MTS covers Exhibition centre, restricted to indoor coverage by military

Mobile TeleSystems, the largest mobile phone operator in Russia and the CIS, has launched the first phase of its 3G network in Moscow. The operator is following a strategy of covering the largest business and shopping centres with HSDPA networks.

The first indoor network was launched in Moscow’s Expocentre, one of the largest exhibition centers in Eastern Europe. MTS has covered the whole Expocentre exhibition space with and HSPA network, providing customers with data download speeds of up to 3.6 Mbit/s.

MTS is planning to launch additional 3G networks in the 35 largest business and shopping centers in Moscow in 2009, including the Domodedovo International Airport. MTS will also launch indoor 3G networks in the offices of the largest corporations based in Moscow. 3G services will also become available in several cities in the Moscow region, including Noginsk and Orekhovo-Zuyevo.

MTS has also received permission to deploy 3G networks in the Moscow metro, with the first test network to be launched on the Sokolnicheskaya line.

Development of 3G networks is a cornerstone of MTS’ strategy aimed at providing mobile broadband in the CIS. As these markets demonstrate relatively low levels of fixed-line penetration and historic underinvestment in infrastructure, MTS views its networks as an ideal vehicle to meet the growing broadband Internet needs of its subscribers through attractive data products and services.

MTS already operates 3G networks in Russia, Uzbekistan and Armenia and offers high-speed data access through its proprietary CDMA-450 network in Ukraine.

3G network coverage in the Moscow region has been delayed because the Russian military owned the rights to the spectrum in which operators wished to launch services.  At the moment the operators only have permisson to provide indoor coverage, which is why MTS is targetting the major indoor markets. The operators say they are ready to provide full 3G coverage by early next year, if agreement can be reached.

Public safety and mission-critical business comms require excellent radio coverage, even in the toughest of environ-ments. Ian Brown, ceo of Axell Wireless, tells Keith Dyer about the role Axell is playing in meeting the needs of its customers

Keith Dyer:
Ian, can you tell us about Axell’s role in the wireless coverage market?

Ian Brown:
Axell Wireless has a position as one of the largest manufacturers of wireless coverage solutions globally – certainly in the top three. And today it is the worldwide market leader in public safety systems – with solutions that cover the range of standards such as Tetra, Tetrapol, P25 and GSM/R.

Keith Dyer:
What does “wireless coverage solutions” mean in this instance?

Ian Brown:
We provide products and solutions that enable mobile devices like mobile phones and PMR handsets to work in confined spaces. That means environments like tunnels, metro transport networks, shopping centres and the like. Large buildings reflect RF, especially modern buildings, so we also provide the solutions to offer in-building coverage.

We also have solutions that go on some form of transport, for instance inter-city trains, and we are part of a consortium to provide coverage on-board aeroplanes.

As well as the public safety standards I mentioned, we can cover any mobile radio technology from FM radio up to GSM, UMTS, WiMax and LTE. In the industry today we are seeing requirements for the provision of both cellular and public safety coverage at the same time. For instance at Heathrow Terminal 5 we provided single system coverage for the police, ambulance and fire services, as well as for BAA and BA internal comms, and cellular coverage for all the mobile operators.

Keith Dyer:
So what products and solutions provide these coverage solutions?

Ian Brown:
Axell Wireless supplies repeaters and passive products to meet our customers’ coverage requirements. Our solutions encompass systems that use both standard and customised products. The latter can be particularly useful for harsh environments where ventilation, power supply and physical size constraints are often an issue.

In recent years, the provision of coverage for wireless devices has become expected, no matter where you are, and is even in some instances mandatory. This coverage is required to meet the needs of both the general public, who expect their mobile phones and other PDA’s to work at all times, and the emergency services who need reliable communications for efficient incident management and personal safety.

Whether the requirement is to extend coverage from outside into an underground metro station/ tunnel or to distribute additional capacity from extra base stations to serve new subscribers, we have the proven expertise and experience to design and implement the optimum solution.

The construction of metro infrastructures, for instance, varies widely, so Axell Wireless employs a flexible approach to the provision of communication enhancement systems, which are uniquely configured to provide the required quality of coverage for the specific location.

Where coverage is required inside buildings such as an airport, a network of distributed antennas can provide the most practical solution. The RF source could be an off-air Repeater, a dedicated base-station or a mixture of these, depending upon the capacity requirements.

Our solutions range from an A4-sized box that may go inside a police station, say, to ensure the continuity of a national security network, to a rack of equipment that might provide coverage through a major rail tunnel. The equipment can be standard as well as customised to withstand harsh environments such as you might find in an underground tunnel, with water leaks or dust, for instance. Also, we often have to work where there is no mains power supply, and only a low voltage supply feed, e.g. 48v.

