admin, Author at Digis Squared

Digis Squared joins TIP, Telecom Infra Project

Posted on November 24, 2020October 14, 2022 by admin

Amr Maged, Digis Squared Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer announced, “We are proud to join the international Telecom Infra Project, whose members are working together to drive infrastructure solutions and advance global connectivity. This vital collaborative work will ensure that everyone benefits from the best possible communications – something we have all become acutely aware of at this time when so many people around the world can not physically meet with family, friends, work colleagues and clients.”

“We firmly believe in the importance of high quality, national and international connectivity. Digis Squared was formed to help our clients resolve the complex issues which often arise when a patchwork of solutions from multiple vendors is deployed. Today, our O-RAN work with clients is showing a very strong market demand for improved, flexible inter-connectivity, and we are confident that telecoms infrastructure solutions will grow stronger, and more quickly with the collaboration of the TIP community.”

In conversation with Amr Maged, Digis Squared Co-Founder & CSO.

If you would like to learn more about how the Digis Squared team can help you with network optimisation, OpenRAN and more, please use this link or email sales@DigisSquared.com to arrange an informal chat.

Keep up to speed with company updates, product launches and our quarterly newsletter, sign up here.

Digis Squared, independent telecoms expertise.

About the Telecom Infra Project (TIP)

The Telecom Infra Project (TIP) is a global community of companies and organizations that are driving infrastructure solutions to advance global connectivity. Half of the world’s population is still not connected to the internet, and for those who are, connectivity is often insufficient. This limits access to the multitude of consumer and commercial benefits provided by the internet, thereby impacting GDP growth globally. However, a lack of flexibility in the current solutions – exacerbated by a limited choice in technology providers – makes it challenging for operators to efficiently build and upgrade networks. Founded in 2016, TIP is a community of diverse members that includes hundreds of companies – from service providers and technology partners, to systems integrators and other connectivity stakeholders. We are working together to develop, test and deploy open, disaggregated, and standards-based solutions that deliver the high quality connectivity that the world needs – now and in the decades to come. Find out more: www.telecominfraproject.com

Abbreviations

O-RAN & Open RAN: via standardised radio interfaces and interoperability, hardware and software components from multiple vendors operate over network interfaces that are “open and interoperable”
TIP: Telecom Infra Project

Image credit: the TIP logo and graphics are copyright and trademark TIP. The “digis2” logo is copyright and trademark Digis Squared Limited.

Technology sunset ◦ Navigating a route from legacy networks to the future

Posted on November 3, 2020October 14, 2022 by admin

In conversation with Digis Squared CTO, Abdulrahman Fady, we discuss mobile network technology sunset issues and opportunities.

As 5G rollouts gather pace globally, and new technology deployments continue their unstoppable march, many networks are also grappling with what to do about legacy technologies. In 1991 Radiolinja launched 2G in Finland, and 2001 brought the first 3G launch, achieved by NTT DoCoMo in Japan – both network technologies are still in active commercial use around the world, but for how much longer?

Abdulrahman Fady, CTO at Digis Squared, has worked in the technology sector for more than 20 years, and joined Digis Squared in 2018. In this blog post he shares his analysis of mobile network migration strategy and implementation in the context of network technology sunset issues and opportunities.

“Spectrum resources are finite, and operators wanting to launch new technologies need to either license new spectrum, if available, or re-allocate spectrum used for 2G and 3G. In most regions now re-allocation is the only option.”

“These old legacy technologies, 2G and 3G, they’ve been around for so long, that it’s tempting to think you could just switch them off and re-allocate the spectrum when utilisation drops below a certain threshold. But these old technologies continue to serve some really important markets. Firstly, low-income families often utilise older handsets which can only connect to 2G or 3G networks, and these provide a vital connection to the internet and mobile apps, across all geographic regions. These older handsets also tend to be simpler – appreciated by elderly users who don’t seek the complexity of smartphones.”

“And secondly, IoT. Early IoT deployments are often limited to only being able to connect to 2G or 3G networks, and physical replacement in many IoT use cases is frequently prohibitively expensive or geographically difficult.”

But some networks have already decommissioned their 2G networks – particularly Singapore, New Zealand and Australia. How did they achieve that?

“In Australia and New Zealand it’s the MNOs which have driven their 2G shut down. A low number of 2G M2M customers and the relative wealth of their consumer customers has mitigated most of their risks, but care still needs to be taken in this type of situation. If you are the first operator in a territory to switch off the old legacy network, you effectively force the churn of those 2G-only customers who won’t or can’t upgrade to your competitors – and so if you’re the last operator to switch off your 2G network, you might well have “acquired” all the low ARPU, low margin 2G consumers and IoT connections. Depending on the region, the regulator may intervene to force the maintenance of a rationalised legacy network, with lower capacity and coverage for low demand but critical IoT infrastructure, and vulnerable low income groups.”

“Other Asian countries have worked with regulator-led projects to decommission 2G, and reallocate network spectrum. But the commercial elements of these projects are not easy: M2M migration costs had to be negotiated in Singapore, New Zealand had to facilitate individual migrations, and continue to support a million smart meter connections.”

There are other commercial impacts too. “Mini-links and other microwave services on base stations were able to handle voice-only 2G and 3G demand, but when 2G and particularly 3G services are switched-off this drives an increase in demand for backbone services, and this in turn reduces the need for tower services, backhaul and transmission services.”

