I am not sure if everyone is aware of the field of Network Testing. This month I want to bring up the topic of Network Testing and its relation to IoT. Being a product Manager of the system that is designed to efficiently test the cellular and Wi-Fi network , this is definitely my soft corner.
So lets look at the connected world and Network Testing!
We are just so used to having data and calls that we cant imagine life without it.
There is a lot of effort that involved to get us this high speed data and voice calls.
Let me not deviate from the topic of IoT and Network testing. Now that we are looking at every connected device as a thing here. Why not to use that device for testing the network?
The companies spend millions of dollars in network testing every year. There is a lot of testing , analysis and changes required in the whole process. The process is time consuming and expensive too.
So why not use the customer data for network testing?
WAIT , what , use my data for testing? Why ? what about my data security , identity protections etc etc
So lets address this. Some companies did come up with an agent that sits on the customer phone and will send the network data to the operator after every finite time interval. They had taken care not to expose the user's identity and location but still got into the security issues and unfortunately not all of them could continue.
You can read the article published in 2011 here.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/dear-carrier-iq-if-you-want-to-track-me-you-need-to-ask-me-first/2011/12/05/gIQArFNrfO_story.html
Lets look at the technology and architecture behind that.
There are certain android telephony APIs and Modem APIs that give information like RSRP, SiNR , RSRQ , failed events like RACH failures, call drops etc. If this information and usage information is combined and sent to the server. The server can definitely analyse that data and come up with relevant conclusions on hows the coverage, capacity , quality and behavior of the network. Whats the reason for failure scenarios.
How can the network be improved and what changes will be required? All this analysis and information is done and stored on the server. This data is very very useful for the operators.
Actually network testing itself a huge topic for discussion and I might end writing about it for multiple blogs as I work in this sector.
So lets look at the connected world and Network Testing!
We are just so used to having data and calls that we cant imagine life without it.
There is a lot of effort that involved to get us this high speed data and voice calls.
Let me not deviate from the topic of IoT and Network testing. Now that we are looking at every connected device as a thing here. Why not to use that device for testing the network?
The companies spend millions of dollars in network testing every year. There is a lot of testing , analysis and changes required in the whole process. The process is time consuming and expensive too.
So why not use the customer data for network testing?
WAIT , what , use my data for testing? Why ? what about my data security , identity protections etc etc
So lets address this. Some companies did come up with an agent that sits on the customer phone and will send the network data to the operator after every finite time interval. They had taken care not to expose the user's identity and location but still got into the security issues and unfortunately not all of them could continue.
You can read the article published in 2011 here.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/dear-carrier-iq-if-you-want-to-track-me-you-need-to-ask-me-first/2011/12/05/gIQArFNrfO_story.html
Lets look at the technology and architecture behind that.
There are certain android telephony APIs and Modem APIs that give information like RSRP, SiNR , RSRQ , failed events like RACH failures, call drops etc. If this information and usage information is combined and sent to the server. The server can definitely analyse that data and come up with relevant conclusions on hows the coverage, capacity , quality and behavior of the network. Whats the reason for failure scenarios.
How can the network be improved and what changes will be required? All this analysis and information is done and stored on the server. This data is very very useful for the operators.
Actually network testing itself a huge topic for discussion and I might end writing about it for multiple blogs as I work in this sector.
