Reader Forum: Self optimizing networks – tips for success

Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly Reader Forum section. In an attempt to broaden our interaction with our readers we have created this forum for those with something meaningful to say to the wireless industry. We want to keep this as open as possible, but maintain some editorial control so as to keep it free of commercials or attacks. Please send along submissions for this section to our editors at: dmeyer@rcrwireless.com or tford@rcrwireless.com.
Early on in my career as a RF engineer, the buzz around self optimizing network was prevalent. At that point in time engineers were skeptical and operators even more so as they did not believe equipment vendors knew enough about operating networks, let alone have the ability to be able to build any automated intelligence therein.
However in the last 15 years, a lot has changed. Original equipment manufacturers like Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Siemens Networks manage enough networks through managed services deals that they can be easily considered as some of the world’s largest operators themselves.
Furthermore, the operator business focus has shifted to the core tasks of customer acquisition, retention and profitability improvement, and key differentiators for achieving these goals lie primarily within pricing plans, device options, content and application leadership.
Finally, operators are losing control of the number of supported and tested devices on their network and their associated applications, creating a more dynamic and complex network operating environment in terms of managing offered capacity and quality.
You may ask the question; “well what does this have to do with SON?” Well, the truth is that SON, done correctly, holds the key for operators to either run their networks with less operating expense and focus on their subscribers, to manage quality of service and support for today’s smartphones, tablets, consumer devices, etc., and for to extract better profitability through lower operating costs and more dynamic pricing plans.
However the caveat for “SON done correctly” lies in taking a customer-centric and/or service-QoS-centric approach in developing SON functionality. Traditional SON solutions focus on overall network improvement with a network-centric bias. However, this needs to be altered with the goal of ensuring that the network can dynamically morph to ensure that each subscriber receives the targeted coverage, quality and resources to match the quality of service level contract the subscriber has selected. Appropriate data collection, processing, provisioning and configuration features need to be developed within intelligent OSS platforms along with associated billing and customer experience management platforms to ensure a practical and complete SON solution.
In order to achieve SON nirvana, OEMs need to work internally in the network and externally with device manufacturers and app developer communities with the following goals:
–Standardize the reporting of the appropriate “experience” data fields by device manufacturers and app developers which can then be processed by the network’s SON engine.
–Standardize remote provisioning and care interfaces with device OEMs so that the plethora of consumer devices anticipated to be active on wireless networks can be interrogated, managed and controlled by the SON engine to ensure a continuous high quality experience.
–Develop the ability to identify bottlenecks to achieving desired QoS levels during provisioning and translate those bottlenecks into a capital expenditure-expansion bill of materials – automated capacity planning. Smarter trending genetic algorithms can be incorporated so that capex expansion can be projected into the future.
–Investigate the use of mesh or machine-to-machine technology within devices, controlled by the SON engine, to be able to improve resource utilization and connectivity for dense hotspot situations or high-impact social network apps.
–Tie the SON engine with the OSS provisioning, configuration and fault management platforms so appropriate changes identified can be realized immediately.
–Develop an environment for dynamic promotional pricing rates to be pushed to subscribers to avail of based on network availability and/or capacity/QoS bottlenecks.
–Ensure standardized interfaces are developed for customer care and billing platforms to be included as part of the SON ecosystem.
In summary, I believe the functionality goal itself should be renamed to “self optimizing experience,” where dependent on the service the subscriber in trying to use, the SOE engine orchestrates the network, device and app to jointly provision, configure and allocate the appropriate resources to ensure delivered experience matches the QoS level purchased. If thought leadership and standards are created with a “pay for experience” mindset, this will enable service providers and app developers to differentiate customers based on QoS in a real-time manner. In the end the real goal for SOE or SON should be to deliver an enhanced consumer experience at a lower operating cost that a customer is happy to pay a premium for.