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May 23, 2022

What keeps operators up at night?

The challenges that operators face today when evolving their networks, operations, and business models are complex. Service providers are having to transform their mobile network to address the growing demand for high-speed data traffic and improve their subscriber experience to remain competitive. This results in a lot of questions. How do market-leading APAC operators succeed by improving their business performance in specific areas? How does the operator overcome their network, operational, and business challenges and build a scalable network to provide the best customer experience to their subscribers? Ken Lim, VP of Sales, APAC at RFS, discusses how RFS offers solutions, driven by customer challenges that align with operators' business objectives and help operators address the key issues that keep them awake at night.

Ken Lim, VP Sales APAC
TAGS : TELECOM, APAC

Data Tsunami and Operator's network, operational and business evolution challenges

According to the GSMA, by the end of 2020, the APAC region was home to 1.6 billion subscribers. By 2025, this will grow to 1.8 billion with a diverse range of communication needs across the region's countries. The result is a sky-high subscribers' appetite for high-speed data services that are bi-directional and low latency which operators refer to as a "data tsunami." RFS delivers telecom and broadcast solutions to address operator's data tsunami challenges as they build out their network to provide an excellent subscriber experience. Operators need to find a way to meet consumer and business subscribers' growing data needs today, with scalable telecom infrastructure that will adapt to support a future surge in data demand.

That’s the big picture, but let’s look in more detail and the technical challenges this results in. Delivering network performance, IP network transformation, subscriber experience, operational efficiency, services innovation, competition from OTT players, OSS and BSS transformation, OpEx and CapEx reduction, and wireless data growth – certainly plenty to lose sleep over, so how can we help?

Understanding the operator's end-users and subscribers' need

Knowing how service providers will adapt to the rising demand for data over the next decade, the shift to scalable 5G networks and growing IoT deployments has to be at the forefront of network equipment designers' key considerations when developing next-generation telecoms infrastructure. 

It is no longer enough to develop network solutions to address the immediate challenges faced by the telecom industry. Instead, they must put a greater emphasis on fully understanding the operator's network, operational and business challenges all the way through to their end subscriber's needs. At RFS we analyze the operator's future evolution paths and develops scalable network technologies to support a variety of eventualities driven by the data tsunami.

We are working with a far more complex landscape than anything the industry has previously seen. Therefore, it is vital to take a practical approach when designing RFS's mobile site and cable solutions. When RFS develops cell site and microwave solutions for OEMs and Service Providers, the operator's end subscribers' behavior plays a significant role in our product and solutions development. 

For example, subscribers in the APAC region have high expectations for their service providers and will not hesitate to churn with just a single lousy subscriber's experience. The shift of end-user behavior and demand for innovative data-rich consumer and business services like HD video streaming, social media, cloud-based ERP/CRM/Office applications, immersive Gaming/AR/VR/Metaverse, and the expectation of a seamless mobile data internet experience “any time anywhere” have driven up the demand for scalable and reliable cell site solutions and microwave backhaul. 

An end-customer challenges-driven solutions 

Operators need solutions driven by end subscriber challenges, not "R&D" driven products. Hence, a deep and holistic understanding of the telecoms and broadcast landscapes and challenges is imperative to develop the required solutions.

When designing RFS's modular APA base station antenna, we considered the operator's mobile site footprint requirements and ability to scale as the demand grows. Hence the APA base station antenna architecture is based on a LEGO-like building block approach that allows antenna elements to be switched out and upgraded as network and subscriber needs evolve. By understanding the operator's need to improve their subscriber experience consistently, we have been able to offer an infrastructure model that can adapt as network and subscriber's data consumption needs change. 

Likewise, our microwave solutions have been developed with “anytime anywhere” in mind, to address on-demand data backhaul needs. RFS’s innovative high-performance dual-band technology uses the strengths of different frequencies to allow highly reliable and dynamic high-speed mobile or fixed network operators’ data backhaul in urban, suburban, and rural environments. 

Conclusion

A deep understanding of the operator's network, operational, and business challenges all the way through to their subscribers’ experiences is essential and a differentiated value that RFS brings to the table. To offer market-leading telecom and broadcast solutions that improve operators’ business performance and customer experience, this value must be front and center. By understanding the operator’s evolving end-customer needs, we can better design truly futureproofed solutions that align with the operator's business objectives and address the challenges. 

As a result of deploying RFS solutions, market-leading APAC operators succeed by improving their business performance in improved network performance and scalability, better operational efficiency, and excellent subscribers experience. Instead of staying awake at night to find solutions to cope with the data tsunami, operators are riding on the wireless data growth demand to increase their ARPU and introduce innovative data-rich business and consumer communication services to differentiate against the OTT (Over-The-Top) service providers. If you would like to hear more, please get in touch with  Ken Lim, VP of Sales, APAC at RFS.