As operators roll out new services across new network elements, the network operating environment becomes increasingly complex, and the need to assure performance increasingly important. Keith Dyer hears from Tekelec’s Vice President of Product Marketing, Vince Lesch, how operators can meet these challenges
MOBILE EUROPE:
Vince, we talked to Tekelec in this space back in April, principally about how carriers are evolving to next generation signalling environments, and how Tekelec supports that. Now we are picking up on an important aspect of that migration – how carriers can monitor and assure services at the service and customer layer. How does that network evolution impact the monitoring and performance management of the network, and the services it supports?
VINCE LESCH:
I think we are seeing a couple of key trends. The first is that this evolution is creating hybrid environments.
As operators move to an eventual all-IP architecture, they are integrating SS7 and SIP components across their service architecture. This means that, for instance, if they want to look at call flows end to end across the network, they need to monitor the call as it moves from the TDM/SS7 space, is transported across the IP/SIP domain, and then back to SS7.
The second key trend, alongside this creation of hybrid networks, is the exceptional growth we are seeing in wireless data usage. Across the industry we’re seeing the evolution of flat rate data plans, and a sharp increase in the types of service used.
These services are crucial to raising incremental revenues for carriers, as they face declining profit levels in their core activities.
MOBILE EUROPE:
So what demands does this combination of new services in hybrid environments create?
VINCE LESCH:
There is now a pressing demand within carriers for the ability to create and display KPIs (key performance indicators) and indices that allow them to monitor network and service performance for an increased number of services, in more complex network environments.
As new services and network elements are rolled out in a hybrid network, real-time visibility into everything going on within the networks is essential to understanding and tracking network performance. For example, before launching new services and networks, extensive interoperability testing is required. The ability to supervise the transactions between domains – PSTN, mobile, VoIP and IMS (IP multimedia subsystem) – and monitor the protocols as they convert across gateways is essential to test and assure interoperability and ongoing network performance. Additionally, carriers must be able to identify failures between gateways, trace registrations in the SIP domain and track authentication.
From a customer perspective, providers require real-time and historical data to determine why subscribers are unable to access e-mail, troubleshoot download failures from ringtone servers, and even identify issues with traditional intelligent network services such as calling name and number portability.
Carriers also need to track issues such as service utilisation across their portfolio of data services and devices. They need to see, for instance, how much WAP (wireless application protocol) traffic is going in to which providers. Another example is mobile email, which is a big growth area. Carriers need to see how much these services are being used and by what types of user. They can then react accordingly if they need to troubleshoot a specific issue related to that service.
MOBILE EUROPE:
So how can carriers meet this need to provide customer and service plane information, as well as monitor the underlying network domains? It sounds like a recipe for increased investment and complexity.
VINCE LESCH:
Well, what this means is that it’s important to have the ability to produce integrated KPIs for typical types of services on an ongoing basis. Operators can then use these KPIs to see if any element, service, or usage indicator is trending negative, to take action, and troubleshoot any problems that are occurring. They can either do this by monitoring service degradation, or by looking at the customer experience and highlighting when certain services are under-performing.
But they need to be able to do this in a way that can take information from across the network, as well as service layers, and correlate that information in a holistic manner, rather than relying on a series of disparate reports from differing domains, element management systems and service monitoring systems.
Most solutions on the market today collect performance data locally from network elements, making it difficult for operators to get a holistic view of subscriber experience and QoS.
The better approach is to have a network-wide performance and service management system that collects control and user plane information and generates accurate performance indicators. By collecting real-time, network-wide data from a single vantage point, operators can evaluate and characterise network usage to maximise network resources and reduce operating costs.
MOBILE EUROPE:
What type of solutions can provide this cross-system and service monitoring?
VINCE LESCH:
The requirement is for something that can correlate data from the whole variety of network types operators are faced with managing, from TDM and SS7, to an IP or packet-based network with SIP. The crucial fact is that with very few exceptions, operators are faced not with simply the management of one or the other, but a changing landscape.
Tekelec’s Integrated Applications Solution (IAS) provides operators with complete visibility to everything going on within their networks.
IAS provides real-time data and reporting as well as alarming capabilities to ensure proactive responses to network issues. Operators are able to quickly isolate problems in the network and respond accordingly, cutting troubleshooting time significantly.
The key differentiator we have versus our competitors is that we are able to offer the monitoring and service assurance capabilities of our IAS fully integrated with Tekelec’s EAGLE Integrated Signaling System (EAGLE ISS).
