When it comes to the management of a wireless network, there is a natural and logical tendency for engineers to focus on engineering matters. This often means disregarding the implementation of sound practices for network planning database management. Unfortunately, the cost of loose data management practices is not immediately noticeable and it often takes years before an operator truly realizes the gravity of the situation. Often, it is a new initiative that makes it obvious that the network planning database is inaccurate or inconsistent. In any case, the cost for an operator can be very substantial, ranging from a lack of efficiency, to errors in the network database, which can lead to expensive mistakes such as erroneous network build outs. Read the rest of this entry »

While the use of network-based measurements in the design and optimization of wireless communication networks is on the rise, propagation modeling remains a core practice for anyone involved in wireless communication. Propagation modeling, unlike measurements, can be used to determine new radio configurations, which is a critical element in the design process. Measurements, on the other hand, can only be used to model current or existing configurations.

There is no doubt that the ability to model propagation conditions when evaluating the coverage of a candidate site or assessing the impact of a radio optimization is paramount across the entire lifecycle of the network. According to our most recent survey (November 2011) of how wireless planning tools are used, engineers in all geographies and markets are looking for further improvements in propagation model accuracy while at the same time wanting to minimize the amount of model calibration required to achieve such accuracy. Read the rest of this entry »

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Definition

How do you define software architecture? Everyone will have their own definition. There are many definitions out there, and most of them are very much software-oriented; an example is the one chosen by Wikipedia which defines software architecture as “the set of structures needed to reason about the system, which comprise software elements, relations among them, and properties of both.”. Microsoft’s definition is instead fairly high-level and abstracts very well this subjective notion: “Software application architecture is the process of defining a structured solution that meets all of the technical and operational requirements, while optimizing common quality attributes such as performance, security, and manageability. It involves a series of decisions based on a wide range of factors, and each of these decisions can have considerable impact on the quality, performance, maintainability, and overall success of the application.” Another interesting definition comes from Martin Fowler: “The highest-level breakdown of a system into its parts; the decisions that are hard to change; there are multiple architectures in a system; what is architecturally significant can change over a system’s lifetime; and, in the end, architecture boils down to whatever the important stuff is.”

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Managing today’s wireless networks is complex and most operators are managing several network layers using different access technologies, and almost always different bands. Nearly all operators are facing a capacity crunch and the solution is often to rollout additional network equipment in the form of new sites of an existing or new technology. As a result, more than 100 operators have publicly announced their commitment to LTE in order to accommodate the tremendous capacity growth they are seeing. Operational efficiency is now of paramount importance as wireless operators struggle to contain costs as the network is growing alongside the capacity.

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The availability of data hungry devices, like the iPhone and USB data cards for laptops, along with flat-rate data packages, has led to a massive increase in the data traffic carried by wireless networks. Unfortunately, this is also creating a fracture between the revenue and the demand, with demand growing at a much faster pace than revenue. Not all operators are there yet but ultimately, all operators will face this issue.

Today’s data-heavy devices are ingrained into every aspect of our lives both at home and at work which has led to over-burdened mobile networks. The demand is steadily increasing and operators can either ignore the trends and risk losing market share to the competition or adapt in order to remain competitive and find ways to remain profitable. When looking at an increase of wireless data traffic, two aspects are of particular importance: The spectral efficiency of the solution and the cost-per-bit. LTE certainly offers the promise to improve both.

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Demand for wireless network data services is driven primarily by three factors:

• Device availability so subscribers can consume data
• Service availability for bandwidth intense applications (e.g. Streaming YouTube)
• Flat-rate data plans which makes consumers willing to use their device without the fear of seeing their wireless phone bill get out of control

To deliver these services wireless operators have grown their capacity and used more efficient technologies like HSPA+ or LTE. In any case, the Shannon limit does apply and it comes to a point where a geometric increase in capacity implies a re-thinking of the network architecture such that the site offering service can be geographically close to the demand and where cells are smaller and smaller. In effect, the geometric increase in data capacity is a strong driver for what is typically referred to as “small cells”. With broadband wireless services, the demand will largely be indoor (by approximately one order magnitude more than outdoor). This will further drive the demand for femtocells and indoor cells but operators must be able to understand the economic and technical impact of these solutions.

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As our customers know, we’re passionate about the products that we develop and support. We thought the time was right to have our product managers and technical consultants blog on topics of interest to the wireless community we operate in. Watch this spot (or add our RSS feed) for information on wireless planning, automated network management and advanced wireless technologies. Feel free to post your own comments on our entries and let us know what topics you’d like to see addressed.

- Bernard, Mentum Product Management