Measuring How You Stack Up

Customer satisfaction drives your survival in today's dog-eat-dog competitive environment. The best way to measure your network's performance is with up-to-date test and measurement equipment. Wireless '98 pulled the curtain up on a number of vendors' ideas for measuring how you stack up against the competition.

Customer service at point-of-sale outlets is important in keeping customers satisfied. The success of Wavetek's 4100S product is evidence of that need, according to Eric Meager, wireless business unit manager. The tool allows carriers and retail outlets to address customer complaints of "broken" phones immediately. According to Meager, 30% to 60% of returned phones are actually no-fault.

Beyond customer-service issues, customer satisfaction depends on call quality, said Marty Singer, Safco president & CEO.

"Voice quality is going to become the battle ground of competition," Singer said.

As a result, test-equipment vendors are offering products to help ensure you offer the best quality service possible. Safco's TQNM VoicePrint evaluates analog and digital technologies by duplicating calling patterns and opinions of actual subscribers and automatically generating quality metrics. The product measures voice quality uplink and downlink with recorded speech samples. It records call setup times; collects statistics of blocked, dropped or no service calls; and collects detailed engineering metrics associated with each air interface. According to Singer, these voice-measurement techniques are critical as carriers try to meet subscriber expectations.

Other vendors are putting technology measurements to use for your marketing strategies and competitive analysis. LCC Interna-tional introduced the Benchmarker, a measurement system that uses network quality analysis to measure services against competitors. The product measures call attempts, average access time and percentage of dropped calls. It allows you to compare across access protocols and improve network performance with management-level reports detailing strengths and weaknesses.

Comsearch also is offering wireless carriers a comparative analysis tool. According to Chris Libonati, marketing director, the company's solution conducts simultaneous analysis so that reports can reflect results accurately from the same conditions. She added that Comsearch's open interface is the key element in its solution, allowing the company to provide analysis for all technologies. Results such as call-summary-analysis maps and voice-quality-measurement charts, whether good or bad, help you either as an effective marketing tool or to optimize your network and make appropriate adjustments.

Automation Vendors also are helping to make the testing and measuring process easier with automation capabilities. It is a critical factor in measuring today's network quality.

DeftCom's RTmon family of SS7 diagnostic tools features an automatic search function for response messages and invoke/response. The products are designed to monitor SS7 data and help you resolve network problems immediately by providing network diagnostics in real time.

Telecom Analysis Systems (TAS) is enhancing its CDMA Automatic Test System (CDMA-ATS). Using automatic performance characterization, the product can identify the performance limits of phones under a variety of RF channels.

Motorola Test Equipment announced automated test applications for its CyberTest Communications System Analyzer. Now, customers who used manual functions to perform tests of Motorola's base-station equipment for analog and digital networks have a simplified solution with automated capabilities.

Anritsu introduced a software package called MX260002A. You can download the CDMA cellular system measurement software with any of the company's MS2650/MS2660 series spectrum analyzers.

The new solution offers a cost-effective way for base-station amplifier manufacturers and base-station field maintenance to conduct accurate CDMA measurements. The automated software program sets up measurement soft keys and features an easy-to-follow menu.

Test equipment vendors are preparing to ensure that your networks can compete wellinto the future. For example, Hewlett-Packard is actively involved in third-generation standards-setting activity. As a result, the company has developed W-CDMA solutions for simulation, signal generation and signal analysis and is providing consulting services.

Tektronix has its eye on future applications, according to Brad Harris, business development manager for U.S. marketing. Keeping products flexible played a part in its latest product announcement, he added. The FSE series spectrum analyzers and SMIQ signal generators are available for the full range of W-CDMA needs. The products test such elements as adjacent-channel power, which exceed the capability of most of today's current measurement equipment.