Anite launches CEM solution

Wireless network test company Anite launched a new Customer Experience Management (CEM) solution which collects  user quality-of-experience (QoE) data from the device level and provides drive-test-level diagnostics data for CEM, according to the company.
Kai Ojala, CTO of Anite Network Testing, said that the new Nemo CEM Observer is expected to be deployed among VIP groups for whom operators need additional, detailed monitoring in order to make sure that SLAs are being met or in order to keep key customers satisfied.
The CEM Observer collects drive test-level network information from user devices on which it is installed. Anite noted that most CEM tools provide location data and some application level CEM data, but do not provide full visibility into network parameters in layers 3 or below — so that an application can appear to be functioning, but a user might still be unhappy with their experience.
Anite provides traditional drive testing tools as well as its Nemo Qmon product that is designed to run on Android smartphones, aimed at wide deployment by operators in order to gather device-level performance on a large scale.
“With Nemo Qmon, you get a really wide view from the larger customer group, but we noticed and heard from customers that there is also the need, in certain cases, to get a more detailed view of what is happening in the customer’s phone. That’s the use case where we created Nemo CEM Observer,” said Kai Ojala, CTO of Anite Network Testing.
Ojala compared the new Observer product to the ability to take an X-ray of a user’s network experience.
“It is widening our tool set for this kind of end user,” Ojala said. “We are widening the area for trying to provide more information from the network, back to the operator.”
He noted that a limited number of people have typically had access to and carried devices that can get drive test level data, even as operators must manage and test increasingly complex networks.
“They have a number of network layers — GSM, CDMA, HSPA, LTE. And they have a number of frequencies,” Ojala said. “So they have multiple LTE frequencies, multiple 3G frequencies, a couple of 2G frequencies, and now the terminals are flying between these layers, and there are a number of things that need to be correctly resolved so that LTE to 3G works fluently. Everything isn’t that fine, always.”
Anite has more than 400 customers and works with operators in more than 200 countries, Ojala noted. The company has recently announced plans to spin off its travel business segment and focus solely on the network testing space.