Today, Amdocs has formally announced their new Small Cell Solution and Smart Net solution, both of which got an early airing at the Amdocs InTouch event last week in San Diego.
Amdocs Small Cell Solution is “based on a comprehensive planning, engineering and deployment platform, this solution combines automated technical design with dynamic project planning using network technology-specific building blocks.“
In the past mobile cell roll-out wasn’t a high volume activity and in most cases OSS inventories and automation were mainly providing an ‘inventory of records’ for the equipment and deployed capacity.
Now, small cells are being used to increase both network coverage and capacity, with perhaps dozens of small cells deployed in an area that would have previously been served by a single ‘macro’ cell. This leads to a greater need for the analysis, planning and upgrade of the mobile backhaul and core networks and, therefore, greater OSS automation.
Amdocs Smart Net “features automatic session monitoring of user activity and network conditions, minimizing subscriber disruption by delivering a seamless experience as they move between cellular and Wi-Fi networks. [It] gives service providers access to network performance data from the user’s perspective.”
Wi-Fi is increasingly being used as either an alternative access technology for mobile networks or an entry in to the mobile market by fixed-line service providers. As is the case with small cells, this means deploying potentially hundreds of Wi-Fi access points in urban areas and ensuring there is sufficient network capacity to connect to the core, data centres, internet gateways e.t.c.
The additional challenge of deploying Wi-Fi is in making the experience of using it as simple as the 3G/LTE mobile networks. Firstly, you don’t want users to have to open a browser and log in every time they roam in to a WI-Fi hotspot. Secondly you want to avoid a loss of service, as much as possible, as users move between Wi-Fi hot spots and between Wi-Fi and 3G/LTE coverage.
You can read the full press release here.