Solution

Cracking the puzzle of network optimization for data services

Cracking the puzzle of

network optimization for data services

In the era of mobile Internet, fast-growing data services bring people a rich
service experience. While the basic needs of Internet access are met, people are raising
higher requirements on service experience. To this end, the focus of operators operation and
maintenance (O&M) work is shifting from network KPI to QoE.
By Fu Qiao

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Huawei Communicate

ith the fast growth of

mobile data services,
rich services deliver a
brand new experience
to end users, and also bring about new
opportunities for operators. At the same
time, operators are deeply troubled
by complicated application scenarios,
the long business chain, and black
box-type data encapsulation. While
network KPIs stay good, customer
complaints keep coming in. It is hard
to tell the bottleneck affecting service
experience. Is it poor network quality
or high tariffs causing the higher churn
rate? Improving data service experience
poses new challenges to traditional
O&M.

Who will handle

complaints in the first
place?
As an important part of operators
O&M management, network
optimization is largely driven by two
factors. The first is the KPI-based
assessment mechanism, which is the
most important trigger of network
optimization; it is an active trigger.
The second is declining QoE, and
satisfaction with the network, resulting
in a higher churn rate, which is a passive
trigger of network optimization.
Usually the most visible sign of
declining customer satisfaction with
QoS is complaints. Take Chengdu for
example, which is the capital city of
Sichuan, a populous province in China.
In early 2010, Chengdu City had a
population density of 1,015 persons/
km 2 . With 13 million users, China
Mobile Chengdu saw its traffic flow
surging, and network burden rising.
From March 2009 to March 2010,
daily traffic of its data services shot up
87.5% from 2400GB to 4500GB. Due
to network congestion and resource
preemption caused by proliferation
of network traffic, the number of
complaints about data services had

stayed high.
To address users complaints, the
network maintenance department
took the traditional approach of traffic
statistics for analysis. It found that
GPRS on the wireless side had excellent
network KPIs. For example, the TBF
drop rate was kept below the empirical
value of 5%, attach success rate of the
core network was above 90%, and the
activation index approached 100%. For
the service network, the success rate of
access to APGWs WAP services reached
99.9%. With such excellent network
KPIs, the cause of user complaints
becomes elusive. And the traditional
way of statistics analysis cannot realize
visible tracing back to the network
status at time of fault as mentioned
i n t h e c o m p l a i n t . Un d e r s u c h
circumstances, which department is to
handle user complaints in the first place:
the network maintenance department or
the optimization department? And how
can network optimization be carried out
in light of the complaints?

How to improve QoE?

Through years of O&M practices,
mature monitoring approaches and
network optimization methods
focusing on KPIs have been developed.
No n e t h e l e s s , i n t h e c a s e o f Q o E
decline, KPIs cannot visually reveal
QoE problems, because KPIs reflect the
signaling performance of single network
nodes, without effectively exposing
links that affect user experience. Merely
optimizing KPIs, which leads to a
considerable increase in cost and OPEX,
does not necessarily solve the problems
once for all.
Take data ser vices for example.
Slow speeds or disconnection cannot
be simply attributed to certain KPIs,
like network congestion in a certain
segment. Compared with voice services,
data services not only come in greater
variety, but also involve a longer
business chain, which creates difficulties
in network optimization.

The business chain of data services

extends from the mobile network to
the Internet. Any link in the long
chain of the wireless access network,
core network, service network, and
bearer network could affect the quality
of service. For instance, among user
complaints received by China Mobile
Chengdu in March 2010, coverage
and network congestion problems took
up 42%, terminals 17%, and service
providers 5%, and there were also
data service contract issues. So, factors
affecting QoE involve various aspects
and network fields. The operators
approach to addressing complaints and
improving QoE via optimizing network
fields separately just does not work.
Questions arise then: How can
network factors affecting the quality
of service be identified, and how can
network factors in the business chain of
user experience be broken down?
Op t i m i z a t i o n o f d a t a s e r v i c e s ,
in essence, boils down to network
optimization. To address challenges
faced by mobile operators in network
optimization, it is necessary to trigger
network optimization from the
QoS perspective, and break down
boundaries between network fields,
in order to conduct end-to-end
network optimization. Huaweis E2E
QoS guarantee solution helps mobile
operators address their challenges
encountered in network optimization
from two aspects. Firstly, it enables
vertical in-depth business analysis
based on the seven-layer protocol, and
identifies network factors affecting the
quality of service one by one. Secondly,
it provides end-to-end QoS assurance,
from wireless network, core network,
bearer network to service network, and
realizes visualized network management
by segment based on analysis of data on
network interfaces.