“In Europe, conversely, 3G networks are being turned off first, as there are a greater number of legacy M2M connections in the territory. These 3G devices can default down to the earlier 2G technology – a fallback strategy initially conceived to address coverage issues when 3G first launched, is now helping the more advanced technology become obsolete earlier!”

Partnering for change

“Whenever a network is switched off, the impacts on the remaining technologies will be considerable,” Abdulrahman explains. “Typically the switch off is more of a switch-over, as cell capacity is first reduced and then de-commissioned. Re-balancing and optimisation of the network loads is active and ongoing throughout the transition process, being undertaken with care to achieve minimum disruption. Working with strong, experienced partners in both the strategy and implementation phases, who can flexibly handle projects as unexpected issues arise, is crucial. Add multi-vendor network components into the mix, and the benefits of working with staff who have experience across all vendors and technologies can be vital to achieving a smooth network migration.”

Opportunities

“Whilst technology sunsets can initially seem complex, with careful consideration and planning, the process will deliver considerable benefits. The new network technologies reduce power usage and carbon footprint, and deliver enhanced speed, bandwidth and security. And, as day follows night, it is inevitable – it’s always better to be prepared and ready to make the most of the opportunity a new day brings!”

In conversation with Abdulrahman Fady, Digis Squared CTO.

Discover more

Technology sunset & spectrum refarming.

If you would like to learn more about how the Digis Squared team can help you with technology sunset and 5G strategy, deployment or optimisation, please use this link or email sales@DigisSquared.com to arrange an informal chat.

Keep up to speed with company updates, product launches and our quarterly newsletter, sign up here.

Digis Squared, independent telecoms expertise.

Sources

The Mobile Economy 2020, GSMA / GSMA Mobile Intelligence, Q1 2020
Mobility Report, Ericsson, June 2020
Legacy mobile network rationalisation, experiences of 2G and 3G migrations in Asia-Pacific, GSMA, May 2020

Abbreviations

CAT-M1: see LTE-M.
NB-IoT: Narrowband Internet of Things. One of two data networking technologies available on 4G (the other is LTE-M, aka CAT-M1). Intended for narrow band (250 kbps) low power data applications and does not support voice communications.
LTE-M: LTE Machine Type Communication. Also known as Cat-M1. One of two data networking technologies available on 4G (the other is NB-IoT). Provides considerably higher bandwidth (1Mbps), supports voice and full mobility.

Image credit: Quino Al

5G ◦ Why is it so complex to deploy?

Posted on October 20, 2020October 14, 2022 by admin

In conversation with Digis Squared CTO AbdulRahman Fady, we explore some of the complexities and opportunities.

5G is a hot topic, with new handsets coming to market, and networks expanding globally. Abdulrahman Fady, CTO at Digis Squared, has worked in the technology sector for more than 20 years, and in this blog post he shares his views on how the deployment of this latest generation of telecom technologies will bring new problems to solve, and new opportunities to grasp.

So please share with us Abdulrahman, why is 5G so complex to deploy?

“By 2025, 5G networks are likely to cover one-third of the world’s population.”
Source: GSMA [1]

5G rollout, complexity and issues

“Everyone is talking about 5G and how important it is for the ICT industry. Deploying 5G will change and benefit our societies, however, to deliver the real benefits of 5G a lot of challenges need to be addressed, starting with infrastructure and security, and expanding across all spheres into people culture and anthropology, and far from the expertise and competencies of the average ICT engineer.”

“I don’t think this will be an easy journey! It will be a really tough but exciting journey, where people have to learn how to implement adequate automation and AI techniques to make use of the data 5G delivers – it simply won’t be possible to assess the volume of data without AI. Technically, I believe there will be a strong competition between legacy RAN vendors and O-RAN vendors as they compete for market leadership – this will deliver benefits for operators and CSPs, and drive innovation and identification of new efficiencies.”

5G & IoT: “many of its technical capabilities have been designed with Industry 4.0 applications in mind:

Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communication (URLLC) is vital for real-time communications between machines

Greater bandwidth and support for higher device density enables use cases that generate more data traffic and host a greater number of devices or sensors

Network slicing allows virtual separation of networks, enhancing security and reliability

Mobile Edge Computing allows critical network functionality to be retained at the edge, further enhancing resilience and operational continuity”

Source: GSMA [2]

“In the field of IIoT and C-IoT, I think there will be a lot of new ideas generated as nerds and ICT people get their hands on 5G tech. As these different approaches come together – the nerds exploring what the new tech and new devices can do, and ICT staff searching for solutions to address specific issues – they will bounce ideas of each other, and there will be real energy and dynamism as they race to bring new innovations to market.”

“5G will be a huge opportunity for the big cloud providers like Amazon, Google and Microsoft to change the way MNOs work, delivering massive real-time analysis capability, new opportunities for collaborative international teams to work together, system resilience and efficiency.”

“However, it’s not all good news! I think 5G security will be a showstopper in many countries, limiting the deployment of all its functions in some places. These issues will in turn bring great opportunities for third parties and SIs to play a far bigger role in the ICT ecosystem.”

The biggest issue

“But do you want to know the biggest issue I see? The number one challenge limiting 5G spreading swiftly worldwide, and blocking the real benefits of 5G deployments, is the complexity of handsets, the UEs and terminals.”

MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) “MIMO has been used in wireless communications for a long time now — it’s common for both mobile devices and networks to have multiple antennas to enhance connectivity and offer better speeds and user experiences. MIMO algorithms come into play to control how data maps into antennas and where to focus energy in space. Both network and mobile devices need to have tight coordination among each other to make MIMO work.”
Source: Qualcomm [3]

5G uses Massive MIMO and expands on the existing MIMO systems, by adding a much higher number of antennas on the base station – this helps focus energy, which brings massive improvements in throughput and efficiency. As well as all the additional antennas, both the network and mobile devices implement more complex designs to coordinate MIMO operations.

5G utilises different parts of the radio spectrum to deliver performance, capacity and coverage
mmWave spectrum: best for dense urban areas and crowded indoor environments. Doesn’t travel very far, so an array of antennas is used for beamforming, which concentrates the radio energy to extend the range.
sub-6 GHz spectrum: best for broad 5G coverage and capacity with faster, more uniform data rates both outdoors and indoors for more users, simultaneously.

“5G handsets are super-sophisticated: they need to support Massive MIMO techniques, along with beamforming, sub-6GHZ bands, and mmWave for mobile. Designing all of this to work together is putting real pressure on antenna and RF designs – and then the ultimate challenge, physically fitting all of this into a beautiful handset design!”

“And if that’s not complex enough, we all expect our mobile devices to have incredibly efficient batteries, and yet remain small and lightweight, and deliver performance enhancements across 4G, 3G and GSM. You need very strong modems and processors deployed inside 5G handsets – and all of this in addition to the complexity 5G adds to software, OS and Kernel layers. That’s why it is not an easy job to deliver high-end 5G handsets!”

Opportunity

“There are many challenges, opportunities and battles to come as 5G rollout continues, and it will also create real opportunities and big returns if you have positioned yourself and your company right within the ecosystem.”

In conversation with Abdulrahman Fady, Digis Squared CTO

If you would like to learn more about how the Digis Squared team can help you with 5G strategy, deployment or optimisation, please use this link or email sales@DigisSquared.com to arrange an informal chat.

Keep up to speed with company updates, product launches and our quarterly newsletter, sign up here.

Digis Squared, independent telecoms expertise.

Sources

GSMA 5G deployments to date, this snapshot from 19th October 2020
GSMA 5G for smart manufacturing. Insights on how 5G and IoT can transform industry, 16 April 2020
Qualcomm, How 5G massive MIMO transforms your mobile experiences

Abbreviations

C-IoT: Consumer Internet of Things (typically, consumer devices and applications in the consumer electronics space such as smartwatches or smart thermostats)
CSP: Communications Service Providers
ICT: Information and communications technology
IIoT: Industrial Internet of Things (interconnected sensors, instruments, and other devices networked together with computers’ industrial applications, including manufacturing and energy management)
Massive MIMO: a set of multiple-input and multiple-output technologies for multipath wireless communication, in which multiple users or terminals, each radioing over one or more antennas, communicate with one another.
O-RAN: Open RAN – via standardised radio interfaces and interoperability, hardware and software components from multiple vendors operate over network interfaces that are “open and interoperable”
SIs: System Integrators
URLLC: Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communication

Image credit: Denys Nevozhai

INOS 5G ◦ Now more than ever, test and optimise your 5G network

Posted on September 28, 2020October 14, 2022 by admin

INOS ◦ now with 5G & multi-vendor chipset support

Enhanced 5G benchmarking and testing capability, OpenRAN functionality testing, and multi-vendor 5G chipset support, the latest major new features added to INOS ensure clients have access to valuable commercial capability.

INOS – the independent telecoms network benchmarking, drive-test and in-building solution developed in-house at Digis Squared – has just been enhanced to deliver major new features to our telecom operator, CSP* and Regulatory clients, including those managing Private Networks. These new features deliver significant new capability to uncover and resolve even more telecom network issues, and enhance customer QoE and network QoS.

“The new 5G INOS features announced today will help MNOs better understand and optimise their network performance, including in deployments with complex multi-vendor architectures and OpenRAN. This is great news for our clients needing Covid-19 safe solutions to optimise their 5G infrastructure, for Regulators working to obtain an independent view of total network performance, and ultimately to the end customer seeking a better connection.”
AbdulRahman Fady, Digis Squared CTO

New 5G capability

Extending the range of network testing capabilities, the new enhancements add 5G to our 2G, 3G, 4G and IoT (CAT-M, NB-IoT 1, NB-IoT 2) network capability, across voice, video, data and OTT
The new INOS 5G complete testing set gives you visibility of more than two hundred different network KPIs
5G benchmarking solution gives you full visibility of network QoS and customer QoE
5G L3, L2 and L1 signalling capability
5G fully automated single site verification drive testing solution
5G indoor (in-building survey) testing capability.

Extended handset support

Now supporting multi-vendor 5G chipsets: Huawei, Samsung and Qualcomm flagship mobiles.

O-RAN support

OpenRAN functionality testing, end to end, from radio through to interoperability and benchmark testing between OpenRAN and Legacy RAN
Ensures you can pin-point which component in your multi-vendor ecosystem needs to be optimised or investigated further.

Cloud control – for instant updates, and Covid-19 safety

Our cloud-controlled INOS automated testing platform delivers both drive testing, and in building survey data, enabling operators and service providers to efficiently obtain the insights needed for key decisions.
Our tools need just one person in the vehicle or building – no engineers are needed on-site, ensuring that they can do their work safely and together we can keep our communities connected.
Detailed, actionable automated reports are generated within just 15 minutes after tests are completed.
Additionally, our real-time-view ensures you can immediately take action to address performance issues, and optimise your capability whilst engineers are still in the field. Make adjustments, OTA update test parameters and re-run your analysis swiftly.

