Use Cases

4G/5G Assets dimensioning when traffic grows

Total Cost Of Ownership
Simulating different 4G network upgrade scenarios
Amount of investment versus quality achieved

Subscribers throughput 5Mbps with 37% congestion left - TCO $41M

With a $41 million capex and opex budget, we can achieve a minimum throughput of 5 Mbps for active users on 63% of the sectors
and a guaranteed minimum throughput of 500kbps on the remaining 37% of the network.

Subscribers throughput 5Mbps with 0% congestion left - TCO $47M

With a $47 million budget for capex and opex, we can achieve a minimum throughput of 5 Mbps for 100% of active users and correct
100% of network congestion.

Subscribers throughput 15Mbps with 0% congestion left - TCO $51M

With a budget of $51 million, we can guarantee a minimum of 15Mbps for all active subscribers and handle 100% of the saturated
sectors.

Select the budget according to your expectations

Real Capacity And Spectral Efficiency
Identical sector configurations but The weakest ones The best
heterogeneous performances
Configuration : 1 carrier, 10Mhz, 2T2R and 64QAM
Theoretical deployed capacity : 75Mbps
Actual capacity depends on:
location of the traffic (close to the cell = more capacity available) Mbps Mbps
interference levels (more interference = less capacity)
the size of the cell (larger = lower capacity)
level of capacity deployed 19% to 23%
ratios of mobile categories
efficiency
limitation of the IP transport network 42% to 49%
The sites with the lowest capacities and the lowest user
connection throughputs are sites where optimisation campaigns efficiency
have the best chance of improving service quality. Indeed, an
addition of capacity would have a limited effect.

Average network efficiency : 30%

Theoretical capacity of the zone : 15.8Gbps

Total real capacity of the area (211 sectors): 4.8Gbps

Utilization versus Congestion 1/2
OSS utilization levels Quality of Service and Experience (QoS/E)

Case 1: NOK undetected but saturated

Case 2: ok detected and saturated

Case 3: NOK
detected but
not saturated

Detection threshold 80%

Little correlation between utilization and congestion levels

 Utilization versus QoS/QoE 2/2
Detection of low QoE effective in 88% of cases
Resource Utilization Levels Table Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of
4G Experience (QoE) table

Effective congestion detection only in 51% of cases

Quality of Service (QoS) saturated < 100kbps

Quality of Experience (QoE) low < 5Mbps The investment decision is not effective
48% of the time

LTE resources utilization is not an effective performance metric

Finer Characterization Network Zone 1 - P2

Of Congestion
Bad QoS? or Bad QoE?
Network Zone 2 - P1 more critical
Critical saturation or simply poor quality
only?
A fine analysis of congestion is necessary to prioritize corrective
actions. Icix's solution allows to differentiate zones and sectors in
critical saturation state (worst 65% saturated zone), which provide
connections at less than 100kbps (adjustable threshold) to active
subscribers, from sectors that simply provide degraded
Network Zone 3 - P3
connections (between 100kbps and 1Mbps, adjustable thresholds)
10%.
The operator can prioritize its budget on critical cases first and
rapidly improve the quality of experience for the most affected
subscribers.

Prioritization of corrective actions

Case Study, Optimize
Usage Zimbabwe, Econet
7x The Airtime Free
Econet Zimbabwe wanted to validate its investment
plan for 2016/2017; After analysis, Icix found that:
a) the network was overall over-dimensioned and
necessitated little new CAPEX;
b) Econet could alternatively maintain its CAPEX
budget but increase traffic 7 times to sweat the
asset;
Econet launched the “Get $7 times FREE air time
credit for $1” promotion. The network coped well
with the extra traffic and Revenues Market Share
Annual Capex Evolution
Study 1 jumped 7% !
2017

Save on Opex up to 60%

 Most efficient cells

Efficiency 0.5

Based on the network TCO, the annual Opex, the

competition and the market expectation, the operators
estimate an "optimal" user throughput target. For
example guaranteeing 5Mbps for all users all the time.
Active user throughputs
Icix provides an instant vision of all the sectors
operating within the Most Efficient Operational
Window (MEOW). MEOW are composed by cells
which configuration are correlated and proportional
to the traffic demand.

Using the Icix solution, optimization teams can detect

and "drag" the over-dimensioned, saturated and low
performing cells toward this efficient window either by
adding capacity onto the congested cells, or inversely
by increasing traffic onto the oversized cells.
Active user throughputs

Generate more revenues 23%

 Churn and "revenue loss" cells

Churn 0.5

When subscribers are experiencing low throughputs

or no services at all, during few hours daily, up to the
entire day, they reduce their communication, directly
translating into low ARPU and revenues losses for the
operators. In the worst cases they choose to change
operators (the churn).
Active user throughputs
Icix provides instant visibility on the critical sectors
that are degraded most of the time for most
subscribers and visibility of the sectors that are
degraded only at peak hour.

