Analysis of Wireline, Wireless, Voice and Data Services for Major Italian Telecom Operator WIND
The number of mobile phone users in the world is exploding. Globally, mobile phone users outnumber desktop PCs. Worldwide there are over 380 million mobile phone users, expected to reach one billion by 2003, or one out of every six people on the planet.
WIND needed a panoramic view of all aspects involved in telephone traffic. Having access to details on traffic data, both corporate and consumer would offer WIND the opportunity to better plan its evolution to GPRS and to third generation UMTS. WIND also wanted to track SMS (short message service) utilization and the evolution of user access to the Internet by wired (Dial-up) and wireless services (WAP).
Capgemini after a complete requirements analysis phase, planned, designed and
realized a collection of Data Marts: using the ETL (Extraction, Transformation
and Loading) tool Data Stage. Over 40 million records a day are collected and
loaded in an Oracle Data Base and analyzed using a BusinessObjects platform as
an OLAP and Query tool.
WIND now benefits from a competitive advantage in developing new technology and new services through focused network planning (daily updates, trend analysis, marketing support) and a smarter understanding of their customers!
Client Profile
WIND is a joint venture of France Telecom and Ente Nazionale per l’Energia (ENEL),
the electrical provider for Italy.
With both corporate and consumer customers, WIND is one of the more recent telecom providers in Italy, and distinguishes itself by being the first and only to offer both wireless and wireline services to customers.
Business Issues
The evolution of the competitive Italian telecom market, has prompted WIND to focus on service quality for applications and networks. WIND was in need of a more transparent and panoramic view to track and compare the frequency of the main calling patterns:
carrier selection traffic:
- local
- long-distance
- Internet
‘peak time’ traffic: to better plan network capacity
traffic destination:
- generated for services (mailbox, toll free)
- voice
- data.
Having access to details on data traffic, for both corporate and consumer users, would offer WIND the opportunity to better plan its evolution to GPRS (Global Packet Radio Service). 2.5 generation.
WIND also needed to track SMS (short message service) usage in order to improve the quality and multiplicity of services offered to customers. SMS is the most basic, easiest and fastest way to transfer data by a mobile terminal. Analyzing SMS usage, now riding the wave of popularity, may be the driving force to better plan the way to the future - new data transfer services for the different user segments:
- corporate (large accounts)
- consumer (GSM mobile users)
- Internet (InWind web pages).
The other important goal for WIND was the analysis of access service to the IP Network, provided through the telephone network (Dial-Up Service) and the Authorization, Authentication and Account platform (AAA) to virtual ISPs (internet service providers).
Reporting modules monitor:
- the service provided to the ‘virtual ISP.
- the usage level of internet infrastructure.
Last but not least was the need to analyze the data collected from the WAP Platform to monitor:
- volume of Internet access from the Mobile Network
- distribution among the different types of users (GSM, SMS, GPRS, UDP, etc)
- types of destinations accessed (WAP portal of InWind or other ISPs in accordance with revenue sharing).
Solution
Capgemini project methodology was focused on two phases:
- Iterative Development Methodology (IDM) - gradually involve the users over time
- Solution Development . Implementation - .every few months new results were delivered, analyzed and acted upon.
Main system requirements were for a Unix platform, able to handle sizable quantities of data. The standard for WIND was to use Business Objects as a front-end tool, and Oracle as the DBMS (data base management system) tool.
Call Data Records Report Modules (CDR-RM) collects, transforms, organizes and represents traffic data in a high level representation. Reports are available in the most common environments - client/server and web.
Represented data types include:
- traffic time distribution
- territorial distribution
- network division (fixed /mobile)
- distinction between traffic types (originated, terminated, transit, carrier selection)
- traffic summary (district, national, international, mobile).
As the requirements in this competitive market are changing everyday, Capgemini is progressively collecting the data and recommending solutions to act on them.
Targets for the SMS reporting modules are:
- measure the overall volume of traffic managed and distributed by the service centers (support the capacity planning process).
- monitor the average delivery time. The goal is to reduce to a minimum the time necessary for the delivery service
- estimate transmission band occupation
- identify and evaluate the peak phenomenon to determine and prevent the possible reasons for unavailable service.
Targets for Internet Data Record Reporting Modules are to:
- measure the overall volume of traffic data
- monitor the usage level related to the infrastructure from relative users: corporate (Yahoo, Altavista etc), consumer (users on the InWind web site).
- conduct a trend analysis on user registrations, connection duration, traffic volume.
- establish a contact point between the two types of networks (circuit switched and packet switched).
- deeper analysis to support, marketing and operative
- focus attention on the IP traffic produced by corporate customers through WindNET, WindIP, WindRACE
- provide WIND with a tool to support legal investigations on the abuse of the IP services.
Targets for WAP log reporting module are to:
- measure the overall traffic volume
- evaluate the level of detail of services offered
- conduct a trend analysis on WAP use - technologies in wireless mobile telecommunication (GSM, GPRS, etc.), traffic volume, peak usage time
- offer support to the marketing area to manage revenue sharing contracts with main content providers
- analysis of packet switching technology (GPRS network).
Benefits
WIND now benefits from:
- daily updates on its business.
- regular expansions planned over the network.
- more transparent knowledge of user behavior
- a competitive advantage in developing new technology and new services through focused network planning.
- support offered to the marketing area (revenue management sharing, contacts with main content providers)
Written in co-operation with WIND www.wind.it
