(by Bhupinder Mann, Chief Services Officer, TeleWorld Solutions)
Multiple System Operators (MSOs) have embraced Wi-Fi over the past few years for several good reasons.
For some, increased revenue, improved customer satisfaction and reduced churn top the list. For others, offloading cellular network traffic or offering a dependable, robust alternative to established wireless competitors may be reason enough to maximize Wi-Fi deployment in a service area.
Whatever the specific reason, Wi-Fi, in many instances, isn’t being used to its true potential. Frequently, the obstacle in the way boils down to a more limited focus on management and operations when compared with that given to the design and deployment phase.
Maximizing the potential of Wi-Fi requires service providers to meet both the challenges of network design and deployment and those encountered post-deployment when the focus must shift to network management, operation, and upgrades. In other words, successfully realizing Wi-Fi’s true potential is an integrated end-to-end proposition.
At the outset, service providers must identify their specific objectives. What user experience do they wish to deliver? What about coverage? More specifically, what are the coverage requirements indoors? What about outdoors? How will costs be managed to ensure these and other objectives are met?
Working with an experienced RF network engineering team is necessary if a service provider truly wishes to realize the full potential of Wi-Fi—not simply live with the inevitable limitations of a plug-and-play approach.
Network Design
During the network design phase, RF network engineers will use accurate propagation models, high-resolution granular geographic data, and crowd-sourced data to assist providers in determining coverage objectives.
Indoor and outdoor coverage targets will be incorporated in this phase of network design. The team can also evaluate the technological specifications of equipment from multiple vendors to help providers determine if it satisfies today’s requirements and is in keeping with the roadmap laid out for the foreseeable future.
Evaluating technology also helps determine which equipment is better for a given service area based on specific parameters. For example, a high-cost, high-capacity solution may be best for a dense pedestrian subscriber area and a lower-cost alternative for a peripheral coverage-focused area.
RF engineers also will often conduct site surveys prior to deployment to identify and address real-world challenges long before installation.
During design, RF network engineers can assist providers in determining how their network capabilities will evolve over time, accounting for demand growth and capacity requirements. They can help ensure a smart infrastructure design that harnesses performance data and anticipates needs as they evolve.
Deployment Phase
During deployment—and even during the design phase—service providers should rely on their RF network engineering teams to identify highly accurate locations for Wi-Fi Access Points (AP). Site surveys will be required. While many will be automated, it is essential that field personnel receive the training needed to ensure accurate recording.
Incumbent MSOs should leverage the inherent advantages they have during deployment to lower the cost of delivering service to customers. Wi-Fi strand deployments will require practically no zoning changes or new leases for these MSOs.
MSOs also benefit from the ability of the existing DOCSIS standard to accommodate their backhaul requirements, thereby lowering Wi-Fi deployment cost and time when compared to cellular networks.
Network Operations
As noted, there’s more to taking full advantage of what Wi-Fi has to offer service providers than ensuring the best network design and deployment.
Consistent network monitoring and careful assessment of network usage can help to identify an unexpected falloff in usage or performance. These types of drop offs cannot be explained by seasonality, changes in the network, events, or other circumstances.
Further, operational excellence demands investigation and analysis to determine if certain areas, zones, AP models and/or devices are trending differently—whether positively or negatively—from the average.
Geo analysis with consideration of AP model characteristics should be conducted to identify and correct problems.
Service providers should plan to conduct their own Field Interoperability Tests (FITs) for at least a month to provide adequate time for trends to develop that can be assessed.
High-performance network operation also demands the optimization of various settings that control accessibility and ensure the desired minimum service for users. For example, service providers will want to control the minimum consumer bitrate and signal threshold needed before a device attempts to attach to an AP.
Upgrade Considerations
Service providers must also devote the same level of care to network upgrades that they devote to design, deployment and operations.
Service providers should perform a series of tests to upgrade key network infrastructure components, such as APs and firmware. They should begin with lab testing that progresses to FIT testing and ultimately large cluster testing, which can take the shape of single- and multiple-cluster level or even market-level tests, to identify issues at the device and network level.
Finally, longer statistical trending analysis of post-integration testing and follow-up field testing can reveal issues. For example, such field testing can uncover unexpected network traffic impediments due to the introduction of a new AP model and how existing user device models interact.
In The Real World
This discussion isn’t simply a theoretical exercise. For instance, one wireless service provider was able to leverage many of these recommendations to realize the full potential of Wi-Fi. The service provider wished to use Wi-Fi to offload network traffic and offset costs.
Based on an upfront data analysis, TeleWorld Solutions approached the network design in a manner reminiscent of a cellular network design. It strategically evaluated performance and leveraged its RF engineering expertise and smart network processes to apply Wi-Fi technology effectively.
TeleWorld Solutions identified network areas requiring densification and offloading and then applied Wi-Fi technology to enable smart growth.
To this day, the service provider uses TeleWorld Solutions as a credible solution to capture more traffic, doubling its offload, saving costs, and improving the experience of its customers.
Learn more about TeleWorld Solutions.