Active user throughputs

Save on Capex 42%

 Oversized cells Active user throughputs

Oversized 0.5

Assets
Oversized capacity can be easily identified using
Icix maps. Sector oversizing means that most of
the time, on daily basis, subscribers will get
higher experience than the target speed they pay
for. For those deployed assets, the Return On
Investment (ROI) for the operators are low, adding
financial pressure.
Oversized cells are detected and corrected by
either increasing cell footprint or traffic
(promotion) or by withdrawing physical
resources.
Active user throughputs

Save on Opex 14%

 Study 3
Case Study, Spectrum
Expansion
Jordan, Middle East 95% not meeting target 59% not meeting target 23% not meeting target
Efficient Expansion Process
Operator had already implemented 5MHz upgrade everywhere;
Icix analyzed the impact of the upgrade based on historical
traffic (before/after);
a) Upgrade resulted in 36% congestion reduction; User
throughput improvement 39.6%;
b) Based on tool output, a more detailed approach could have
reduced congestion by 72% based on same CAPEX;

Before expansion After expansion Same Budget Optimal

Congestion Reduction 92%

 Measure
Optimization
0.5

Before bandwidth
expansion
It is hard for mobile operators to assess whether network
optimization campaigns are efficient or not. With the Icix
solution, monthly performance evolution can be measured,
Active user throughputs visibility on improvement achieved and remaining issues are
provided.

This example shows a "blind" spectrum enhancement, as the

Icix solution was not used. They added 50% capacity on all
cell sites. Some sites that were upgraded did not need it (9%).
0.5
Other sites were upgraded +50% but needed more, they
After bandwidth remained congested after the expansion (32%).
expansion (+50%)

Active user throughputs

Expansion Efficiency 32%

 Simulating Densification
Performance Jordan, Middle East
Optimization
Process During the densification process, when adding a new site it is a
key task for the engineering team to position the new site
step1 - position new site to relieve correctly to relieve consequently the neighbors. During the
Before 0.1Mbps densification process coverage is not key, as the area is
After 9.1Mbps normally already covered, the key task is to position correctly
the new site with the correct azimuths, tilts and height, so that
Before 0.1Mbps the resulting load and performance of the group of sectors after
After 5.6Mbps densification reaches the target QoS and QoE.
7.3Mbps step2 - RF coverage before
step4 - import coverage shape files before & after, review
NEW SITE performance before & after densification
6.8Mbps
5.9Mbps
NEW SITE

Before 0.1Mbps
After 6.7Mbps
step3 - RF coverage after
before
NEW SITE - S1

after
Automated Duplicated Jordan, Middle East
Site Removal Optimized Upgrades/Budgets
When 2 sectors on neighboring sites are pointing toward each
other and covering contiguous areas, if the two sectors have
the maximum capacity configured, the upgrade algorithm is
computing to densify the two sectors.
ROMA 1234-D Though, only one site is needed to relieve the areas as shown
in the images.
Detection and removal based on The upgrade process computes that only one site
0.1Mbps
overlapping ratios, inter-sites distance densification is needed and will remove automatically the
second site densification from the budget
NEW SITE

NEW SITE

0.1Mbps

ROMA 1279-C
 Study 2
For some sectors with the highest difference between the two
models (in RED), the Icix results were validated in the field
Total Solution Value $8.1M per month
Case Study, Fixed
Wireless Access
Philippines, Asia
Where to sell lines ?
The Engineering team wanted to validate their process to identify and
communicate to the Sales team the number
of Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) sellable lines;
Icix adapted its tool to automatically calculate FWA available lines and :
a) Found 38% more lines (potentially generating $6.9m / mth of revenues);
b) Found 14% lines at risk of churn (potential loss of $1.2m / mth);
c) Better located the lines geographically;
c) Modelled the User Experience (throughput) per sector;
d) Validated the results with field measurements;
 Managing
FWA Lines
In some networks, most of the 4G sectors
remain unused most of the time. Fixed
Wireless Access providers are using Icix FWA
lines management solution to discover where
they can still sell lines.
Buy lines App
Icix provides the number of lines for any
offers (ex: 1, 2, 5, 15Mbps..) and different
traffic mix (ex: 80% @ 1Mbps, 20% @ 3Mbps).

Postal code and RF coverage availability

maps are provided, as well as their
corresponding tables.

