1. Smartphones – A game changer in
expectations of customer experience
Turki Alqarefah Zain Group (Kuwait)
Stephen Bowker AIRCOM International
Wednesday, 15 May 2013 12:00 - 12:30 pm

2. Presenters
Turki Alqarefah
RAN Manager at Zain
Zain Group - Kuwait
https://www.kw.zain.com/
Steve Bowker
Chief Technology Officer
AIRCOM International
https://www.aircominternational.com/
Email: stephen.bowker@aircominternational.com
Twitter: @AIRCOM_CTO @STEPHENBOWKER

4. Zain has the largest share of the Kuwait market,
offering 2G/3G and LTE services. It has high
Smartphone penetration with customers actively
using native Value Added Services and OTT apps

5. Changing
Landscape
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6. Smartphone
Customer Experience
English Premier League
TV on Zain Smartphones
Zain Pass for
Worldwide Wi-Fi
iPhone app: advanced
missed call alerting,
automatic answering and
travel features for
roaming internationally
 Zain support advanced services and
applications for their Smartphone Community
 Mobile TV providing local channels and English
Premier League Soccer
 Advanced value added services
 Smartphone applications to address the changing
landscape of a Communications Service Provider
 Engaged AIRCOM International in mid-2012
to optimise experience received by their
users
 Completed project in 8 weeks
 Smartphone end-user experience improved
 Network resources used more efficiently
CASE STUDY FOLLOWS….
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8. 8
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Case Study: Optimising the
Smartphone Experience
Optimising experience for Zain’s Smartphones
users in Kuwait was a 3-step process
Operator
benchmark
3G RAN audit
Smartphone
Experience
Optimisation

9. 9
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Case Study: Optimising the
Smartphone Experience
Experience monitoring points used during Zain
Operator Benchmarking/Smartphone optimisation
Extract from TMForum
Technical Report:
Managing the Quality
of Customer
Experience (TR148)
Operator Benchmarking End Device Probes
Smartphone optimisation Passive Probes mostly focussed on Radio Access

10. 10
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Case Study:
Operator benchmarking
Countrywide benchmark of 3 Kuwait operators,
including within maritime waters
Coverage
Voice
quality
Call drop
rate
Accessibility

11. 11
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Case Study: Smartphone
Experience Optimisation
Smartphone’s dominate the demand on network
resources specifically for Data Sessions (PS)

12. 12
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Case Study: Smartphone
Experience Optimisation
Subscriber’s Smartphone distribution by phone
model. Large % of network users were included
Note: Trace data was from mid-2012
reflecting Smartphones available at that time

13. 13
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Case Study: Smartphone
Experience Optimisation
Smartphone user experience was enhanced
significantly following optimisation
Paging
success
+92%
Signalling
load
-36%

14. 14
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Challenges in a Smartphone World
to provide the “optimal user experience”
 Providing the “right” balance between Network
Resource Utilisation and the User Experience
 Signalling/Processing vs. Battery Life
 Quality of Experience based on policy control
 Optimising “multi-RAB” sessions - simultaneous
voice and data
 Drive home with Tom Tom “Live” Traffic and talk
on the phone at the same time (vs. 2G voice only)
 Address the higher dropped call rates of Multi-RAB
(typically ~5-7%) vs. Data (typically ~2%) and
voice (typically ~0.3-0.5%)
 Handle massive peaks in data volumes
 Large groups of users on commuter trains
 Viral effect of social media on demand
Note: Challenges and metrics presented here are examples from AIRCOM‟s global experiences not the Zain case study

15. 15
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 Smartphone Receiver Sensitivity
 Smartphones can have lower sensitivity compared with traditional
feature phones, typically anything from 3-10dB worse
 Quality of Experience varies depending on handset type (e.g. voice
quality can be impacted significantly in areas of marginal coverage)
 Technology Factors
 In the UK and other markets early iPhone 5 software “camped-on” to
LTE networks being tested showing “No Service” in areas where they
had a valid subscription in good coverage 2G/3G
 Multi-tasking sometimes keeps smartphones too busy so they miss
paging for mobile terminated calls or sessions
 LTE voice initially supported by Circuit Switched fall-back (CSFB)
 Dual Carrier HSPA performance when moving to cells with single carriers
 Phones that don‟t support new 3GPP features (e.g. Release 8 introduced
Network Controlled Fast Dormancy)
Challenges in a Smartphone World
Different Devices = Different Experience
Note: Challenges and metrics presented here are examples from AIRCOM‟s global experiences not the Zain case study

16. 16
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How to Monitor Customer Experience
accurately with KQIs
 When is a “Dropped” Call not
a “Dropped Call”?
 When can the experience
improve, yet KPIs and their
associated KQIs look worse?
Mobile Operators need to add
Engineering Intelligence to
their Business Intelligence Extract from TMForum
Guidebook: Wireless
Service Measurement
Handbook (GB923)

17. 17
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Provide a “Voice to the Customer”
Capture your customer’s experiences on a web portal and/or device agent
Capture and
resolve
customer
frustration
Differentiate
with network
coverage
Enhance
customer
quality of
experience
Reduce call
centre load
Provides
Direct
Engineering
Feedback of
Resolution
Log issue Cloud
database
Monitor,
visualise,
analyse
Feedback via customer preferred channel

18. 18
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Focus your network improvement
Optimise customer experience with Self-Organising Network capabilities
Understand
the
experiences
of your
customers
Correlate
network and
customer data
Analyse
multiple data
sources not
just OSS stats
Utilise
algorithms to
do the
„number
crunching‟
Prioritise
network
optimisation
that affects
VIP customers
Customer info
(ARPU, VIP?)
Handset data
(Usage, performance)
Network data
(stats, KPI‟s)
Collect
& store
Correlate
& analyse
Prioritise
& decide
Validate &
Implement
Database Decision
engine
Configuration
Analytics
engine

19. Understanding and managing a
customer’s experience in a world of
Smartphones is like Formula 1 Racing
A team builds solutions, and needs to analyse & correlate data from everywhere to succeed!

21. INDEPENDENT SOFTWARE AND SOLUTIONS FOR IMPROVED NETWORK PERFORMANCE
Thank You