Independent telecoms network analysis and benchmarking just got smarter.

Know your strengths, and weaknesses, across all network technologies. Now more than ever, ensure you know the capability, performance, quality of experience and coverage of your voice and data networks, and that of your competitors, so that you can optimise your assets efficiently. Discover more about how INOS can help you, here.

Now more than ever, test and optimise your 5G network.

To discuss how our independent tools and vendor-agnostic expertise can help your business, please use this link or email sales@DigisSquared.com to arrange an informal chat.

Keep up to speed with company updates, product launches and our quarterly newsletter, sign up here.

Digis Squared, independent telecoms expertise.

Abbreviations

CSP: Communications Service Providers
INOS: Intelligent Network Optimisation Solution, one of Digis Squared’s AI-led automated tools.
MNO: Mobile Network Operator
OpenRAN: via standardised radio interfaces and interoperability, hardware and software components from multiple vendors operate over network interfaces that are “open and interoperable”
QoE: Quality of Experience
QoS: Quality of Service

Image credit: Tim Trad

Regulators ◦ Now more than ever, use independent tools and expertise

Posted on September 22, 2020October 14, 2022 by admin

Is this the perfect storm of telecoms technical complexity?

As network deployments get more complex, capacity management more difficult to predict, and customer demands rise, how can Telecoms Regulators help deliver the best customer experience?

Globally, 5G deployments are picking up pace, and 2G and 3G networks starting to be retired – engineers at MNOs and CSPs* are knee-deep in complexity, managing technology sunset strategies, IoT connectivity migrations, and adding new layers of 5G components into the patchwork of systems from multiple vendors. This activity brings with it more new operational systems and alarms to integrate (and disentangle), and extra work to try to bring everything together into a cohesive system.

On top of that, the operational teams within MNOs and CSPs have been working hard this year to reconfigure networks to handle shifts in demand, as the pandemic forces huge numbers of people to suddenly work and study from home, and unpredictable demand patterns are addressed as best as possible.

Is this the perfect storm of telecoms technical complexity? How should Telecoms Regulators respond and ensure customer Quality of Experience and Quality of Service are maintained? With so many technical changes occurring in a short space of time, how can technical regulatory staff keep pace with technology, anticipate the future, and ensure their knowledge-base remains unbiased?

Digis Squared has over 50 industry experts with 10 or more years’ multinational mobile operator and vendor experience.

Use our expertise to work alongside your teams and augment their skills and capability,

Independent tools for QoE & QoS network benchmarking
Band & spectrum strategy consultation
Competence development to keep pace with new technologies.

“The Digis Squared team has a depth of experience and knowledge of implementations that you only acquire through years of working on difficult projects and tricky technology deployments. The team bring these insights to all their work, whether that’s with MNOs, CSPs or Regulators.“
Mohamed Hamdy, Digis Squared CCO

Independent tools for QoE & QoS network benchmarking

Regulatory coverage and performance concerns vary by market, but in general fall into 3 distinct areas,

Many telecom network licenses have requirements to achieve specific KPIs: Geographical coverage, data throughput rates, QoS requirements.
Legacy benchmarking solutions are often expensive, no longer supported by the vendor, and have a long and slow process to deliver the final report.
When the report is eventually available, it is often a readout of dry statistics, with no clear recommendations on improvements. And with multiple solutions from multiple vendors implemented across the MNOs and CSPs in your territory, there is no standard process to rank and compare network operators.

Since the inception of Digis Squared the leadership team decided to invest and develop its own in-house, vendor-agnostic, multi-technology and scalable automated solutions, to ensure its staff and clients have access to vendor-independent assessment and testing of networks. Today, we are able to provide our clients with these tools to ensure they have an independent assessment of network capabilities. MNOs use our tools to help them accelerate network upgrades and network transformation, ensuring they are able to manage their network traffic growth and network complexity efficiently. Regulators use our tools to ensure they have the insights they need to assess KPIs independently.

INOS is the AI-led QoS and QoE benchmarking tool developed in-house at Digis Squared, using no network vendor tools.

Automated and efficient solution for fast and accurate reporting
Analysis and recommendations on improvements
Cross-check performance against the license to help regulators identify the gaps
Proven in the field with MNOs and Regulators
Interacts with all major vendors’ platforms, including Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia
Covid19 safe solution: our tools need just one person in the vehicle or building – no engineers are needed on-site, ensuring that they can do their work safely and together we can keep our communities connected.

When used by Telecoms Regulators, INOS delivers,

One independent, vendor and network agnostic solution
Fully automated reports, just 15 minutes after tests end
Failure insights: empowered by automation and analytics, we can deliver detailed insights into failure reason
INOS BM score – rank and benchmark all operators, by all services tested, across all network technologies and vendors
Independent and transparent scrutiny: Operators can access INOS platform, with limited and agreed privileges to review their log files and reports.

INOS KPIs include, but are not limited to,

Coverage & quality radio conditions
Field KPIs: CST, CSSR, HOSR, CDR
Throughput DL & UL: FTP, HTTP, HTTPs
Voice quality: POLQA
Video Quality: PEVQs
OTTs KPIs
Adopted optimisation strategy
Overlapping and needed neighbours’ optimisation
UE Happy Index

Get in touch to talk with us informally about how we can help your Regulatory teams with independent tools and expertise for network benchmarking, and discover INOS here.

