Mobile Data Services

Blueprint for Success: Optimized Migration to Mobile Data Services

No service offering Mobile Operators (MOs) worldwide are in the midst of a major evolution. In the past, a majority of service revenue was derived from voice services, with a small amount of revenue generated from low-bandwidth data services such as phone-based Internet browsing. However, due to the development of interactive mobile applications, enhancements in access network technologies such as 3.5/3.75G and overall increased customer expectations, the demand for mobile data services has skyrocketed.

Stratecast SPIE Paper - Adaptive Customer Service Assurance

Measuring and Managing the Level of Customer Service Quality

This Stratecast SPIE report defines the CEM-CSA relationship and explains why increasing customer trouble reports over problems with high network traffic volumes and user device issues are impacting revenue. The report discusses how measures of service quality through CSA methods are critical for CSPs to maintain good customer relationships, by delivering the right level of service quality for the type of services a customer may use. It also describes how Accanto is working to better enable a CSA-centric approach to customer satisfaction management.

Case Study: Vodafone OneNet

Taming IMS for Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC)

Vodafone partnered with Accanto Systems to integrate its intelligent Customer Service Assurance (iCSA) monitoring and troubleshooting system in both its TDM, as well as IP-based segments of the network. The goal was to provision, optimize, manage, monetize and troubleshoot the relatively immature IMS technology to speed service deployment, increase service quality, and avoid possible customer churn.

Mobile X-Ray

Integrated Solution for Mobile Data Services Analysis

Recent advances in wireless access and application technologies, combined with increased customer expectations from Mobile Service Providers (MSPs) have rapidly fueled the demand for mobile data services. While mobile data services may be an attractive goal for the MSP, implementing and managing them is fraught with complexity and challenge.

New Adaptive CSA (Customer Service Assurance)

New Challenges for Service Providers

Increased competition and customer churn are driving service providers to be more customer-centric and innovative with their services. Customer Service Assurance (CSA) has therefore been pushed to the forefront of importance as operators strive to gain a better understanding of how networks and services impact one another, and ultimately how the customer perceives service quality.

TAMS (Traffic Analysis and Monitoring System)

The Scalable Solution for 24/7 Monitoring of Next-Generation Networks

Featuring a powerful Oracle® central database, the Traffic Analysis and Monitoring System (TAMS) is one of the most advanced multi-protocol network monitoring systems available. TAMS features a multitude of monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities that provide network fault alarming and traffic statistics, as well as an easy-to-use toolkit for rapid problem isolation, analysis and resolution.

Pantera Family

All-in-one Probe and Protocol Analyzer Family

Pantera, a vital component of Accanto’s new Extreme iCSA Solution, is a real-time all-in-one probe and protocol analyzer family designed to meet the complex needs of operators trying to migrate to high-performance, converged IP networks. Pantera builds on the success of Accanto’s acclaimed 3GMaster and NeTracker families, improving on several important elements and making it ideal for mixed-technology environments.

Customer Experience Analysis

Using CSA for Customer-oriented Monitoring and Troubleshooting

The introduction of interactive multimedia services has introduced extreme complexities for operators trying to maintain quality of service awhile at the same time reduce customer churn.  The complexities increase significantly for those operators who are also in the midst of evolutions to new technologies like LTE.

Network Monitoring for LTE

10 Tips to Better LTE Customer Service Assurance

OSS (Operations Support Systems) and Service Assurance systems have once again been pushed to the forefront of importance as operators strive to gain a better understanding of how networks and services impact one another, and ultimately how the customer perceives service quality. Nowhere is this more important than in the high-stakes world of LTE This Application Note discusses some of the best practices that operators are utilizing to get the most out of their monitoring platforms as they deploy LTE networks, while optimizing the user experience and minimizing operational expenses.

iCSA for Mobile

Customer Service Assurance for Mobile Solution Overview

A key challenge in this migration has been how to ensure high service quality for both legacy voice and new data services, especially since “service quality” is measured in different ways for each. Two major problems: monitoring and troubleshooting systems that worked well for voice do not work well for IP-based data services; and, the complexities of IP-based core migration have been much higher than anticipated, especially in converged wireless/wireline networks.

