The increased focus on software to enhance network performance continues as Reverb Networks said it had installed its InteliSON centralized self-optimizing network platform with a North American tier-one mobile operator. To further tease the deployment, Reverb noted the offering was launched in “one of North America’s largest cities,” so go ahead and begin guessing.
The company explained that its SON platform is designed to provide “city-wide, real-time, dynamic optimization of network quality parameters, ensuring enhanced data rates and fewer dropped calls for network subscribers.” The offering is claimed to be fully automatic, without the need for “manual intervention or expensive services projects.”
With wireless operators looking to add smaller cells to enhance network capacity and coverage, the challenge appears to be in how to coordinate coverage to minimize overlap and allow carriers to manage and deploy what could be hundreds of thousands of access points across their network. SON platforms were prominently displayed at this year’s Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, Spain, with a number of infrastructure providers, including Amdocs and Ericsson, showing off their latest wares.
T-Mobile US last month announced a deal with Eden Rock Communications to supply SON technology to the domestic market’s No. 4 operator. The deployment included Eden Rock’s Eden-Net centralized SON platform, which it says provides a cloud software intelligence layer that works across multiple network equipment vendors. In testing the platform, which T-Mobile US has deployed across its network, provided “fewer dropped calls, increased throughput and reduced leakage.” T-Mobile US added that the offering will allow the operator to continue adding SON modules to further increase network efficiencies.
A report released late last year by Infonetics Research found that 87% of mobile operators surveyed had deployed SON in their networks, an increase from just 27% at the end of 2012. The survey added that by 2015, 100% of those operators surveyed planned to use SON in their network.
“Mobile operators know they need to keep network operating expenses under control, and they’re placing a big bet on SON while acknowledging the complexity of and their unease with automation that minimizes human intervention and maximizes computerization,” explained Stéphane Téral, principal analyst for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics at Infonetics. “Nonetheless, the ultimate goal is to use cell planning and field testing for zero-touch, self-healing networks. But, it’ll take some time to get there. SON’s just started, after all.”
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