|
|
article page
| 1
| 2
| 3
| 4 |
customer experience. Assuring quality and maximizing network performance require the ability to identify traffic levels, perform circuit-utilization studies, calculate and monitor call-completion rates, and trace calls throughout the network.
Effective management of hybrid networks necessitates a single vantage point for collecting and analyzing real-time, network-wide data. The ability to evaluate and characterize network usage enables operators to maximize network resources and reduce operating costs. Complete call flow records and historical data also provide a view to the signaling interaction between network resources and the ability to pinpoint network abnormalities. With detailed data, providers can accurately engineer network components to ensure the highest level of QoS.
Monitoring Essentials
Operating a hybrid network introduces a myriad of business, management and security issues. To effectively address these challenges, operators need tools that enable them to perform certain essential functions.
Troubleshoot in Real Time
As new services and network elements are rolled out in a hybrid network, real-time visibility into everything going on within the networks is essential to understanding and tracking network performance. For example, before launching new services and networks, extensive interoperability testing is required. The ability to supervise the transactions between domains – fixed, mobile, VoIP, and IMS – and monitor the protocols as they convert across gateways is essential to test and assure interoperability and ongoing network performance. Additionally, operators must be able to identify failures between gateways, trace registrations in the SIP domain and track authentication. From a customer perspective, providers require real-time and historical data to determine why subscribers are unable to access e-mail, troubleshoot download failures from ringtone servers, and even identify issues with traditional intelligent network (IN) services, such as calling name and number portability.
Optimize and Evolve the Network
A key short-term concern for operators as they grow their network is maximizing their resources – getting the most out of legacy and next-generation elements. Complete, real-time network visibility is essential to proactively manage the network and protect revenue. Operators need a system to collect statistics and performance data related to all of the traffic traversing the network, including: identification of traffic levels; circuit utilization studies; calculation and monitoring of call-completion rates; and real-time tracking of calls throughout the entire network. Once they have the data in hand, providers require
|
|
Operators need to understand how to evolve the network. |
|
tools that allow them to analyze and characterize network usage in order to plan effectively, handle growth, support service level agreements (SLAs) and avoid unnecessary capital expenditures.
From a long-term perspective, operators need to understand how to evolve the network. They need access to statistics that enable them to dimension the network to avoid bottlenecks and performance-impacting bandwidth problems. Data and detailed traffic reports are essential to identify and quantify voice and data traffic, manage trunk utilization, calculate throughput of network elements, and perform traffic studies across all network segments. This data can be used to ensure that the network is adequately designed to meet the demands caused by increases in roamer and subscriber activity.
Track and Document Service Usage
The key to profitability in delivering multimedia services across converged networks is having access to data that allows the operator to understand the quality of the subscriber experience. To maintain customer satisfaction and ensure the successful delivery of new services, providers need tools that track service availability, reliability and delivery.
Equipped with real-time data, operators can identify the source of service disruptions before customer complaints arise and revenue is lost. They can trace transactions, verify service delivery and identify the source of failed transactions. The ability to supervise the performance of services across the network allows operators to gain insight into the subscriber experience. Real-time statistics for each subscriber, including send/receive time, throughput, abort rates, and transmission rates, are critical to understanding service efficiency and the customer experience. This service usage data also permits providers to identify the most popular services, enabling them to create new targeted marketing programs that increase revenue.
Ensure Voice Quality
Voice remains one of the largest sources of revenue and margin for operators. As they continue to transition network technologies, the ability to assure high-quality service across hybrid networks is paramount to profitability. Subscribers have become accustomed to the high quality and 99.999 percent reliability of fixed-line networks, though they are willing to accept lower quality and reliability when it gains them utility – like the mobility and convenience of cell phones. But with VoIP networks, what kind of reliability will subscribers accept? Will they be willing to forgo “always on” reliability for lower cost? In
article page
| 1 | 2 | 3
| 4 |
|
|
|
|