Breaking
interdepartmental
barriers in O&M
JUN 2011 . ISSUE 60

36

Solution
Cracking the puzzle of network optimization for data services
It is undeniable that KPIs are the cornerstone
of a network. To guarantee overall network quality,
it is highly necessary to conduct lean management
of network fields using KPIs. To conduct better
network maintenance and management, operators
usually finely divide O&M management by
network domain, and hold departments separately
responsible for their KPIs. This approach impairs
cross-domain collaboration when problems arise.
Take the handling of complaints for example.
When complaints are referred to network O&M
management departments from the customer care
department, maintenance departments for different
network domains tend to shirk responsibility
for issues that cannot be attributed to a specific
network domain via KPI performance. Such lack
of collaboration leads to delayed handling of
complaints and customer dissatisfaction. To make
QoS manageable, the first thing is to get O&M
departments to collaborate with one another
effectively.
Huaweis solution introduced the end-to-end
concept, helping operators manage services endto-end. In light of O&M tools available to China
Mobile Chengdu, Huawei classified QoE in the
dimension of service, and established joint analysis
of the wireless network, core network, and service
network, to help establish an end-to-end process
for complaint handling. Users phone bills are
linked throughout the process, and individual
users session logs are linked to network traffic
statistics, combining passive monitoring with
proactive monitoring.
This dramatically improved the efficiency of
complaint handling, shortening the closing cycle
by more than one day, and the success rate of
complaint closing rose about 20%, leading to
improved customer satisfaction.

From network optimization to

service optimization
To operators, the ultimate goal of network
optimization is to improve user experience and
enhance user satisfaction. Nonetheless, network
optimization does not perfectly match QoS
improvement.
Traditional network KPI optimization largely
deals with signaling, such as the TBF establishment
success rate and attach success rate. Although
operators have been paying great attention to them,
these indexes cannot accurately reflect QoS. QoS
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indicators like slow page loading, slow download

rate, and failure to open page are indexes on the
data service layer.
As a leading branch of the China Mobile group,
China Mobile Hangzhou teamed with Huawei
in August 2010 to pioneer exploration of QoS
assurance.
During proactive testing conducted in 2009,
the WAP access delay of China Mobile Hangzhous
GPRS network was found to be about one second
longer than that of China Mobile Ningbo, which
is another branch located in Zhejiang, yet the two
branches overall network KPI did not differ that
much.
It can be seen that QoS indexes obtained from
active testing reflect the overall picture of QoS, but
they do not reveal delay or success rates of all links,
from wireless network to wired network, and even
Internet service providers. To operators, the whole
traffic flow status is actually like a black box. Only
by visualizing the impact of network domains on
QoS, can operators identify factors affecting QoS.
Therefore, it is necessary to conduct analysis of
the data service layer. Huawei offers a DPI-based
service monitoring platform, which effectively
makes QoS visible and lays the foundation for QoS
optimization.
In essence, when shifting from network
optimization to service optimization, operators
take QoS as the trigger point for optimization.
There are three major areas of focus: services with
poor QoS, popular services or valued services, and
valued groups or hot areas.
By providing QoS assurance for providers,
areas and groups related to popular services and
prioritizing valued services, areas and groups while
ensuring overall network quality, operators can
effectively cut OPEX.
Under the pilot project implemented in
partnership with Huawei, China Mobile Hangzhou
first monitored and evaluated QoS, then located
end-to-end issues, and finally optimized QoS.
Meanwhile, it established a QoS assurance system
covering VIP assurance, service analysis specific
to service provider, and terminal analysis, thereby
developing its own methodology on data service
network optimization and quality assurance. As
a result, the operator has seen its QoS improved
significantly, and its systematic QoS network
optimization methodology validated, paving the
way for making new breakthroughs in the network
optimization for mobile data services.
Editor: Chen Yuhong chyhong@huawei.com