Telecom Operators Research Articles

ANALYSIS OF COMPETITION IN THE MARKET FOR CELLULAR SERVICES IN THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

It is impossible to imagine the modern society without the constant information exchange. In the digitalization age, cellular services have become the most profitable and rapidly developing part of the telecommunications industry. This article analyzes the market for cellular services in the Russian Federation. The authors pay attention to the development of competition in this market. The inter-regional market features the “Big Four” companies (VimpelCom, MegaFon, MTS and T2 Mobile), virtual operators, the number of which has increased in recent years, as well as small operators operating within several regions. However, the shares of virtual and small operators are small when compared to the “big four”. This study presents data on interregional and regional telecom operators from 2016 to 2020. The paper uses industry assessment approaches based on industry market theory: measures of concentration level, market power, and structure analysis. Additionally, the authors consider strategic and non-strategic barriers to entry while estimating the industry’s future development prospects. The Russian cellular market is characterized by a high level of competition. This study has revealed a tendency towards a decrease in concentration, which can be explained by the increase in the number of major players and the entry of newcomers to the market.

Pilot Contamination Mitigation in Massive MIMO Cloud Radio Access Networks

Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology is expected to achieve significant gains in both signal-to-noise-plus-interference ratio (SINR) and throughput for 5G cellular wireless networks. Efficient and highly accurate channel state information (CSI) acquisition at the base stations (BS) is essential to achieve the potential benefits of massive MIMO systems. However, the inadequate number of orthogonal pilot sequences used for CSI estimation leads to erroneous channel estimation as it causes interference between pilot sequences. This phenomenon is coined pilot contamination and severely limits the system performance. Therefore, we address in this paper the pilot contamination problem in massive MIMO Cloud-Radio Access Networks systems. Leveraging on a real telecom operator data delivered by Call Detail Records (CDR), our objective is to maximize the average uplink achievable rate by reducing the effect of pilot contamination in massive MIMO Cloud-Radio Access Networks (C-RAN). As such a problem is a non-linear integer problem that has no solution in polynomial time, we develop a two-stage solution to solve it. First, a coalition game is proposed where Remote Radio Heads (RRHs) gather into clusters with random user-pilot allocation. Then, two greedy heuristics are applied to match each user in the cluster with a given pilot. The goal is to further improve the average uplink rate achieved in the first stage. Simulation results show that our heuristic solutions for pilot contamination mitigation outperform the traditional pilot allocation solution and a state-of-the-art pilot allocation scheme based on large-scale fading in terms of average uplink achievable rate and SINR.

A tale of two international strategies: how telecom operators of the European Union and the USA dealt with the political-institutional environment after the global financial crisis

A tale of two international strategies: how telecom operators of the European Union and the USA dealt with the political-institutional environment after the global financial crisis

Analysis and solutions of traffic shift on 4G networks in the campus environment during the Covid-19 pandemic

The monitoring and management of Internet data traffic is an important requirement to be used and interpreted as a resource to make informed network management decisions. At the time of the covid-19 pandemic there was significant internet traffic changed caused by most of the students who returned home because of home-based lecture policies. Earlier Internet traffic that was in offices, college areas, schools and public places was so high even tended to overload. However, at present Internet traffic shifts to residential or residential areas. However, currently internet traffic is shifting to this problem, the telecommunications operator to do optimization to reduce expenses due to decreased income in the area around the campus. Optimization is done by dynamic carrier shut down, one carrier will be turned off if its utilization is lower than a predetermined threshold.

Managing a multi battery energy storage system of a telecommunications company in order to reduce the total energy cost

The use of batteries as a backup in case of power outages is a common practice adopted by telecommunications companies that need to keep their services always active. Besides, those batteries can also be used for other purposes such as participating in the energy market in order to reduce the electricity bill, as long as the safety usage rules are respected. In this context, batteries can be used when the energy costs more and recharged when the energy costs less, which is known as the demand-response mechanism. Our focus in this work is to optimize the use of batteries installed for backup to participate in the demand-response mechanism, in order to reduce the total energy cost for the company. We formally state the related optimization problem and propose two solving approaches to address it: a mixed-integer program and a heuristic to solve large instances. Simulations based on real data of a French telecommunications operator prove the relevance of using batteries to reduce the energy cost for the company by participating in the demandresponse mechanism. The proposed heuristic proves to be economically relevant and computationally efficient, being a good alternative to a mixed-integer program for large-scale problems.

