers need to find out the root-cause of problems.

Engineers will get a more friendly diagnosis message with also a short description of the drop also when possible with a suggestion to fix the issue.

Outcome

Root cause

analysis

Exemplary Assisted

Optimization Use Cases

6: Traffic Balancing/Shifting

Why

What

Churn zone

Identify areas and sectors with high number of congestion issues.

Optimize the traffic balance between the sectors serving the congested area or to suggest deploying a new site. This will help carry more traffic and so generate more revenue.

Congested areas identified, possible changes on parameters or new site needed.

Congested area

Outcome Traffic difference between

highlighted sectors Congested areas

Device Impact Analysis

Establish how new handsets are performing

Build handset reports that break out performance

by handset

Filter call failures by handset type (TAC)

Understand when and where handsets are being used and the

network quality they experience

Find handsets that generate excessive

network load

44: Handset Capabilities What

Outcome

Churn zone

Provide description of handset capabilities by region.

New features may require certain handset capabilities be supported. Often a certain subscriber density is required to support trial or roll out of such features.

A density map showing subscriber density by handset and feature capability.

Why

Regions shown are postcodes

Can also segment with dimensions

RF Analytics

Combine with network performance, drive test and other data sources

for detailed network optimization

Capacity, coverage, interference,

accessibility, mobility and retainability

analysis

Use customer experience data in network

optimization

What a modern network can tell you …

using network-centric and customer-centric data

Combined Customer and Business Analytics Churn / Customer complaint troubleshooting

Load nationwide geo-located churn /

complaint information

Filter by reason: Poor coverage

Dropped connections By termination

Identify and tackle areas of high churn /

complaints

Correlate with customer experience

measurements to identify problematic RF

Last mile customer experience

• Measure the network coverage and experience delivered across all customers at each location

• Dashboards and reports deliver segmented KPIs

Overview

Benefits

Where are high value customers dropping calls – by postcode?

• Listen to the 99.9% of customers that down contact the help desk

• Reduce guess work

Corporate performance

• Track the coverage and performance both indoors and outdoors at corporate campuses

• Build reports for offline consumption by sales

Overview

• Sales can improve customer retention and capture

• Create service improvement plans for dissatisfied

Benefits

Coverage a corporate campus

Churn zone targeting

• Combine customer experience and business data to see where the network impacts customers who in term impact the business

Overview

• Focus campaigns and resources to minimize business impact

• Target small cell deployments to customers at risk of churn

Value

Where is coverage causing churn?

Churn zone

Customer complaints

• Focus on the Top 10 areas generating customer complaints

• Establish cause of complaints and networks impact

Overview

• Target network experience

• Plan individual marketing campaigns to improve satisfaction

Benefits

Where are my customers complaining?

Revenue leakage

• Understand where the network is unable to meet customer demand

• Identify capacity bottlenecks and coverage issue reducing usage

Overview

• Identify opportunities to boost service uptake with minimal network investment

Benefits

Unmet data demand

Real customer experience

Business correlation

Actionable Analysis

Customer experience analytics

Churn Customer complaints

Population

Sales & Marketing Customer care

Engineering

Call by call Customers & handsets

Geo-location

Customer Experience Analytics

Live Demo

Customer Experience Analytics for Quality Assurance & Marketing

Bridging the Gap

Customer Experience Analytics Impact

Deploy Solution on

Network

Design Capacity / Coverage Solution

Establish Nature of Demand

Understand Hotspots & Coverage

HeNet Planning

Deploy Solution on

Network

Design Optimization

Solution

Diagnose Underlying

Cause

Detect & Prioritize

RAN Problems

RAN Optimization

Policy management / Monetization

Establish Patterns, Trends &

Opportunities

Measure core & RAN usage and experience

Subscriber Identify

New Revenue Services

Target churn zones

Plan marketing campaigns

Establish customer

usage patterns

Measure real customer

experience

Sales& Marketing

Customer Experience Analytics

Location intelligence RAN customer experience: Drops, blocks, throughput, capacity, coverage Segmented by customer and handset

Mobile organization: Feed the organization

Customer Advocacy

Engineering Optimization

Operations

CTO

Product Managers

CMO

Sales

Customer Care

Quality

COO

CEO

Technical customer care

Triage teams

Business Analytics

Customer Reports

Customer Analytics

Customer Experience Analytics

Quality processes

Key points

• More so than engineering Marketing and Sales teams struggle to get analytics systems deployed

• Have ActixOne deployed within the RAN department – combined with Actix’s web based interface provides a pre-installed system that external groups can hook into

• All departments use the same data – have the same view, just from a different perspective

ACTIXONE FOR QUALITY ASSURANCE

Quality Assurance with ActixOne

Define

Measure

Analyse Improve

Control

Measure live and historical performance in ActixOne.