That means we have to provide flexible, multi-band coverage in a variety of locations and to support different applications and use cases. For example, for large coverage areas such as metros, fibre optic distribution systems are most commonly used, where a number of fibre fed repeaters are linked to an optical master unit (OMU) using mono mode fibre. Over 20 repeaters can be connected to the same OMU and be installed up to 20 km from the base station. The repeaters relay the signal into the coverage area via radiating cable or antennas. The fibre repeaters can be single, dual or multiple band operation. The OMU can either interface directly with a local BTS (often called a BTS hotel) or can be fed via a number of off air repeaters.

Keith Dyer:
You recently acquired Dekolink, which provided you with the means to use digital technology, making your solutions more flexible in deployment.

Ian Brown:
Yes, whilst Axell had its own digital program, Dekolink have been pioneers in this field for several years and following the acquisition we were able to integrate Dekolink’s digital repeater technology with Axell’s existing multiband solutions to bring to market an extended range of solutions. Our digital repeater filter technology (sometimes referred to as SDR – Software Defined Radio) is the most advanced and flexible in the industry, allowing total configuration flexibility for filtering radio channels. The technologies developed by Dekolink, as well as its product range and research and development (R&D) capabilities are highly complementary to those of Axell Wireless. We’re very excited by these unique filtering capabilities – which provide what our customers have been asking for. We can condense these systems into a neat, small form factor that can operate in areas where space is limited

This capability has allowed us to launch at the Tetra World Congress the world’s  first digital Tetra SDR repeater platform.

In addition to the sophisticated filtering capability the new platform supports frequency shifting, which allows us to  shift the frequency of the signal to a channel or frequency  that doesn’t interfere with the main system, and then transmit  that signal at high power through our digital repeater to propagate another area, where the signal is then converted back to the original frequency. It’s ideal for solutions where coverage is more important than high capacity, which is often the case with many  public safety systems.

Keith Dyer:
Although you mention the need to provide multi-band coverage to support wireless operators as well as public safety networks, how important is the TETRA community to your business?

Ian Brown:
TETRA is huge for us, it’s become a very popular and mature PMR standard, not just for emergency service first responders, but in industrial and enterprise markets such as the nuclear power industry, oil and gas fields, football stadiums and large shopping malls. TETRA has become a standard way to provide the kind of wireless system you need if you are responsible for security on a large nuclear plant, for instance. And it still has plenty of potential, both in Europe but also in other markets across China, Asia and Latin America. Even in the USA there is increasing penetration of the TETRA standard. People were predicting that TETRA would be one of those technologies that exploded initially, and then faded away, perhaps as other wireless standards became ubiquitous. But it’s not been like that at all. The reach of TETRA is continuously expanding.

Within the public safety arena there is acceptance that the network must be completely resilient. Nobody wants their lack of investment or planning to be responsible for a loss of communications in a major incident – when cellular networks are often switched off. There’s also scope for expansion via  the technical progress of TETRA, with Tetra High Speed Data providing high data rate applications, so police officers can more easily access live images of a scene whilst mobile, for instance.

Keith Dyer:
Do you work directly to the market or can customers access your solutions through other channels

Ian Brown:
It’s both, of course. We work through systems integrators and other channel partners. However we believe it is very important to directly  correspond with the local safety and comms authorities and network operators in each country. We deliver solutions to them in conjunction  with local partners operating as part of the design team. We are often involved  on site to help with the installation and commissioning of our systems. We are helped in this by our international presence, with 10 offices worldwide and 300 staff. We are headquartered in the UK but 80% of our £45 million annual revenue comes from international sales, which is testament to our ability to be able to do business in a range of differing cultures. Our achievements in international trade were recently recognised by the granting of a “Queens Award for Enterprise”.

With operators needing to enhance profitability, but constrained in terms of capes and opex,  how can they leverage their OSS/BSS systems for some quick results in 2009? Dominic Smith, marketing director, Cerillion Technologies, suggest some answers 

A survey carried out by Cerillion in 2008 highlighted revenue assurance as one of the three most critical business issues facing operators today, with 15% of respondents identifying it as their most urgent concern. And this trend is likely to have been further strengthened by the current recession.
The emphasis on plugging potential sources of revenue loss is not surprising when one considers the scale of the problem. Latest estimates suggest that as much as 10 per cent of service provider revenue is lost due to leakages. The problems are particularly acute in the mobile communications sector.  A 2006 report, commissioned by Subex Azure and conducted by Analysys Research, argued that global mobile operators were losing an estimated $77 billion* through avoidable revenue leakage. (*Operator Attitudes to Revenue Assurance 2006′ – Subex Azure/Analysys Research 2006, and IT Fact Mobile Usage 2006).