The future of work in the age of the fourth industrial revolution: Implications for the South African telecommunications industry

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) has introduced significant changes to the global telecommunications industry including South Africa. As a result of innovations and changes in digital technology, the South African telecommunications industry is actively adopting the latest applications and processes of digital technology for rendering efficient voice, data and text messaging services to clients. These changes present opportunities for growth in marketshare to telecommunications operators. The paper presents a summary of the main impact of 4IR on the South African telecommunications industry along with challenges and opportunities 4IR presents to the industry. Advanced applications emanating from 4IR are characterised by the integration of new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and cloud computing. These technologies enable the telecommunications industry to offer innovative services and products, improve operational efficiency, and enhance customer experience. However, the implementation of 4IR technologies presents challenges such as cybersecurity risks, the need for upskilling the workforce, and regulatory challenges. Despite these challenges, 4IR technologies offer opportunities for the telecommunications industry to drive economic growth, increase productivity, and create new jobs. This abstract concludes that South African telecommunications companies need to embrace 4IR technologies to remain competitive in a rapidly evolving market.

An investigation of various machine learning techniques for mobile call data analysis for reducing call drop

Mobile call drop is a big concern for all telecommunications operators. In telecommunications, a cell phone call drop is a condition where calls have been cut off before the speakers have ended their conversation tone and before one of them has hung up. Therefore, the goal of this research is to design a predictive model that can estimate the mobile call drop data set of the mobile network. In order to address the disadvantage of simple statistical approaches, we have proposed and used data mining techniques, methods and methodologies in this study. In this paper, we propose a decision tree based on the mobile call drop data classification and prediction method. Experimental research is also being performed to test the proposed technique.

Factors Affecting Intention to use Mobile Money Service in Sri Lanka: Moderating Effect of Demographic Factors with reference to Western Province of Sri Lanka

Mobile money service allows mobile users to perform financial transactions using their mobile phones which helps to decline the physical use of money. Therefore, the objective of the study was to identify the factors affecting intention to use mobile money service in Sri Lanka and the relationship between those identified factors and intention to use mobile money services. Further, the study is carried out to assess the moderating impact of demographic factors on the relationship between those factors and the intention to use mobile money. The data collection was carried out through a structured questionnaire from 400 randomly selected participants of Western province Sri Lanka. Usefulness, trust, risk, awareness, and knowledge are identified as the key factors affecting the intention to use mobile money service. There was a significant positive relationship between usefulness, trust, awareness, and knowledge with the intention to use mobile money while the risk was significantly negative. Further, the moderating impact of demographic factors on the above-identified five factors was assessed and it was noted that gender and age do not moderate the relationship between the above-identified five factors and user intention, but income level and job title moderate the relationship between above-identified factors and user intention. Based on the results of the study it is recommended that mobile telecom operators should take actions to increase usefulness, trust, awareness and knowledge while taking actions to decrease the risk factors involving in the service. Further, it is recommended to consider education level and working experience as moderating demographic factors of factors effecting on intention to use mobile money services.

EVALUATION OF VOICE TRANSMISSION QUALITY IN THE LTE NETWORKS

Background. LTE mobile networks combine packet network technology and radio technology. Parameters of packet and radio subsystems significantly affects the quality of all traffic types transmission, especially telephone traffic, as the most demanding to such parameters of network transmission as delay, jitter and packet loss rate. The recommendations of the International Telecommunication Union and the documents of the partner organization of telecommunications operators (3GPP) contain hypothetical reference models, targets for end-to-end connection quality, and lists the factors that affect the quality (QoS) of VoLTE services. In addition, the network points are shown where you need to measure the quality of telephone traffic and tools for quality assessment. The quality of telephony services is assessed according to the E-model using the method of determining the mean opinion score (MOS). However, this technique is intended primarily to determine the MOS during the network planning. To calculate the MOS in a working network, you have to measure such network performance first such as voice delay and packet loss rate. This article presents the method of calculating MOS in the LTE network based on the E-model and presents the results of practical quality studies.
 Objective. The purpose of this article is research the impact of delay and packet loss ratio and voice codec characteristics in the real LTE network on quality of telephone services.
 Methods. Analysis of factors affecting on telephone services quality and analysis MOS assessment methods. Practical studies of the delay and packet loss ratio affect the MOS level in various conditions of radio coverage and network load.
 Results. Practical results of delay and packet loss ratio influence on the telephone services quality in the LTE network. Calculated MOS based on the practically measured delay and packet loss ratio.
 Conclusions. The combination of packet technologies, modern AMR-WB codecs and QoS support mechanisms in the LTE networks provides high quality perception of voice messages at the level of not less than 4 on the MOS scale. With a delay not exceeding 180 ms, a sufficiently high quality of voice transmission is ensured (MOS ≈ 4). VoLTE technology using the AMR-WB codec is quite resistant to packet loss and provides high quality perception of voice messages at a packet loss ratio of up to 1%.

