Tektronix Communications Leads Mobile Broadband Service Assurance Paradigm Shift with “Packets to People” Based Solutions

Mobile data consumption across the globe is exploding as a result of the proliferation of new smartphones, but the real paradigm shift is actually linked to the abundance of new devices such as tablet personal computers and mobile USB dongle connected laptops. The mobile broadband landscape is changing and, with it, the usage patterns and expectations of millions of mobile users. As bandwidth availability increases, the number and variety of devices accessing mobile networks is growing and the plethora of services using this bandwidth is rising exponentially. In order to ensure continued profitability while managing subscriber quality of experience (QoE), mobile service providers must balance the cost of capacity expanding network investment with meeting the increased user demands for quality of service (QoS).



“While there are service-centric solutions that determine the QoE experienced by users and network-centric solutions that verify the QoS of delivered services, Tektronix Communications’ Iris suite of solutions “packets to people” approach provides unique breadth and depth to the intelligence that it offers multiple functions within the service provider,” said Mark Driedger, Vice President and General Manager, Network Management, Tektronix Communications. “The Iris suite of solutions delivers exceptional subscriber intelligence by providing full visibility of not only services, but of the subscribers using these services, the network carrying these services, down to the packets carrying the content of these services from service origination to delivery point.”



A recent Analysys Mason report on fixed mobile broadband cited that inferior QoS is the primary driver of poor customer satisfaction and churn in fixed broadband networks. Mobile broadband is no different. Users no longer only demand to be always on and always connected, but now have devices that are infinitely more suitable to enjoying real-time sensitive, high bandwidth services such as video and gaming. And, as the uptake of these bandwidth-heavy services increases, so too do the expectations of their users.

This change in landscape and mobile subscriber expectations directly challenges the traditional monitoring methodology used by the service provider operations group. Network performance was previously monitored using key performance indicators on aspects such as accessibility, retainability and retransmission rates; while these still remain critical parameters to monitor, they cannot answer the now basic question of how the service was experienced by a user.



About Tektronix Communications’ Mobile Broadband Solutions

The Iris suite of products provides multiple organizations within service provider real-time and historical information for all service troubleshooting and performance monitoring needs. The Iris family of products includes:



 GeoProbe G10 – Based on the industry-leading GeoProbe, the new high-speed, high-density 10GE probe features a distributed architecture optimized to handle high bandwidth IP traffic.

 Iris Analyzer toolset – Includes Iris Protocol Analyzer (PA), Iris Session Analyzer (ISA) and Iris Traffic Analyzer (ITA), which provides L2 to L7 troubleshooting by characterizing IP traffic by links, applications and servers.

 IrisView – Easy-to-use, configurable software framework that provides a single, integrated platform for all applications, including feeds to customer experience management (CEM) systems and third party OSS, BSS applications.

 Iris Performance Intelligence – Provides unmatched end-to-end analysis and reporting capabilities coupled with an extremely flexible and powerful KPI/KQI modeling engine that allows operators to better link desired business outcomes to events that occur at the network level.

 The Iris solution suite with Arantech’s touchpoint™ – The most advanced customer experience management solution used by mobile operators today, Iris with Arantech’s touchpoint closes the gap between network and service performance intelligence to provide actionable information with unique breadth and depth. Service performance and experience is assured over the full service delivery chain, which can include multiple technologies and physical interface types, in one fully integrated, “packets to people” solution.