Introducing Actix 2013
Our business Actix is a leading provider of mobile analytics software that delivers actionable intelligence to improve customer experience and optimize the Radio Access Network
350 Operator customers
25
of the top 30
Mobile operators
Our Vision We believe that analysis of the “customer’s experience in the RAN” will become the key driver for: • • • • •
Optimization and SON Het Net investment planning Customer Experience Management Solutions to monetize mobile data C-level insights and decision making
About us • Founded in 1991, originally focused on RAN Analytics for assessment of pre-launch quality
• More than 350 Operator’s are Actix customers • 25 of the top 30 operators worldwide • Key Offices in UK, Germany, Kuala Lumpur and China
• 250 people globally • Primary revenue generator is ActixOne, a RAN Analytics and Optimization platform installed at 50 sites globally
Our global footprint
Over 50 ActixOne deployments
Our focus on the Radio Access Network Most costly part of the network infrastructure • $50bn in RAN CAPEX 2013 (50% of all CAPEX) The RAN has the biggest impact on customer experience • Causes 80% of customer experience problems • Data throughputs can be 50% lower indoors Provides business critical insights • 5% of locations carry over 50% of all traffic • 15% of locations cause 85% of problems • iPhones consume 3x more data than Blackberries
Our capabilities Customer Experience Analytics
Acceptance & Benchmarking
Optimization
SON
Advanced visualization: dashboards, maps & reports Data Sources
RAN Analytics
Optimization
SON
2G, 3G & LTE
2G,3G & LTE
RAN configuration
Geo-location
RNC traces
Customer experience
Network Quality
CCO
Drive & walk test
Radio network
Logical parameters
MLB
Network element Performance Social, customer complaints, ad-hoc…
Competitive
Physical parameters
ESM
Rules based
Small cells
…
Customer Experience
ActixOne
ANR
Proven operator impact: Customer experience Actix enables operators to
….by
Improve customer retention
Geo-locating subscribes to build accurate pictures of customer experience and competitive threats
Satisfy key corporate customers
Enabling operators to demonstrate superior mobile performance at corporate HQs
Streamline customer care
Cutting by 80% the time needed to diagnose customer experience issues in the RAN
Target new service rollouts
Identifying where new devices and key customer segments are active
Proven operator impact: Network rollouts Actix enables operators to
….by
Ensure LTE quality at launch
Delivering industry best practice measurement of LTE performance captured from 100 customer deployments
Manage network equipment providers
Providing a scalable LTE rollout acceptance process that allows operators to hold vendors to account
Target new network capacity
Geo-locating subscribers to accurately quantify service demand to target LTE and small cells.
RAN Customer Experience Analytics
Customer Experience
Places
Manage your customer’s experience, not just your mobile network
The Network Phones
People
Mobile operators face a challenging environment Saturated Markets
Smartphone Explosion
Reduced customer loyalty and increased acquisition costs
Huge growth in network traffic, changes in usage patterns
Customer retention is as important as acquisition
Increased network cost and complexity
Customer experience is a key operator battleground
Assuring customer experience is getting more difficult
Network performance isn’t customer experience Network KPIs aren’t segmented by people, places and phones
D
• Customer experience for high value subscribers is lost “in the noise”
A
• Performance at indoor locations like corporate HQs is hidden As a result operator can’t: B
Cell A B C D
DCR 1.5% 1.8% 1.6% 1.4%
C
• Focus on improving QOE for top 20% of customers
Corporate HQ
iPhone 4s
8% DCR
4% DCR
• Target limited network capacity at the right people
Network demand isn’t evenly distributed Network capacity KPIs focus on network elements
Train station
Single user
• Data demand is driven by people, places and phones As a result operators can’t select the right capacity solution • Macro capacity
Tourist spot
Corporate HQ
• Wi-Fi Offload • Femto • DAS
The network should answer business questions What is the signal strength for roamers using data cards at airports? Places
The
What is the iPhone dropped call rate inside key corporate HQs?
Network Phones
People
Where does poor data performance result in VIP customer churn?
RAN customer experience insight means Real customer experience
Business correlation
Actionable Analysis
Use real subscriber measurements to capture the actual customer experience
Combine with business data to understand the true impact of RAN performance
Use powerful analytics to drive decisions on how to improve customer experience
Architecture for customer experience analytics Call Measurement Data
Customer Experience Visualization
Call Trace
Call Trace
ActixOne Segment Calls Handset, customer, …
Call Trace LTE Call Trace
Generate KPIs Failures, quality, …
Remain in same GUI Business Data Customer Accounts
Customer Complaints
Churn Records
Geo-locate Raw, mesh, area, …
Action Customer Experience
Customer experience analytics engine ActixOne Customer Experience Analytics Engine enables customer experience data to be quickly combined and filtered
Where I need to focus to reduce high value subscriber churn?