A Conversion Protocol for 2W Telephone Signal over Ethernet in a Private PSTN

In this paper, we proposed a protocol to convert 2W telephone analog signals to Ethernet data in a private PSTN 2W tactical voice system. There are several kinds of operational problems in the tactical telephone network where 2W telephone copper lines are installed hundreds of meters away from the PBX in a headquarter site. The reason is that it is difficult to install and maintain the 2W telephone copper cable in severe operational fields and to meet safety and stability operational requirements of the telephone line under lighting and electromagnetic environments. In order to solve these challenging demands, we proposed an efficient method that the 2W analog interface signals between a private PBX system and a 2W telephone is converted to Ethernet messages using the optical Ethernet data communication network already deployed in the tactical weapon system. Thus, it is not necessary to install an additional optic cable for the ethernet telephone line and to maintain the private PSTN 2W telephone network. Also it provides safe and secure telecommunication operation under lightning and electromagnetic environments.<br/>This paper presents the conversion protocol from 2W telephone signals over Ethernet interface between PBX systems and 2W telephones, the mutual exchange protocol of ethernet messages between two converters, and the rule to process analog signal interface. Finally, we demonstrate that the proposed technique can provide a feasible solution in the tactical weapon system by analyzing its performance and experimental results such as the bandwidth of 2W telephone ethernet network and the transmission latency of voice signal, and the stability of optic ethernet voice network along with the ethernet data network.

FEATURES OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT IN THE DIGITAL ECONOMY

The article substantiates the relevance of strategic management of organizations in the digital economy, taking into account the specifics of the industry. The development of info communication technologies is currently one of the strategic directions for modernizing the economy not only in Russia, but also in all countries of the world in the context of digital transformation. In connection with the above, the ranking of countries by the Digitalization Index in 2020 has been studied, and the leading countries / markets of the world by the number of smartphone users in 2021 are presented. To improve the strategic management of organizations in the context of digitalization of economies, the key characteristics of internal and external strategic balance are shown, a model of strategic management of organizations - telecom operators is built

Accurately Modeling Zero-Bias Diode-Based RF Power Harvesters With Wide Adaptability to Frequency and Power

This paper proposes an analytical method for effectively evaluating the performances of zero-bias diode-based RF power harvesters. The method allows the accurate calculation of both the diode power conversion efficiency (PCE) and matching efficiency, while showing the wide adaptability to frequency and input power. To calculate the diode PCE accurately, the junction voltage is built based on modeling the diode junction capacitance and turn-on voltage. Using the accurate diode PCE, the equivalent nonlinear resistance of the diode is calculated, and thus the diode impedance is obtained. This helps to design a matching network with required bandwidths and evaluate the corresponding matching efficiency. The total PCE of the RF power harvester is finally obtained by multiplying the diode PCE and matching efficiency. For verification, dual-band RF power harvesters based on diodes of SMS7630 and HSMS-2850 are developed to cover the two 5G frequency bands for three telecom operators in China (2.515-2.675, 3.4-3.5 & 3.5-3.6 GHz). They are designed to operate in the low power range of −25-−5 dBm for low power harvesting scenarios. Compared with the simulated results, the calculation discrepancy of less than 3.12% can be achieved in evaluating the total PCEs of the RF power harvesters. Prototypes of the designed RF power harvesters were fabricated and measured for validation. It shows that the proposed analytical method can provide design guidelines for developing a multi-band RF power harvester.