Generate reports, notifications and interactive views

Investigate problem areas to understand issues and

underlying cause

Create reports and tasks lists to action the changes to the

network

Define KPIs and geographic and customer segments for

focus

Use before after reports to see impact

of changes

ActixOne

Define flexible KPIs

Cu

stom

Dro

ps &

Blo

cks

Cap

acity

Co

verage

Thro

ugh

pu

t

RA

B b

reakd

ow

n

IRA

T …

RF M

easu

rem

en

t

VIP Customers

Handsets

Regions / Postcodes

Geographic areas

Transport

Retail stores

Corporate offices

Points of Interest

• ActixOne flexible KPI engine allows operators the quality KPIs they want to measure

• KPIs can reflect hourly, daily, weekly and longer term goals

• KPIs can be segmented by customer, handset and location

Segments

KP

Is

Segment KPIs: Use fixed or free form geographic areas

Defined Regions: Markets, clusters, postcodes, ….

Geographic Mesh Key locations: Train stations,

corporate offices, retail stores

Segment KPIs: Customer, handset and roamers

• Spilt KPIs by:

– Connection type

– Device

– Indoor vs Outdoor

– Roaming status

– VIP

Measure: Get notification of quality of experience problems

• Notification mechanism allows KPI breaches to be flagged inside ActixOne

• Breaches listed as tasks for further investigation

• Investigating a task brings up all relevant supporting data

Measure User static Reports to communicate KPIs

Case Study: Maxis Top 10 Areas Generating Churn

• Focused on the Top 10 with historically high churn rates

• Churn data was filtered to only include Churn caused by Network Issues

Case Study: Maxis Top 10 VIP Issues

• Focused on ensuring VIP quality of experience

• Each VIP was proactively tracked

• Each VIP drop block call was automatically diagnosed and resolution recommended

Case Study: Maxis Impact of process

• Process has been up and running for 6 months

• Successful resolutions are being added to a catalogue of Customer Experience success stories – to raise the profile of the in-house quality and optimization teams

• Point of impact reports are being built to target advertising locations, to bid on an M2M (machine to machine) contract for public transport, and to assist in targeting university students

ACTIXONE FOR MARKETING

IBM CMO Survey – Actix comments • 80% of CMOs rely on market research and competitive benchmarking

– Operators need to focus on the use phase – with “live” analysis of existing customers

– They need to watch what users do – not just say.

– Actix provides live customer insight from the real use of the network

• Operators are swamped in user data and need to invest in new tools to improve their analytics

– Operators taking money from advertising to invest in data gathering & CRM

– However marketing organizations aren’t technology savvy

– Actix allows technology savvy engineering and IT departments provide customer intelligence directly to marketing

• Operators want to focus on enhancing customer loyalty and advocacy

– Advocates on social media are critical to operators success

– Actix allows operators to target advocates and other VIPs to understand their experience

IBM Survey Recommendations

Actix provides “use” time data

Actix provides RAN customer

analytics

Actix solutions are already deployed

in engineering

Actix allows focus on individuals

Actix provides RAN customer analytics

Impact on marketing

Customer Experience Last mile quality of experience

Track VIP & advocates Corporate performance

Customer service Churn zone targeting Customer complaints

Lost revenues Revenue leakage

Campaign Planning Service & device hotspots

Roaming locations Retail store coverage

Actix

Service & device hotspots

• Actix captures exactly where demand is occurring down to 100m

• Split out demand by device and customer

Overview

• Market and sell services and devices where demand exists and the network can support it – “where do iPad users congregate at lunch time”?

Value

Data demand Amsterdam

Roaming locations

Hotel

• Establish exactly where high value roamer customers congregating

• See roaming patterns change due to events

Overview

• Target roaming campaigns based actual demand

• Improve roamer capture at expected and unexpected locations

Value

Where are roamers user now?

Retail store coverage

• See the network coverage and performance delivered to high value locations such as retail stores

Overview

• Ensure “hour one” service experience meets customer expectations

• Ensure new retail stores are supported by the network

Value

Where are roamers now?

Track VIP & advocates

• Track important customers, measure their experience and get notification when they drop

• Diagnose the underlying causes of dissatisfaction

Overview

• Ensure vocal brand advocates get the quality of experience to keep them onside

Benefits

Are my VIPs happy

Your questions

Thank You!