In the current economic downturn, the need to plug potential sources of revenue leakage has become an increasingly critical priority for telecoms operators. To develop competitive edge, telcos need to ensure they are tackling the problem of revenue leakage aggressively. Considering the scale of the losses that many incur, it is vital that they identify the causes, quantify their magnitude and then set about addressing the problems in a holistic manner.

Tackling the Issue of Integration
One of the most important causes of revenue leakage is poor systems integration. Unfortunately, this is often a characteristic of the traditional best-of-breed approach to the development of business support systems. With this model, systems integrators are often tasked with implementing and integrating multiple heterogeneous systems to build a complete solution. Invariably, they encounter problems which make effective integration difficult.

First, they typically discover incompatibilities between the data models used in the different best-of-breed systems. Synchronising data across different applications is complex because of the need to align different ways of identifying the subscriber, service and orders. However, if these mappings are not carried out properly, the operator will struggle to trace orders across the systems.

Providing this traceability inevitably has a cost in terms of introducing data replication and unnecessary levels of complexity, which can result in holes where revenue leakage can occur

Examining Process Issues
Poor integration can also result in process problems. It may, for example, lead to the same data being entered in multiple systems, or result in incompatible configuration between solution components. Rating or prepaid charging errors may result as operators may either apply an incorrect price to a customer record, or not being able to price the record at all. Such errors will inevitably lead to usage that cannot be billed and ultimately revenue leakage.

Incomplete or incorrect usage data is another primary cause of leakage. This problem typically occurs when network switches produce erroneous information and prevent the operator identifying the type of service used by a customer or prevent the customer using that service. In either case, the result is an inability to bill for usage incurred.

Poorly-integrated systems with no common workflow can also lead to delays in billing. Sometimes manual set-up processes for new services cause a delay of several days before the operator can start invoicing the customer, potentially resulting in revenue loss. In contrast, a fully-automated process with flow through provisioning enables the operator to begin billing for service use immediately.
Invoicing system errors are another potential cause of leakage. Traditionally, the problem is thought to be primarily one of under-billing with operators failing to invoice customers for services received. In fact, over-billing can be just as significant. This typically occurs when a service is terminated but the operator continues to bill for the service in error.

This can often result in costly customer disputes and the need to provide refunds or credit as a goodwill gesture. Valuable time and resource may be required to fix the process and additional revenue leakage is likely to occur indirectly as a result of growing customer dissatisfaction and increased rates of churn.

Launching new products and decommissioning old ones are two other areas where a badly-coordinated system can cause further revenue assurance problems. Businesses often leak money, both by providing incorrect tariffs for new services and by not taking older, more costly products out of service quickly enough.

Proactive or Reactive?
Putting additional systems and checks in place is largely a reactive approach to revenue assurance in a best-of-breed solution. In essence, it is a ‘sticking plaster' approach to plugging gaps in the system. Rather than dealing with problems at source, it focuses on putting processes in place which track where revenues are being lost and then trying to correct these errors retrospectively.

As a result, problems can stay hidden for some time and their source is likely to remain unclear. Operators may at first believe that they are suffering either billing or credit management problems. In fact, when they carry out thorough ‘root cause analysis', they often discover that the problem is order management-related.

If the system is not proactively managed, a mistake made in the initial order process may not be discovered by the operator for a month or six weeks, when the customer receives their first bill and finds they have been placed on the wrong tariff or are being billed for a service they never received. In contrast, the best end-to-end pre-integrated solution suites reassure operators that all elements within the product suite will work together in harmony. The holistic approach of these systems is in line with operators' increasing desire to address and monitor the whole lifecycle, from initial order placement through to billing and cash collection.

These solutions also enable operators to be much more proactive. Rather than merely reacting to problems as they occur, seamless connectivity helps to prevent ‘gaps' in the system appearing in the first place. In other words, they treat the root cause of the problem rather than the symptoms.The tight integration of these solutions helps eliminate data replication and synchronisation problems. In addition, embedded workflow and order management functionality allows front-end orders to be successfully transitioned to the back office, ensuring all services can be billed for and eliminating revenue leakage at source.

The pre-integrated nature of these systems allows key business information to be proactively tracked, detailed reports to be generated for each process, revenue leakages rapidly identified and losses minimised. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that ever greater numbers of operators see end-to-end pre-integrated solution suites as a vital weapon in their ongoing battle to achieve genuine revenue assurance.