FOCUS ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR PREDICTING THE OUTFLOW OF CLIENTS FROM ON-LINE EDUCATION SITES

The article examines the process of forecasting customer outflows, which is especially important for companies that use a business model based on subscription. It was found that the outflow rate is extremely important for companies with a subscription and transactional business model, which implies regular payments to the company (banks, telecom operators, SaaS-services, etc.). For this purpose, the types, the main reasons for the outflow of customers and the parameters defined to build a predictive model using machine learning algorithms were considered. The result was the hypothesis of the reasons for the outflow of customers from sites that provide training services based on courses that are presented on-line in the Internet space. To build a model of outflow forecasting, the behavioral characteristics of students, their motivation and the structure of the courses themselves were studied. Based on the collected large array of data, their change was analyzed by a large number of parameters and the relationships between the behavioral characteristics of students, course structures and their passage were identified. A variant of the forecasting model was built, for which the accuracy of its operation was increased and the results were integrated into the customer outflow prediction module. The final list of features included more than 100 parameters, which were divided into 6 blocks. As a result, a predictive model was created using the Weibull distribution, as client behavior can be considered as a kind of survival model. To estimate the probability of customer outflow, based on the considered hypotheses, a recurrent neural network with an LSTM layer was developed, where a negative logarithmic likelihood function was used as a loss function for the Weibull distribution. As a conclusion, it was proposed to introduce a stable proactive educational business, when decisions are made not only on the basis of feelings, but also on the basis of data, comes a clearer and more sound understanding of how to improve the educational product.

Application Layer Packet Processing Using PISA Switches.

This paper investigates and proposes a solution for Protocol Independent Switch Architecture (PISA) to process application layer data, enabling the inspection of application content. PISA is a novel approach in networking where the switch does not run any embedded binary code but rather an interpreted code written in a domain-specific language. The main motivation behind this approach is that telecommunication operators do not want to be locked in by a vendor for any type of networking equipment, develop their own networking code in a hardware environment that is not governed by a single equipment manufacturer. This approach also eases the modeling of equipment in a simulation environment as all of the components of a hardware switch run the same compatible code in a software modeled switch. The novel techniques in this paper exploit the main functions of a programmable switch and combine the streaming data processor to create the desired effect from a telecommunication operator perspective to lower the costs and govern the network in a comprehensive manner. The results indicate that the proposed solution using PISA switches enables application visibility in an outstanding performance. This ability helps the operators to remove a fundamental gap between flexibility and scalability by making the best use of limited compute resources in application identification and the response to them. The experimental study indicates that, without any optimization, the proposed solution increases the performance of application identification systems 5.5 to 47.0 times. This study promises that DPI, NGFW (Next-Generation Firewall), and such application layer systems which have quite high costs per unit traffic volume and could not scale to a Tbps level, can be combined with PISA to overcome the cost and scalability issues.

Generative adversarial networks for generating synthetic features for Wi-Fi signal quality.

Wireless networks are among the fundamental technologies used to connect people. Considering the constant advancements in the field, telecommunication operators must guarantee a high-quality service to keep their customer portfolio. To ensure this high-quality service, it is common to establish partnerships with specialized technology companies that deliver software services in order to monitor the networks and identify faults and respective solutions. A common barrier faced by these specialized companies is the lack of data to develop and test their products. This paper investigates the use of generative adversarial networks (GANs), which are state-of-the-art generative models, for generating synthetic telecommunication data related to Wi-Fi signal quality. We developed, trained, and compared two of the most used GAN architectures: the Vanilla GAN and the Wasserstein GAN (WGAN). Both models presented satisfactory results and were able to generate synthetic data similar to the real ones. In particular, the distribution of the synthetic data overlaps the distribution of the real data for all of the considered features. Moreover, the considered generative models can reproduce the same associations observed for the synthetic features. We chose the WGAN as the final model, but both models are suitable for addressing the problem at hand.

Concept of the Secondary Automated Network for Monitoring Weather Conditions whith Low-power Radars as Sensors

This article is devoted to creation of the secondary network using base stations of mobile telecommunications operators. General advantages of the secondary networks are discussed. Then we suggest to build a novel network of low-cost small base radars (BSR) by adding the low-power radars to the existent selected base stations’ equipment. This gives a possibility to obtain a high-resolution meteorological information in particular about dangerous weather phenomena in real-time and for any region of mobile network coverage. The applications of the proposing network are not limited by meteorology, but includes also some other fields, for example, traffic monitoring, birds and insects’ migration observations, etc.