X-Ray for VoIP

Traffic Analysis and Monitoring System for Next Generation Networks

The introduction of Voice-over-IP (VoIP) into legacy telecommunication architectures based on the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) is creating a wide range of problems that both Service Operators and Carriers must deal with. The TCP/IP protocol, and packet-switched networks in general, have been historically designed to carry packet-based data very accurately, but with very little attention given to packet delay. Unfortunately, voice and real-time multimedia traffic is highly delay-sensitive, and as many operators are learning, it is very difficult to maintain "legacy voice" QoS with VoIP.

UMTS Network Monitoring

Traffic Analysis & Monitoring System for UMTS Networks

With demand for high-speed mobile services skyrocketing, service providers have been searching for a unified network architecture that offers users high speed connectivity, and at the same time allows for a phased transition of their current 2G networks. Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) has been generally adopted as this new 3G network architecture, whose main goal it is to unify the different standards used by current second-generation wireless networks and provide a wide range of services including telephony, messaging, paging, Internet access and broadband data services.

Rapid Deployment Probe for End-to-End Mobile Core and Access Visibility

Mobile operators are in the midst of a migration of their traditional voice services to include multimedia data services such as presence, mobile gaming and podcasting...the demand for which is skyrocketing. These new data services require migration to an all-over-IP architecture, which presents serious challenges for operators transitioning from a legacy SS#7-based architecture.

VoIP Monitoring

Non-intrusive Analysis Suite for Voice over IP Networks

"Voice over IP" includes a wide number of architectures that enable voice transmission over IP data networks. In a converged voice/data network model, voice now shares the same IP network as legacy data traffic, providing both businesses and home users with scale efficiencies and cost reductions never before possible. This new architecture with IP-based packet switched networks as the core architecture offers many obvious advantages, though it has one significant disadvantage: it is complex to manage.

IMS Monitoring and Testing

Analysis Suites for IMS Networks

The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is a standardized Next Generation Networking (NGN) architecture for telecom operators that provides mobile and fixed multimedia services. IMS allows operators to introduce enhanced IP-based multimedia services such as presence, push-to-talk and combined circuit/packet services. A key objective of IMS is not only to provide these new services, but also to provide all of the current services.

QoS Analysis

Intrusive and Non-Intrusive Solutions

The migration of traditional PSTN networks and wireless networks towards all-over-IP core architectures is changing the service landscape for Service Providers (SPs). A particular challenge lies in addressing new quality of service (QoS) issues presented by these new packet-based architectures. On the positive side, the adoption of packet-switched technology for the core allows SPs to focus on a single network instead of different networks for voice and data services.

GPRS-EDGE Network Monitoring

Analysis Suite for GPRS/EDGE Networks

Mobile data services such as e-mail, video clips and video blogging, multimedia messaging and high-speed Internet access are quickly gaining popularity amongst end users. As a result, service providers across the globe are seeking ways to enhance their access networks to offer these new bandwidth-intensive IP-based services. For GSM-based operators, the advent of GPRS and EDGE has provided exactly this type of IP-savvy access platform.

GSM-R Network Monitoring

Analysis Suite for GSM-Railways

It is common for Railway companies to deploy and manage their own communication networks to facilitate communications between personnel onboard the trains, personnel at train stations and personnel working along the railway (e.g., shunting teams). These networks are also used to monitor and report on the positions of the trains at all times, and if necessary, to help manage critical events to keep operations running smoothly.

CDMA Network Monitoring

Analysis Suite for CDMA2000 and CDMA2000 EV-DO

CDMA2000 is a 3G code division multiple-access version of the IMT-2000 standard which was developed by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in 2000. The first version of CDMA2000, known as CDMA1xRTT, was designed to support mobile data communications at speeds ranging from 144 Kbps to 2 Mbps. While CDMA2000 is capable of meeting the 3G data rate requirement of 2 Mbps, the EV-DO (Evolution-Data Optimized) standard was developed for stationary applications requiring greater-than-2-Mbps downlink.

VC11-VC12 Monitoring

E1/T1 Demuxing over STM-1/OC-3 interfaces

Very often in the core networks, the E1/T1 trunks are carried through a channelized SDH/Sonet physical connection; since the rate of such an optical interface is 155 Mbs, up to 63 E1/84 T1 links can be carried. In the past, Network operators wanting to monitor these E1/T1 had to purchase and deploy rather expensive de-multiplexers. Now the 3GMaster and NeTracker platforms allow to demux E1 links inside an STM-1 optical link based on VC-12 SDH scheme, as well as T1 links over STM1-OC3 with a VC11 scheme for decoding and monitoring purposes.