Offers operators tool to manage individual user experience
Mobile operators have a new tool for analysing the user experience of data services in real time, following the launch of Vantage for Mobile from application assurance software provider Compuware.
Compuware says that the tool, which combines DPI passive probes with the ability to view reports of application performance at the subscriber level, will help operators solve the issue of managing and reacting to problems users may be having with data services and applications.
The problem for mobile operators is not only that they have a wealth of applications to monitor, but that there are a host of reasons for why a user might be experiencing poor performance. The issue might be with the device, a network element, or at the application server or internet service itself.
Jerry Witkowicz, Product Manager, Vantage for Mobile, said that although operators already have several monitoring and assurance systems, related to CRM and marketing functions, they don’t have the ability to start with the customer experience view, and then link that back to different functions.
“We leverage the data from our probes into a profile of the individual user,” he said. “Many other tools create aggregated views of the network performance, delivering that functionality to the network operations teams, but we can build a precise view of the user experience over the past 48 hours, down a ten second view of an individual customer.”
This level of detail will help CRM teams deal with customer complaints, or a business unit to manage a customer loyalty programme, Witkowicz said. It could also help network operations teams to identify areas for network expansion or optimisation.
The monitoring of IP services, and the increased growth and scale of data service usage, has lead to a movement in the assurance community to provide new solutions to operators. IP test house Ixia acquired Catapult Communications to bolt its IP knowledge to Catapult’s wireless expertise. And Tektronix recently launched its Iris product family, that collects, correlates and analyses media and signaling data from IP networks, turning application data into information to drive better operational and business results.
Compuware, which until now has concentrated on enterprise application assurance, said that it had carried out a survey of 22 operators that showed that understanding application performance as it affected the user experience was a growing headache.
One respondent said that reducing churn by 0.25% would save it, as an average operator, $9 million a year. “This increase in cashflow is vital in today’s economic climate,” the operator wrote.
Compuware said that pre-emptive data that showed the true customer experience, and the likely trigger points for a customer churning, would be able to defray the churn rate.