Research on Integrated Strategy of Network Maintenance of Telecommunication Operators

Research on Integrated Strategy of Network Maintenance of Telecommunication Operators

Optical network design and analysis tools: A test of time

Telecom operators' infrastructure is sustained by optical communication networks that provide the means for exchanging large amounts of information, which is essential for many modern society needs. Optical networks are characterized by rapid breakthroughs in a variety of technologies. Relevantly, the last decade encompassed remarkable advances in optical networks’ subfields of signal processing, electronics, photonics, communications, protocols, and control-plane architectures. Hence, these advancements unlocked unprecedented transmission capacities, reconfigurability and programmability, entailing an evolution in the way which networks were designed, planned, and analyzed. In this paper, we review the historical status of optical planning and design tools by focusing on the major enabling technologies and relevant landmarks of the last decade(s). We begin by pinpointing the major breakthroughs in the optical data plane, estimation models capturing the transmission medium behavior and the control plane. We then distil the implications that these advancements entail in the landscape of optical network design and analysis tools, which commonly sit “on top” of the control plane or as a fully separated entity. Then, we speculate with our view for the future, in which automatic validation of optical network operations and dimensioning jointly with learning/artificial intelligence mechanisms will permit zero-touch optical networking: i.e. updating, provisioning, and upgrading network capacities, by means of automation with minimal human intervention. We conclude with a proposal of an architecture that encompasses data and control planes in a comprehensive manner for paving the way towards zero-touch optical networking.

ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY IN FINANCIAL INCLUSION IN INDIA

Technology and financial inclusion are the popular coinage in banking parleys in the country. While technological upgradation and mobile banking are catching up so fast, financial inclusion is tardy. Financial inclusion is a major agenda for the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Without financial inclusion, banks cannot reach the un-banked. It is also a major step towards increasing savings and achieving balanced growth. The reach the country is having with technological progress mobile banking has the potential to emerge as a game changer in terms of costs, convenience, and speed of reach. Business models of banks, telecom operators and other stakeholders need to converge. However, the banking industry’s penetration to un-banked areas is still found sluggish. The role of the Indian banker is challenging. At one end of this spectrum lies the demand to achieve financial inclusion as nearly 50 per cent of the population is yet to be covered under the formal system of banking and at the other end lies the task to fulfil the needs of the existing customers. The first priority for banks is to adopt core banking solution (CBS), including all regional rural banks (RRBs). Next, a multi-channel approach using handheld devices, mobiles, cards, micro-ATMs, branches and kiosks can be used. However, it should be ensured that the transactions put through such front-end devices should be seamlessly integrated with the banks’ CBS. In rural areas, where accessibility is a problem, banks are using the microfinance network and business correspondents and facilitators to bring more people under the ambit of banking services. Capitalising on the huge untapped potential in smaller towns and cities and rendering financial services to this segment of people poses a big challenge. Few banks have explored technology solutions to increase the scale of their microfinance portfolios, with the use of smart cards and core banking solutions. KEYWORDS- Technology, Financial Inclusion, Core Banking, Business Correspondents

Mitigating the Effect of COVID Lockdown Period on Channel and Bandwidth Utilization in Mobile Communication Network in North Western Rajasthan (India)

The COVID-19 lockdown has led all the citizens (mobile subscribers) of India to stay at home and rather work from home. The people have started consuming more channel utilization (in mobile communication) through a continuous long duration conversations and more internet data through more streaming content as well as logging on to work from home. It was also reflected in how data demand from residential areas rose as compared to commercial areas. Consequently the bandwidth and channel saturation has evolved out to be a severe problem thereby affecting the work performance of all online offices and multi-national companies. This research paper proposes the simulation based experimental study of DITMC technique for mitigating this effect with a special concern in North Western Rajasthan part of India. The simulation results show that significant enhancement of 60.52% in channel utilization and bandwidth optimization is possible with negligible overhead of 0.23%. This technique also enables the telecom operators to ponder research in this field that will promisingly lead to manage augmented number of mobile subscribers (independent of any lockdown period) in limited bandwidth thereby using the spectrum efficiently.