Band & spectrum strategy consultation

The Digis Squared team have decades of experience working in telecoms operators and telecom equipment providers, with huge experience across many countries, implementations, technology deployments, and vendor solutions. We can work alongside your teams, or independently, to share our insights and assess innovative and commercial uses of your spectrum, to ensure optimum utilisation in your market.

Assess the utilisation of all existing bands
Evaluate service usage and importance with stakeholders
Policy & procedure updates
Spectrum audit and redeployment strategies: identify, complement, and refine all data on national spectrum use
Future policy: balancing the needs of end-users and spectrum-users are met to encourage investment
Emerging technologies: implementation scenarios and spectrum allocation recommendations for 5G, WLAN, LPWA and more.

Competence development & training

We recognise the difficulties in identifying the vendor-independent training necessary to ensure your teams are not unconsciously biased towards specific solutions.

Our team of experienced staff are well placed to deliver a broad range of technical and non-technical training.

Our approach for competence development utilises different methods to best suit the client, their culture and team needs, with an emphasis on on-job training as well as classroom training, delivered as active, participatory workshops and webinars by our technology experts. We can deliver training on-site, remotely via video link, or in your own time via online material.

Get in touch to arrange a no-obligation discussion with our team, or request a copy of our Technical Training Catalogue: sales@DigisSquared.com

“In my view, it’s more important than ever that Telecoms Regulators use independent expertise and tools in their assessments, to ensure they have a complete view of their ecosystem, and prepare for whatever storms are on the horizon.”
Mohamed Hamdy, Digis Squared CCO

Now more than ever, use independent tools and expertise in regulatory assessments.

To discuss how our independent tools and vendor-agnostic expertise can help your Regulatory Teams, please use this link or email sales@DigisSquared.com to arrange a video call.

Keep up to speed with company updates, product launches and our quarterly newsletter, sign up here.

Digis Squared, independent telecoms expertise.

Abbreviations

CSP: Communications Service Providers
INOS: Intelligent Network Optimisation Solution, one of Digis Squared’s AI-led automated tools.
MNO: Mobile Network Operator
QoE: Quality of Experience
QoS: Quality of Service

Image credit: Michael D.

Capacity management ◦ Now more than ever, as staff return to offices, handle unpredictable demand with agility

Posted on September 15, 2020October 14, 2022 by admin

As network capacity and demand flex again, Communications Service Providers (CSPs) and Mobile Network Operators need to adapt to shifts in office use and working patterns – how can AI help?

As the initial phases of the pandemic swept around the world, communication providers and network operators worked hard to reconfigure their networks to address the unpredictable changes in demand, and keep communities connected. Now, as staff return to offices in increasing numbers, the networks need to be reconfigured again, and be ready to continue to adapt, as changes in society and working patterns rapidly evolve. But predicting how to adjust capacity is complex – some businesses are encouraging the continuation of home-working, others are rotating teams with one week in and the next at home, or splitting teams by day of the week. And all of these changes in office use, and the retail and social spaces they support, are fluidly adapting to the ebb and flow of local lockdowns. Can AI help CSPs and MNOs to manage their network capacity to address this lack of pattern and constant change?

In our blog on Capacity Management in May, we shared stats illustrating the big shift in communication demands,

“The five largest operators in Spain reported a 40% increase in overall IP traffic, a 25% increase in mobile traffic and a 50% increase in mobile voice traffic since the start of the outbreak.”
Analysys Mason (1)

Home working, with its heavy use of video conferencing and collaboration, combined with a surge in demand for digital entertainment, home studying and intensive use of multiple devices simultaneously, led to a previously unimaginable surge in demand for capacity on both fixed and mobile networks. The changes in mobile network demand highlighted difficult to predict anomalies – in many cities, as people stayed at home, significant demand was off-loaded to home wifi networks (Deloitte (2): “some telcos say they have seen a 300% increase in the use of these voice-over-WiFi services.”), in contrast with rural areas and other poorly served broadband-black-spots, mobile data demand has soared.

“…the way to consider a crisis of this magnitude is to identify three phases: Respond, Recover and Thrive.”
Deloitte (2)

Now that the initial rush to support business employees working from home has passed, more countries are slowly re-opening business premises – with staggered start times, and changes in working practice. The need to maintain agility in capacity management is vital, as lockdowns will be enforced dynamically over the months and years ahead.

Planning ahead

Short-term challenges addressed earlier in the pandemic,

After the initial dynamic changes in customer behaviour, and the lack of revenue from roaming charges, many operators continue to experience significant pressure on operating expenses, and have taken quick business decisions to remove costs
Capital expenditure plans have been rapidly re-assessed to ensure re-prioritisation to meet the new revenue and business continuity needs
Re-assessment of supply chains, equipment procurement issues, safe social distancing in the workplace, and staff absence levels
Rapid revenue and cash management, as economies globally continue to experience a massive downturn.

Now, plans are being made to manage the “next new normal”, as changes in society and working patterns continue to evolve, and staff return to offices. At Digis Squared we believe this next phase is even harder, as “Business As Usual” will mean a constant need for agility and flexing to meet demand. But the good news is that we can help MNOs and CSPs address the exceptional levels of uncertainty and dynamic change, and AI is part of the mix,

Accelerate digital transformation: use AI and RPA to manage higher customer service call volumes to support remote working, and handle mundane repetitive tasks and digital self-service via automation
Revise Business Continuity Plans: review assumptions, re-plan and re-scale
Accelerate 5G deployment and integration to better handle high demand dynamically
Implement autonomous capacity management, to ensure that your mobile networks work efficiently.