Consolidate to reduce operational expenditure

By Gabriel Matsliach, Ph.D., General Manager, Comverse Billing and Active Customer Management 

Now more than ever operators need to cut costs and get higher rates of return on capital investments. Where better to start than by looking at your own billing infrastructure? Many operators suffer from having numerous legacy systems which prevent efficient operations and hinder their ability to bring in new revenues.

One way to avoid this is for operators to consolidate billing systems. Besides eliminating cost redundencies, the reduction in systems' complexity ensures operations become more streamlined. Additionally, a single truly converged business support system enables operators to generate more revenues by improving their time-to-market and allowing more tailored offers to their customers. A truly converged billing system handles multiple service, network and payment types, of course, and also includes customer management capabilities. A system that offers customer management, ordering and billing all based around one data model brings huge deployment and operational efficiences to operators, as well as enabling the operator to provide a consistent customer experience, regardless of customer touchpoint.

There are two immediate measurable benefits of consolidated billing which our clients such as Bharti, MTS, Telecom Italia, GCI and Play have experienced:
1) Eliminating the complexity and redundancy of duplicate systems – not only does it cost a lot more to run multiple systems but it's also highly ineffective. Telecom Italia realised a 30% operational saving by cutting their 60 BSS systems down to two, and reduced the average time taken to roll out a new service by 90%.
2) Consolidated billing systems enable operators to bundle services more easily and effectively, leading to a meaningful reduction in customer churn. Quad-play operator GCI saw a 70% ROI by consolidating its billing and customer management tools for example. Providing better customer care enhances customer loyalty to the operator, improves the customer experience and, in turn, reduces the turnover and churn rate.

The right types of bundles can replace lost revenues from price erosion – another way that operators can benefit from consolidating their billing systems into one.

Payment-type convergence is just one aspect of consolidation, but it can significantly increase the benefits of systems consolidation and lead to a better ROI. Comverse customer, Play in Poland, chose to launch with a converged pre- and postpaid billing system to keep costs low while laser-targeting the attractive consumer with tailored, real-time offers. With a converged billing system complementing their innovative market strategy, Play passed the one million subscribers threshhold in its first year of operation with ARPU 40% higher than market average.

Studies by Comverse have estimated that consolidating separate prepaid and postpaid systems into one truly converged system could deliver an ROI as high as 60% in operational cost savings alone.

React to the business need of the customer

Gadi Maoz, Vice President, Sales & Marketing, FTS

The dramatic change in economic outlook has forced all businesses, operators among them, to get back to basics.

Many operators are being forced to choose just two or three key projects to focus on for the year and each of those projects has to have an indisputable RoI.
The new economic reality has forced a rationalisation of investment in long-term projects in favour of addressing tangible, immediate business needs – ‘quick wins', as well as anything that can fix revenue leakage. And for the longer-term ‘big bang' projects that do go ahead, there is a greater push to get better control over the risks associated with it.

In this new environment, opportunities to win a contract to rip and replace a billing system in an established operator are clearly not as common as they were. Likewise, although upgrades are still taking place, the reasons behind the planned upgrade are being questioned more thoroughly, and the project ideally needs to represent a quick win or risk being forced down or off the agenda. 

OSS/BSS vendors need to reassess not only the type of solutions they prioritise, but also the cultural attitudes and assumptions that they may have carried over from the 'years of plenty'. he OSS/BSS vendor would, of course, love to offer a major upgrade of the operator's system to address that business need, in the knowledge that it may take many months to implement and bring in major professional services costs for the foreseeable future. But that is unlikely to happen.

An operator's specific business need has to be addressed individually and quickly, without changing what already works just fine in the back-office. The solution does not necessarily need to be within the confines of the existing billing system, nor does it need to be a complete replacement of it. Service providers would be wise to look at solutions that can live alongside the main billing system, and that are agile enough to serve as a ‘staging ground', allowing you to react quickly to new business needs as they arise.

An example of this approach is through better policy management. Smart policy management and business control technologies can ‘see' relevant information and events on the network and create actions or reactions to a set of circumstances. These technologies can pinpoint the business need and just focus on events on the network which relate to that business need, leaving everything else unrelated to continue as before. It is this ability to just focus on relevant events on the network which means that the business need can be ‘ringfenced' and dealt with individually. In this new environment, service providers are starting to see the potential for policy management and business control as a way to focus on solving the business need without time consuming and expensive upgrades.

The opportunity now for the Service Provider community and the OSS/BSS community which serves it, is for us to come through it together stronger and wiser than ever before, with a renewed focus on the fundamentals of business and the drive towards greater profitability.