Salable FWA lines per coverage Salable FWA lines per postal code
areas
38% More FWA Lines
Case Study, Forecast Western Europe,
Traffic Forecast & Simulate Offers
The engineering team wanted to know the impact of opening
Current High scenario
roaming agreements to the Eruopean countries. Without
tourists, the network was usually not much loaded. Tourists
were switching off their phones when entering the country, due
to high roaming fees, and eventhough most congestion was
coming from roamers.
Opening roaming to tourists meant a sudden increase of traffic,
in a country welcoming 10 times its population annually.
Icix proposed several simulation :
high roaming traffic increase scenario
medium roaming traffic increase scenario
low roaming traffic increase scenario

Low scenario

Expect x7 Investments Under High Assumptions

Study 4
 Simulate Traffic FWA lines
BEFORE
6464

Growth Impact QoE 6.7

Operators need to anticipate the impact of

marketing offers, traffic changes (new roamers,
Budget 385
new services, removal of a technology, ...). Icix
solution can easily,
1. simulate marketing offers increase on traffic
2. forecast the most probable traffic growth
per sector
3. compute network congestions and
degradations (QoS)
FWA lines 5481
4. infer impacts on the network resources
dimensioning
5. infer impacts on active subscribers quality AFTER QoE 1.4
(QoE)

69%
MARKETING Budget 2900

Rationalized / Anticipated Budgets

Upgrading for all traffics (peak hour) & for all subscribers (cell edge) Rationalized
Investments
Assets needed to maintain 5Mbps

5460
Today there is no solution available for operators to
accurately decide where to invest, what date to
deploy and how many assets are needed when
traffic grows.
95% of the taffic
located up to the Icix solution showed that for this network 95% of the
cell center traffic is located between the site and the cell
center. The dimensioning done with the Icix solution,
Assets needed to maintain 5Mbps discarded users located at the cell edge,
representing 5% of the overall traffic, enabling a
2515 Capex/Opex reduction of 84%.

Upgrading only for the high hours traffics (88%) and for cell center
subscribers (95%), reduces the Capex/Opex by 84%

Almost The Same Quality With Less Capex -84%

Upgrades +3.6% of current assets
+1.4% of current assets
+0.7% of current assets
Saving 39% Capex/Opex
High/Edge DL Efficient
Dimensioning
These configuration upgrades shall shift
all the sectors' critical quality of service
and low QoE to deliver at least 5Mbps.
High/Median DL
Discovered that correcting the congested
sectors for high traffic hours and for users
up to 50% of the cell footprint would only
neglect 2% of the users' traffic and
neglect 4% of the day time, therefore it is
High/Center DL recommended to dimension the network
for subscribers at cell center or median
and for high traffic hours. It is highly
recommended to monitor and correct
the Uplink which is low (not conisdered
here)
Use Case 1: Intra Load Balacing

1 Sector 1 covering the city is congested,

sectors 2 and 3 covering rural
environments are providing excess
3 2 throughputs (>> 5Mbps) for a few
subscribers. Sectors' capacity are more or
less identical. A simple sector re-azimuth
Unbalanced traffic will split the current sector 1 footprint
between sector 1 and 3, downgrading the
QoE for 29 users only on S2, but will
cancel congestion for 400 users at no cost
Use Case 2: Inter Load Balancing
Overshooter

3 1
Low hourly PRBs utilization on 48S2, we see that
the utilization is plateauing, indication of a
2 backhaul bottleneck or a distant traffic and even
an over shooter (lowest QAMs only). Re-azimuth of
site 37 to serve the city only, would relieve noise
on 48S2 increase capacity / enhance 37 QoE

2
Use Case 3:
Swaps Saving additional 33% Capex / Opex
The tool identified that swaps of
resources from sectors that are over-
dimensioned and are serving more than
5Mbps to subscribers toward congested
sectors can save up to 33% Capex /
Opex.
Sure can avoid systematic capacity
expansion with the Syndesi solution.
Syndesi supports Sure during the
optimization process, by providing swift
and easy root cause analysis, by
prioritizing impact levels on subscribers,
and by validating if all the action
performed resolved the congestion.
Use Case 4 : Inter-sites Load Balancing
Cell capacity or cell throughput is
the bandwidth the active
subscribers are sharing.
Cell capacity depends on the cell
footprint and traffic density, the
bigger the footprint and traffic
density, the lower the capacity.
Every months if the number of
subscribers and the load are
growing to maintain the QoE either
the footprint shall be reduced or
the spectrum increased.
Relieve Congestion With No Capex
Sector capacity map
1
Congested sectors are often
surrounded by many sectors with
5
high capacity and high users QoE,
onto which it is sometimes possible
to push a part of the traffic to 4 1
Mbps
reduce the congestion levels.
Using the Syndesi capacity map and 3 1
active users throughput map, Sure
can easily identify the re-azimuths,
the uptilts and downtilts to
1 2
complete the congestion reduction.
Case Study, Users Bahrain, Middle East
Experience Quality Of Service
The engineering team wanted to know the experience of its
subscribers for various services (HD video calls, Youtube,
emails, web browsing, ...). For these services user throughput
is the main criteria.
Icix matched each service with the maximum throughput
thresholds, creating correspondence table and map.
Subscribers could use all the services most of the time in
most of the areas. However, during the high traffic hours
(88% of the time), only 40% of the sectors provided
throughputs above 8Mbps (marketing target), required to
enable High Definition usage, 13% of the sectors were heavily
congested, serving most of the time, only the lowest services:
emails and web browsing.

60% Users Not Having HDTV

90% Of The Time
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