Whilst many short terms solutions have been rapidly implemented, now is the time to ensure they are robust and resilient enough to continue to handle the longer term, and to re-assess Business Continuity Plans.

AI-led autonomous capacity management

We can help communications services providers and mobile network operators to achieve more with your network resources: absorb new traffic demands, and optimize the expansions you need by using Digis Squared’s vendor-agnostic, off-the-shelf solutions.

Use our expertise to dynamically assist your teams

Our areas of focus are,

Vendor agnostic AI-led capacity modelling for all network technologies (2G/3G/4G/5G)
Machine learning algorithms using network data enriched with multiple data feeds from radio access network, Customer Experience Management (CEM), geolocation systems and crowdsourced data
Predictive traffic growth based on AI-power algorithms followed by degradation preventive actions and expansions prediction
Action-centric benchmarking (BM) reports including KPIs, KQIs and Customers QOEs
ROI calculations for network investments.

Many of our clients use modular capacity management modules developed by Digis Squared team, with bespoke adaptations if needed, to,

Balance the traffic between cells & technologies
Recommend soft actions needed
Activate & reshuffle sites licenses
Capacity enhancement feature recommendations
Physical changes
Network expansions and reshuffling required.

Our teams can use these capabilities to deliver value to service providers and mobile network operators,

Start the smart CAPEX journey, and identify pathways to OPEX saving
Maximize network investment ROI and help operators make well-informed, data-centred investment decisions
Speed-up network capacity plans through our automated-predictive solution.

We can assist you right now with our ready-to-go, adaptive-modular capacity management modules, developed by the Digis Squared team to,

Balance the traffic between cells & technologies
Recommend soft actions needed
Activate & reshuffle sites licenses
Capacity enhancement feature recommendations
Physical changes
Network expansions and reshuffling required.

Discover more about our Digis-Capacity, AI & ML capabilities.

Now more than ever, capacity management ensures you can handle unpredictable demand with agility.

To discuss how our capacity management expertise can help your business, please use this link or email sales@DigisSquared.com to arrange an informal chat.

Keep up to speed with company updates, product launches and our quarterly newsletter, sign up here.

“In the words of one the telecom operator we spoke to: ‘ideally we never go back to the way we operated before this crisis’.”
Source: Deloitte (2)

Sources,

Image credit: Daniel Von Appen

INOS ◦ Now more than ever, know your network strengths, and weaknesses

Posted on July 28, 2020October 14, 2022 by admin

Understand what has changed, then invest

As work patterns continue to change, operators struggle to model their network capacity and investment plans. Understanding current network coverage, performance and quality of experience, and that of competitors, is vital before investment decisions are made.

Our cloud-controlled INOS automated testing platform delivers both drive testing, and in building data, enabling operators and service providers to efficiently obtain the insights needed for key upgrade decisions. [Our tools need just one person in the vehicle or building – no engineers are needed on-site, ensuring that they can do their work safely and together we can keep our communities connected.]

Know your strengths, and weaknesses. Now more than ever, ensure you know the capability, performance, quality of experience and coverage of your voice and data networks, and that of your competitors, before you invest. Discover more about how INOS can help you, here.

Now more than ever, use INOS to benchmark coverage, performance & QoE.

To discuss how our network benchmarking expertise can help your business, please use this link or email sales@DigisSquared.com to arrange a convenient time for an informal conversation.

Keep up to speed with company updates, product launches and our quarterly newsletter, sign up here.

Digis Squared, independent telecoms expertise.

Image credit: Klavs Taimins

5G ◦ Now more than ever, deliver the robust capability you need

Posted on July 7, 2020October 14, 2022 by admin

5G in 2020: the time to build is now

In the last quarter of 2019, the number of 5G subscriptions had more than quadrupled to reach at least 17.73 million (1), and the GSMA was forecasting that “…2020 is set to prove the year for mass-market adoption around the world” (2). Although forecasts have changed, 2020 is still the year to build 5G, its capacity and robustness is needed now more than ever.

Covid-19 & 5G rollout

At the start of the Covid-19 crisis, as workers and students rapidly adjusted to working from home where they could, mobile data demand shifted rapidly and operators worked hard to keep pace. Some demand was displaced to fixed broadband and fibre connections, whilst others used mobile data to deal with competing demands of online gaming and video calls within the same household.

Even at the start of the crisis, a European IT Buyer Sentiment Survey conducted by IDC revealed that “58% of spending on 5G technology will be increased or will remain the same”, (3).

Now, as the pandemic continues to disrupt lives and society globally, with staff and students continuing to work and study from home, high speed, reliable connectivity has become essential. Home broadband has often struggled to meet demand, and 5G can often provide a better, more reliable and stable solution. As mobile network capacity has flexed to try and address the unpredictable demand, end customers have been very aware of which powerful, flexible and stable networks have adapted to meet their needs. 5G’s ultra-low latency and high-reliability has ensured that those customer’s with the ability to access it, have benefited from an excellent customer experience.

