Staying Covered

One of the issues that became clear as mobile operators across the world adapted to deal with the Second Generation Data Boom is that mobile operators are still largely blind to the true user experience. This is not to say they are apathetic about user experience, far from it, but rather that they lack the tools to properly put together a picture of user needs. The Second Generation Data Boom took data requirements mobile and the result is a rapidly growing and variable environment that mobile operators will need stronger analytics to address.

When you look at all the inefficiencies created by the data boom, it is clear that an inefficiency in analytics gathering will further compound the problem. Mobile operators need quality data on which areas have good or bad coverage, which areas have larger data needs, the usage patterns of people on the network, where the bottlenecks are and how they affect different areas. And they need all this information in real time.

For many mobile operators, the analytics-gathering process involves driving a truck around with a dish on the top, recording network availability. While this was a fine practice before the Second Generation Data Boom, it is now too time consuming and imprecise to keep up with the rapidly evolving network, so time consuming that it can take two years to put together a network coverage map. Two years is a long time in any industry, but especially the mobile industry. Two years means that today’s network map is only two iterations removed from the first network map to come out after the iPhone launched.

As a result, current coverage maps are at best estimates, but there are ways to change this. Analaytics can be gathered over the air, and not from the tops of trucks driving around the country, but from the network itself. An advanced connection manager like Birdstep’s EasyConnect has access to a lot of data, which properly harnessed can give mobile operators a detailed view of their network coverage. Knowing where and when the strains on data are can go a long way in mitigating the Second Generation Data Boom and will save time and resources in the process.

To survive in the New Mobile World Order, every possible step to increase efficiency will be needed, and one of the first steps of any efficiency project is making sure the data being responded to is as accurate and clear as possible. Clear data builds clear solutions.