Where do I have high numbers of deactivations?
• Call trace data can be analyzed to identify problem areas and hotspots
Where are my high value subscribers?
• Call trace data can be combined with business data for geographic correlation
Where do I have poor network quality as measured by call trace?
POC Scope • Huawei PCHR data • Majority from 23rd May • From 6pm to 10pm • 1.6 Million Connection Attempts on 23rd May
Peak Demand: Colombo Main Street
Highest demand in Colombo is around Main Street. Here we see overall excellent customer experience with very low drop rates.
IPHONE4 CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
Regional iPhone4 Usage Thimbirigasyaya is the hotspot for iPhone4 use, constituting 10% of overall connections in the network. We can also see 2/3 of the usage is indoors, which will lead us to indoor planning analysis later.
We can also trend the usage over time using both hourly and daily Customer Experience stats.
iPhone4: Customer Experience Use Case iPhone4 Connections
The high iPhone use in Main Street has few corresponding drops.
iPhone4 Drops
We do see hotspots of poor iPhone4 experience – near Wellawatta and Jawatta
Indoor iPhone Quality Issues
EcNo distribution plot at indoor locations shows areas in Wellawatta where the quality of service could be improved further.
Pilot Pollution Contributes to Poor Quality
Pilot Pollution Analysis showed that many of the locations where EcNo were previously seen as weak also had pilot polluted bins.
Investigate Down-tilt to Resolve Pollution Dehiwala North A is listed as the most polluter, and appears to be overshooting. The site configuration should be validated to check the downtilt.
IN BUILDING/HET-NET PLANNING
iPhone4: In Building/Het-Net Planning Use Case
Indoor connection attempts for iPhone4
Outdoor connection attempts for iPhone4
Not surprisingly, it was observed that there was more usage in indoor locations than outdoor for iPhone4s.
Poor Indoor Coverage Leading to High Drops
To understand the impact of this observation, the numbers of dropped connections due to poor RF conditions were plotted. It was found that the same area was affected by this.
Unity Plaza: Hotspot of Indoor Poor RF Drops Zooming into the specific area, the Unity Plaza was the area with high number of indoor dropped connections due to poor RF conditions.
This issue needs to be addressed, especially since the demand is quite strong, shown by the high number of indoor High Speed (HS) connection attempts
Identify Responsible Network Elements
Customer Experience Data aggregated to the Sector Level quickly identify the worst offenders.
This sector has a high proportion of drops due to Poor RF Coverage
Event Diagnostics & Drilldown Event filtering, automated diagnostics and Layer3 drilldown allow engineers to validate conclusions
Conclusions It is observed that the Unity Plaza only has an outdoor site but not an Inbuilding system (the next door Majestic City has an Inbuilding system). Therefore this building is a strong candidate for a new Inbuilding site.
INTERNATIONAL ROAMER EXPERIENCE
International Roamer Hotspots Hotspot of roamers was found along Galle Road
Correlates with 5-Star Hotels
International Roamer Drops
The same hotspot was also recording a number of connection drops for roamers.
Correlation with Drop Hotspot The dropped calls locations are identified, mostly around site 53085 (the Holiday Inn sectors) Note: These are drops not just for international roamers, but for all users
The coverage by the best SC confirms that the best servers in this area are the Holiday Inn sectors (SC 70, 71 and 72).
Identify Contributing Sector
Colouring the sectors by the Customer Experience statistics aggregated to sector level reveals those contributing the most drops
One customer had 4 drops in the time period.
Diagnosis
Breakdown of Drops for Area
Holiday Inn B has a much higher proportion of IRAT Failure events
VIRTUAL DRIVE SURVEY USE CASE
Filter Customer Experience Data by Highways High concentration of dropped calls were seen in the highway stretch near Rajagiriya.
As this is a highway we investigated RF related Handover issues, but far less were reported.
Investigating Mesh Statistics
Focusing on the worst affected mesh areas, it was observed that the main reason for dropped call was system released. This indicates a higher level issue (where inter-RNC handover is a possible cause) rather than RF-related issues.
Investigating Network Configuration Coloring the sectors by RNC quickly showed the drop hotspot at an RNC boarder. (No LAC data was available in the POC data)
Possible Inter RNC Issue Looking at individual dropped calls, the possible inter-RNC handover issue can again be observed – the most common dropped calls scenario occurred when the Active Set contains two cells from different RNCs. In most cases, Sri_Japura_Naita_C was the best server, the other server being the Koswatta_North cells.
Possible Missing Neighbour Viewing the configuration suggests Sri_Japura_NAITA_C was also having missing neighbours with the Rajagiriya_East cells. However the ActixOne Neighbour Planning capability shows no shared measurements. In fact the site is off-air.
THANK YOU
