Wireless Network Testing 5G

Wireless technologies are growing at a rapid pace. With advances in 4G and 5G, and the Internet of Things gaining momentum, the need for a fast, reliable wireless internet connection capable of carrying large amounts of data is becoming urgent. And as the remote working culture spreads out the population, close and away from city centers and population concentrations to suburbs and countryside, the need for reliable internet and wireless services in areas which were previously overlooked by telecom companies or difficult and, to a degree, unfeasible areas, will grow. That shift is taking place right now, and even though it would be years before population migration patterns and IoT device concentration reach the tipping point, having the right information as soon as possible is crucial for telecom providers and ISPs.

If they know well in advance about the state of 4G, 5G, and wireless internet in an area/a zone, and how much capital investments can help them grow in a currently untapped zone in the next couple of years, it can be game-changing for them.

By the second quarter of 2021, even the best 5G provider (EE) in the UK couldn’t reach 20%, though it plans to cover 90% of the UK’s landmass by 2028. The drastically smaller 5G range (less than 2% of 4G) has become a major issue in its deployment and availability. So telecom providers and ISPs leveraging 5G have to be strategic about booster placement and transmission mapping.

The requirement here is efficiency, i.e., an efficient data-driven solution to this problem, which we are equipped to provide.

The Solution

Drive testing has been around for quite some time, and it’s still a mainstream solution to assess the quality and strength of the wireless signal for mobile calls and the internet, though the difference between the two is shrinking thanks to VoIPs for official use and messenger services (that run on the internet) replacing voice calls and messages.

Our business is simple: To unleash the full power of drive testing. We don’t just plan to optimize the RF drive testing for 3G, 4G, 5G, WiFi, and other wireless signals for Quality of Service assessment for our clients to ensure they meet compliance requirements. We aim to use it to help our clients map their wireless reach across all zones that come under their purview and use this information to plan for future expansion and resource deployment. We are lifting RF drive testing reports from their bare bone versions and incomprehensive technical jargon days into something that can be integrated with Business Intelligence and aid in decision making.

We are not saying our data and reports will be all that telecom providers and ISPs would need to make crucial decisions regarding their 4G, 5G, and in a decade, 6G penetration in difficult areas, but it will be an indispensable starting point. And the best-case scenario, our data will help all the telecom providers and ISPs start formulating their growth strategy.

We are also offering drone services, which would include taking pictures and videos of towers, antennas, new and old operational sites, surveying potential installation sites, and a number of other uses. Drones will cut down the time and effort needed to survey a site and inspect antennas, repeaters, and other equipment for troubleshooting, which will reflect lower costs. It’s a benefit we can pass on to our clients, making us more competitive. Drones can also allow more frequent inspections, making preventive maintenance a viable and productive option.

In the long term, the data sets made up of publicly available field data from our drive tests and drone inspections will become a crucial stand-alone asset. We can find eager buyers for that data in multiple markets, including real estate agencies (that wish to add network status of their portfolio properties in their marketing material), public regulators, emergency services (potentially), etc.

Summary of our Services

We are starting with three basic solutions, all augmented by our optimal, solution-oriented reporting techniques.

Outdoor – City RF Testing

Thanks to the population density, coverage in the city is rarely an issue, but capacity is. RF Drive testing can identify high data consumption hot spots so providers can figure out where to boost capacity. High rises and tall buildings can also make RF planning tricky and unpredictable, especially when it comes to 5G. New constructions may block the RF signals of existing antennas. Our evaluations can help telecom providers identify problematic spots and find adequate solutions before their customers start switching to other providers. Identification of areas where the provider is quite strong (in both quality and capacity) can become new marketing hot spots.

Outdoor -Rural RF Testing

Rural areas are different when it comes to capacity and data consumption, even transmission, thanks to low-rise structures. However, rural areas are usually underserved due to antenna installation, signal boosting, and hardware deployment is usually not financially feasible when the return potential is taken into account. But a reverse brain drain is happening (albeit quite slowly), and more people are moving to rural areas since they can remotely work and enjoy the peace and affordability. Telecom providers and ISPs will have to be ready for that influx, and our data can be the key to their preparedness.

Indoor RF Testing

Different buildings can have different network qualities based on their proximity to the distribution antennas and structure. Even within a building, the signal quality can vary quite drastically from floor to floor and in one part of the building compared to others. We plan to conduct a thorough drive test of the building, floor by floor, and provide a comprehensive assessment report to our clients, which they can combine with consumer clusters on different floors to come up with the optimal network improvement approach.

Drone Services

We are also offering drone services for testing, taking pictures and videos of towers and GSM antennas, especially in difficult places/areas. With these RF test results, pictures and videos, we will be able to analyze the positioning, condition, and angle of these antennas to better identify the cause of quality issues and coverage. An example of it would be calculating the Azimuth angle of HBA antennas to figure out the optimal configuration for new as well as old sites. It can also help our clients’ unusual problems, like the one Vodafone faced in 2013 when a female Peregrine Falcon (Schedule 1 protected species in the UK) nested and laid eggs by a faulty transmitter. The company was forbidden from working on the site. Drones can help companies scope out these problems and prepare effective contingencies.

Example Service Offerings:

Based on our clients’ needs, we may offer different “mixes” of our services and draft contracts based on their requirements. For example, a network company that is aiming for better wide-area 5G penetration may have a completely different contract breakdown than an ISP that requires cluster testing in a specific area.