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