“5G will play a critical role in the digital economy for decades to come. This new era of intelligent connectivity offers the chance to recast customer value propositions, accelerate industrial transformation, and reinvigorate the digital society.”
Source: EY (6)

In the initial stage of the pandemic, many mobile network operators and service providers put their investment plans on hold, realigning resources to meet the immediate needs of network re-dimensioning. Now, as the world starts to address mid to long term strategies, mobile operators and service providers are re-considering their 5G plans. As IDC portray in their graphic below (3), as we move forward through the different economic phases ahead of us, business focus changes.

Today, as business confidence slowly rebuilds, and commercial activity picks up pace, adjusted 5G strategies and rollout plans are progressing. As this GSMA map illustrates, as of June 2020, there are now 79 commercial launches globally.

Digis Squared, independent telecoms expertise

In the months ahead, as we move through the cycles IDC identifies, our experienced, independent and multi-vendor team at Digis Squared can help and guide your teams as they,

Reassess and revise technical and commercial network strategies, and budgets
Reconsider network vendor selection options commercially and technically
Review and revise rollout plans to address changes in working patterns, shifts in geographical demands and deliver extra flexibility for the future
Re-test and optimise existing network infrastructure, to ensure your existing investments are working as effectively as possible.

Perhaps, Communications Service Providers (CSPs) or Mobile Network Operator, you are considering whether to roll out 5G at all, and want to better understand how you can utilise your existing technologies for longer. We can help you assess this, and dimension your legacy infrastructure and licenses to optimise their use for a longer than originally anticipated lifespan.

Other businesses are experiencing supply chain disruption and bottlenecks in raw material access, production, and distribution. These, in turn, may cause you to re-assess commercial contracts and technical options – our teams can help you understand options and impacts, and ensure you have the flexibility and capability to be as ready as possible for whatever happens next.

As 5G rollout plans change and flex in ways we never envisaged, now more than ever, work with flexible partners to support your changing needs and deliver robust 5g capability.

Digis Squared, independent telecoms expertise.

Now more than ever, deliver the robust capability you need with 5G

Managed Services ◦ Now more than ever, reduce operational costs and outpace competitors

Posted on June 9, 2020October 14, 2022 by admin

This year service providers and telecom operators have experienced greater uncertainty and unpredictability than in any other. With rapidly changing demand and geographical dynamics, shortages of equipment, and increased customer enquiries, all teams across businesses have been stretched to capacity. Combined with this, staff and family health and home schooling, plus physical office and working from home issues have meant that “working” has itself been more difficult than ever before.

Working safely, to keep communities connected

The “new normal” created massive changes in demand, as both home-working and communications between friends and family impacted the networks. At Digis Squared, we ensured that all our staff are able to work safely and are equipped to work remotely. Our teams can assist yours in adapting their network strategies, adjusting operational support, and implementing new technologies to support the changes we see now, and those we can anticipate as the situation continues to change.

We are here to support your teams in ensuring that they can do their work safely and securely, and that together we can keep our communities connected.

The next phase: resilience – from respond to recover, from react to reinvent

Now, some countries are starting to remove restrictions, whilst others are anticipating lockdown being re-imposed, and businesses are switching from reacting to recovering. Addressing the initial crisis within businesses was achieved with an urgent energy, focus and determination; now there is a need to identify and implement sustainable solutions for the longer term, with resilience to handle recurrent unpredictability, plus flexible options as peaks and troughs in resources and capabilities ebb and flow.

“…the telecom operator’s journey to a full telco cloud environment, where network functions and services are orchestrated and automated across a ‘containerized’ network applications cloud landscape, will be accelerated to prepare for the next pandemic crisis and the ever growing need for telecom services.” Source: Deloitte (1)

Reducing complex costs & finding flexibility

A recent Covid-19 paper from Deloitte (2), posed 6 key questions telecom executives and boards should be asking now.

Across all of these areas, the Digis Squared team can apply their extensive experience and expertise to support your business. In addition to the specific managed services outlined below, we can identify and resolve operational service problems, and upgrade and refocus skills within dynamically changing teams.

Relentless focus on outcomes

Digis Squared’s Managed Services capabilities help our clients to flexibly address resource constraints, reduce operational costs and outpace competitors. Whether you need short term support, or longer term outsourcing flexibility, as a vendor-agnostic partner our teams can deliver innovative cloud strategies, application modernization and help desk solutions.

Our Managed Services team adapts a near-shore / off-shore model of delivery through multiple support hubs to provide 24×7 support for customers in multiple technology stacks. We seek to operate and optimize IT support functions through an ITIL aligned service delivery model managed by ITSM delivery experts and resource managers.

The Digis Squared team work on your behalf, delivering intelligence, value and experience for your business, and focusing on the outcomes you are striving to achieve.

Reduce operational costs & outpace competitors

Investments made at this time need to work doubly hard: delivering flexibility and cost reduction benefits now, and ensuring that they help your business outpace your competitors. Just some of the ways the Digis Squared team can deliver agility and competitive edge to your business include,

Revise Business Continuity Plans: review assumptions, re-plan and re-scale, improving resilience and flexibility.
Accelerate digital transformation: use AI and RPA to extend the use of robotic process automation as part of your digital transformation agenda, and automate mundane, repetitive tasks to deliver consistent customer experience, and free-up greater capacity for more complex calls and processes to be handled by your skilled staff.
Accelerate 5G deployment and integration to better handle high demand dynamically.
Implement autonomous capacity management, using AI to handle unpredictable demand with agility and efficiency.
Automated drive testing and complaints handling with INOS: eliminate the need for skilled engineers to perform drive tests; instead, a solitary-driver takes the INOS stand-alone box on a predefined route, and all data is automatically uploaded for analysis remotely. AI-led analysis generates reports for assessment and action, to deliver the optimal customer experience and aid high-value customer retention.
E2E Radio Network Services: use our vendor agnostic independent team of experts to provide technical strategy reviews, competency development, radio optimization for legacy networks, radio planning, network performance and innovation in multi-technology multi-vendor environments.

Now more than ever, reduce operational costs and outpace competitors with Managed Services.

To discuss how our managed services expertise can help your business, please use this link or email sales@DigisSquared.com to arrange a convenient time for an informal conversation.

Keep up to speed with company updates, product launches and our quarterly newsletter, sign up here.

“5G will play a critical role in the digital economy for decades to come. This new era of intelligent connectivity offers the chance to recast customer value propositions, accelerate industrial transformation, and reinvigorate the digital society.”
Source: EY (3)

Sources

Image credit: Lachlan Gowen

E2E radio services ◦ Now more than ever, use independent expertise to manage your multi-technology, multi-vendor networks

Posted on June 1, 2020October 14, 2022 by admin

Ensuring telecom network infrastructure is managed efficiently is complex – highly interconnected globally, expensive infrastructure with a large base of legacy systems and technologies, combined with multiple vendors and interoperability concerns, plus demanding customers expectations.

Managing the complex commercial and technical issues of E2E Radio Services should not be under-estimated.

With the rollout of 5G, and growth in IoT deployments, additional stress is added to the operational teams as they grapple to gain the knowledge needed to successfully optimise and manage the new capabilities, and evolving commercial expectations.

This growth in operational demands, in combination with the extra strain on communications systems created by COVID-19 globally, means that even more efficient methods of delivering end to end radio services are needed.

“Operators will need to consider new ways of generating capex efficiency as they strive to meet growing demand for high-speed and low-latency data services.”
Source: EY (1)

Competency development

With so much change occurring simultaneously, as well as high operational demands, finding the time to invest and deliver training is difficult but vital. At Digis Squared our teams understand this, and have developed training solutions which can be delivered remotely, or on-site when social distancing and travel permits.

We ensure MNO staff-readiness for the future, and emergencies, as well as developing their capabilities to robustly address today’s demands.

“Missing skills, poor data quality and a lack of long-range planning are holding back the transformation agenda.”
Source: EY (2)

Independent expertise

As a flexible and experienced independent partner, we help service providers fill in the gaps in their end to end radio services capabilities – whether that’s through providing resources to address short-term skills gaps, strategy advice, new analysis tools, innovative solutions, or bespoke competency development, we are there when we are needed, providing expertise across the entire network lifecycle: R&D, strategy, planning, integration, in-field, optimisation & benchmarking, operations & support, customer care.

Relentlessly focussed consulting

In a multi-vendor, multi-technology field, ensuring interoperability and identifying areas of improvement is complex – our team is independent, business-aligned and relentlessly focused on realizing the value of your network. Digis Squared consulting services steer you towards the networks of tomorrow, anticipating changing commercial, technical, regulatory and customer demands, and developing detailed strategies and plans to ensure your business can address them.

“5G will play a critical role in the digital economy for decades to come. This new era of intelligent connectivity offers the chance to recast customer value propositions, accelerate industrial transformation, and reinvigorate the digital society.”
Source: EY (2)

RAN solutions

Our services scale to help our customers manage increases in network complexity, and growth of network traffic effectively and efficiently. We provide the expertise necessary to support your network transformation goals, with our multi-vendor and multi-technology capabilities, our services adapt to meet the emerging needs of your network.

Innovation

We leverage state-of-the-art techniques to help service providers to design, deploy and operate the latest network technologies, so that they can provide the new services subscribers want, while ensuring network quality remains high, E2E radio services are optimised and operating margins respectable.

5G: our teams accelerate the transformation of mobile networks, enabling new services, new applications & even new industries. Digis Squared provides end to end support for service providers to deploy their 5G networks, starting with planning support, and extending to 5G network optimization
Automation & software solutions: Automation is key to ensuring operational efficiency as network complexity increases. The Digis Squared RAI solution delivers powerful integrated capabilities, using AI & ML, providing network insights, configuration management and performance monitoring processes, and energy saving. We build tailored automation solutions for MNOs, to help them address any challenge.
IoT: The driving force of digital transformation, IoT has complex technology requirements, including a cascade network architecture consisting of massive number of devices, and each design has a different design objective. Optimizing the network and delivering the required capacity and coverage for each IoT use case are challenging tasks for IoT implementations, and our solutions address them.
Drive-less tuning: Minimizing drive test (DT) efforts, our INOS solution automates all reporting types i.e. SSV, customer complaints and cluster benchmarking. Robotic post-processing capabilities help MNOs to speed up logfiles analysis, as well as resolving field problems.

In a world of technical and commercial complexity, seeking an independent experienced voice to guide your teams, and extra resources when you need them, will help ensure that your E2E Radio Services are fully optimised and able to handle new technology from new vendors.

Now more than ever, use independent E2E radio expertise to manage your multi-technology, multi-vendor networks.

To discuss how our E2E Radio Services experts can help your business, please use this link or email sales@DigisSquared.com to arrange an informal conversation.

Keep up to speed with company updates, product launches and our quarterly newsletter, sign up here.

Sources

Image credit: James Padolsey