Real-time RAN Performance And QoE Metrics To Optimize The RAN Dynamically

A conversation with David FitzGerald, Director of the Office of the CTO, Ascom Network Testing

How does the way we optimize the RAN change in a network environment in which both capacity and demand change continually, but the need to meet high standards of QoE remains the same? We talked about this with David FitzGerald, Director of the Office of the CTO, at Ascom. David told us: “Capacity changes dynamically during the day, or over a period of time. The challenge is, as traffic increases, how do I really know what my capacity is, and when do I need to invest to maintain the customer experience?”

This means that RAN optimization has to be in near real time, and at the cell level. David sees this as a paradigm shift: “Until now, engineers have had to understand when their networks were reaching triggering thresholds. They did that on an average basis. But there is no average in the real world. In the real world, there is the behavior of the specific cell carrier. We can provide you the information you need to let you act on every measured that particular cell carrier. When you have this information for every cell carrier in your network, your activity becomes much more granular. You can prioritize the locations where you add your carriers, or you can change how you add a new site if you are going to split sites, based on where your customer experience is declining.”

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