This integration of the data we can feed back from our knowledge of the signalling platforms in the network means we can collect and forward information to the IAS with no delay.
Integrating the signalling level information with the IAS means operators do not have to depend on individual probes into all the different network elements into the network. And it also means that any configuration can be carried out automatically and efficiently, rather than having to make manual changes.
We can build KPIs around different service sets that allow operators to build and monitor their own service level agreements (SLAs), and deliver that information to the relevant skill bases within the carrier, whether that is in a manner that delivers value to the customer care teams, to the marketing departments, or the technical operations team.
It’s incredibly powerful being able to flow data from all the network interfaces to a core correlation engine. We can integrate all that hop-by-hop information to view, for example, all services to a specific IP address, or from a content provider, and look at how that performance is trending against the whole network.
It’s a holistic view that means you can move from the general to a per-service or subscriber level, and then allow for action to be taken, either to troubleshoot a problem, or maintain an SLA.
MOBILE EUROPE:
And what evidence do you have that this approach meets the demand of operators?
VINCE LESCH:
I think one of the biggest indicators is the success we have with IAS in the market. Of the product areas in which we operate, the IAS is the second largest that we have in terms of revenue, so it’s a very important part of our overall business. We have achieved market success across wireless and wireline operators, building on the leadership we have in signalling. The IAS is a natural addition for customers who have purchased our EAGLE 5 signalling solution. In fact, Tekelec has added 37 new customers in the last seven quarters on the strength of these products.
Customers love that we can operate this high level abstraction of the data, enabling them to create their own KPIs.
It means they can do more with less, which is vital in these capex-constrained times, whilst supporting the migration and evolution of their networks.
Customer Case Study: Improving the Mobile Web Customer Experience
Problem
As subscribers surf the internet more and more, via their mobile device, operators need to be able to track the quality of service related to the display time of the first page (WAP, HTML, etc.). The operator also needs for this page to arrive in less than five seconds.
Solution
By using ProTraq (Tekelec IAS module), the service provider is able to set up key performance indicators (KPIs) that look at various parameters being sent, including the timing between messages. Using this tool they can set alarms on their KPIs to indicate if the average display time goes above their five second goal.
Benefits
- Improved customer experience results in lower number of complaints, support costs, and customer churn.
- Quickly resolve quality issues
- Information is used for marketing, including differentiating themselves from other operators
As the industry debates what the role of operators should be in mobile applications, Kirkup told Mobile Europe that the company “still very much viewed carriers as key partners in our value chain.”
Kirkup said that whilst some new entrants had tried to “minimise the utility of carriers”, RIM has done several things that show its commitment to the carrier channel.
First off, the next version of Blackberry’s App World implements carrier billing, to enable users to put the acquisition of apps onto their mobile bill. Carriers will get a slice of the revenue for supplying this service. For developers the upside is that it is easier for them to bill, and the consumer experience could be made simpler, Kirkup said.
Kirkup added that RIM has negotiated pre-loaded applications onto its devices prior to launch, giving carriers a higher revenue share of that particular application, in return for the real estate of the application on the handset.
RIM is also working to share metadata across advertising networks, Kirkup said, including into the networks that operators either run, or sell into.
Finally, Kirkup said that Blackberry’s focus on compression, and efficient use of bandwidth, helps carriers reduce the data load they have to support, and also keeps users within capped data plans. The Blackberry 6 platform has a web rendering engine that can render a web page at about 33% of the amount of data carried compared to competitors, Kirkup said.
“Our background may have been in email,” he said, “but the way we developed our product means that efficiency has extended into how we deliver Facebook, or Twitter, or our core messaging applications.”
So what can carriers add to app developers and what, in Kirkup’s view, should operators be focusing on as their core capabilities?
“This really lines up with what we told them back at the GSMA board meeting back in February. The first is the billing relationship, which presents a huge opportunity that they have barely scratched the surface of. The second thing is they need to step back into their organizations and find the core pieces they have to add value – things like location.”
Kirkup acknowledged that operators had made some steps towards doing this, and mentioned the OneAPI initiative. “You might say they are two years too late doing this,” he added, “but we will see.”
Kirkup’s comments show that although there is a tendency to view the app stores as automatically a challenge to operator revenues, there is still a role for operators in the applications space. The door is open, but operators must work out if what they have to bring through the door is of value to those already at the party.