COPYRIGHT © 2016 NETSCOUT, SYSTEMS, INC. °
CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY
Managing Today’s Complex Radio Access Networks
Dr. Petrit Nahi, Chief Scientist RAN
NETSCOUT TODAY
• Market leader in Service Assurance – Service performance, experience & analytics
– Service threat mitigation
• Expanding reach into the two markets: – Enterprise and Service Provider
• 100+ years of collective focus on: – The worlds largest IP and Telco based networks
• International footprint – Sales, support, and services in over 50 countries
• 3,000+ employees worldwide – Organized into 5 Business Units
– Common synergies based on Traffic Based Instrumentation
©2015 NETSCOUT ° CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY 2
NETSCOUT END-TO-END VISION RAN to CORE to IP SERVICE
3
IP Data Service Assurance
IP Voice/Video Service Assurance
Customer Experience Mgmt.
Business
Intelligence
End-to-End IP Monitoring
2G/3G/4G
Radio
Access
IP
Access
Mobile
Core
Service
Enablers
IMS
VoLTE
IP
Services
IP IP IP IP IP IP
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NETSCOUT’S COVERAGE End-to-End
eNB
2G/3G/4G
ASI Collector based
on eNodeB Feed
WAP
WiFi
Access
EPC
S/PGW MME
ePDG HSGW
Core IMS
Internet
ASI+
Services
VoLTE
VoWiFi
Video
eMBMS 3G Voice
SMS/MMS M2M
DRA
CSCFs HSS
PCRF OCS
BGCF MRFC
. . .
End To End
Service Enablers
LDAP AAA
DNS DHCP
nGenius
Applications
ASI Collector
Based on RAN Feed InfinistreamNG
With ASI Inside
E2E Visibility Essential for Efficient and Effective Root Cause Analysis
©2015 NETSCOUT ° CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY 5
• Information consistent to core information
• No information about customer perceived
radio coverage
• No correlation between subscriber
movement patterns and POIs
• Very weak insights into Corporate radio
quality at business locations
GERAN UTRAN
eUTRAN Customer Experience
Management System
Customer Care
“Cannot Connect”
“Service performs poorly”
“Bad Voice Quality”
“Cannot hear the other one”
“Takes ages to login”
“Get missed call alerts?!?!”
“Do not get my mails”
“Have no signal in office”
• Closing loop with RAN enables
effective and efficient
• Empowers care centers to get
insight into subscribers real
experience
RAN Assurance
• Accessibility
• Coverage
• Interference
• Reconnections
• Handover Issues
• IRAT Problems
• Conflicting procedures
• Bearer Management
• Congestion
• SON Conflicts
• Opt: Geolocation
• Core routes all calls but is not
involved in the mobility management
• Core network recognizes many call
conditions but does not provide all
responses for poor performance`
Mobile Core
Core Monitoring
• Call OK
• Call Drop
• MOS
• Throughput
• RTT
• Packet Loss
• Jitter
• Delay
• Service Activation
• Paging Effectiveness
Problem Statement Symptom Cause
GERAN UTRAN
EUTRAN
Today’s Radio Access Network
©2015 NETSCOUT ° CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY 6
• Today’s RAN is a complex heterogeneous network
• Requires state-of-the-art tools to monitor, diagnose, optimize
Diverse Services and Verticals
Multiple Radio Access
Technologies
Layered Hierarchy
Broad Range of Spectrum
CORE
IoT
VoLTE MBB
2G LTE-U WiFi
Macro Cells
Small Cells
Indoor Cells
700MHz 2.5GHz
5GHz RAN
Indoor and
Outdoor
Multiple
Infrastructure
vendors
3G HSPA
4G LTE LTE-MB
5G
900MHz 20 – 60 GHz
1800MHz
Visibility into RAN
©2015 NETSCOUT ° CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY 7
Good data feeds from eNB’s are essential
• Typically in current networks two infrastructure upgrades in a year by vendors
• Significant proprietary information
• Requires agreements with RAN infrastructure vendors (OSSii framework)
Where QoE Comes From
• 80% of QoE problems
experienced by subscribers are:
– Not visible in most Customer
Management Systems
– Not Tracked in most
SLA Monitoring
• 80% of QoE problems occur in
the RAN
6/30/2016 Proprietary and confidential
Shift to Customer Centric ACTIONS
RAN-correlated
MOS heat map
• Proactive customer care: detect
abnormal high-drop pattern in a
customer, create advanced report,
notify market and SA team
• Specific device problems: detect
that one specific device model is
presenting abnormal performance
degradation and create an alarm
• Churn analysis: correlate churn
records with historical traces to
identify objective reasons for churn
Mobile Data Universe Explosion
Confidential and Proprietary
Subscriber
Devices ≥
20B
Mobility
speed up to
500km/h
Reliability ≥
99.999%
Location
Accuracy
Data Rate
≥1GBps
IoT
Terminals ≥
1 Trillion
The IoT CHALLENGE
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Smartphone / Tablet IoT / M2M Devices
Automated Performance Monitoring is a MUST: visibility into RAN is key
Simple device. Small infrequent data
$1 ARPU
Cannot Complain. Coverage OK? Battery Alive?
Multiple ways to connect to LTE
Complex device. Frequent fast data
$75 ARPU
$50 Human Care Call to fix QoS
Standard connection to LTE
What is your data worth?
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Great Data, Great Analytics
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Highlighting Importance of RAN: Audio gaps
Voice Session – 90sec
RRC RRC RRC RRC RRC
GAP GAP GAP GAP
Core Signaling
RTP Analysis
RAN Signaling
Customer complaint: Audio gaps
Visualizing Network Performance 5 Hours of Data - 95K Connections 24 Hour Heat Map – 350K Connections
[DOWNLINK COVERAGE]
Coverage
Holes
[Blue
Regions]
Good Quality
[Red Regions]
1 Hour of Data - 20K Connections
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E2E Visibility Benefits
©2015 NETSCOUT ° CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY 17
Tickets from Care
Tickets from Care
Tickets due to new services like VoLTE or connected cars
Tickets due to new services like VoLTE or connected cars
Tickets from Sales
Tickets from Sales
0
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
12000
14000
16000
Total Projected Effort today over 12 months in hours Remaining efforts for case based on todays cases over 1 year
EFFORTS IN HOURS
Optimization
Analytics &
Troubleshooting
• Geo-analytics
combined with the
ability to shorten all
type of
troubleshooting
activities by using
E2E call trace leads
to compelling
benefits.
Customer Case Study
• 10.000 Cells
• 1.000.000 Active Subscribers
• South Europe
N E T S C O U T. C O M
THANK YOU
19
Blocked Calls Dropped Calls Low Throughput
Complexity + Traffic Creates RAN Challenges
Degraded KPIs Customer Frustration Churn
Network Optimization
$$$ OPEX
Additional
Infrastructure
$$$ CAPEX
“Incorporating TrueCall daily coverage maps resulted in a 70% reduction in drive-testing, and a
corresponding reduction in OpEx.”- US Operator
“TrueCall paid for itself in six months. Today we have a much lower drive test budget” – LATAM Operator
COPYRIGHT © 2016 NETSCOUT SYSTEMS, INC. ° CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY