Driving Quality Performance Improvements Through Rigorous Testing Of Key Roaming Services Barcelona, April 17 th 2007

Introduction KEYNOTE SIGOS  SIGOS founded in November 1989  April 2006 KEYNOTE aquires SIGOS  KEYNOTE group has currently about 300 employees, Market leader in IP monitoring  KEYNOTE SIGOS has about 80 employees, Market leader in E2E and service testing area  Business Segments  SIGOS Integrated Test Environment – SITE  GlobalRoamer – Roaming Test Service  Test support and consultancy in the telecommunications market  Currently more than 50 operators worldwide are using equipment or services from SIGOS amongst them Vodafone, T-Mobile, Telefonica and Orange

u Mobile telecommunication systems are an established technology  customers expect them to work u Customers are increasingly traveling and they expect mobile services to work everywhere u Customers are used to their network environment and they expect the same look and feel also abroad  VHE u Roaming is still a cash cow – 15% of operator’s revenue from international Roaming, mostly subscribers with high ARPU u The number of mobile services have increased exponentially over the last decade so that traveling people are much more depending on their cell phones than in the past Importance of QoS The role of QoS in the area of Roaming

 Market saturation has reached in many countries. Operators have to answer new questions like:  How can I attract new customers even in a saturated market?  How can I prevent my customers to churn?  How can I increase ARPU?  How can I check SLAs? Importance of QoS The role of QoS in the area of Roaming Qos in the area of Roaming is as important as QoS in the home network! It is the only key to remain successful!

 How good are the Roaming services really? Importance of QoS source: GlobalRoamer customer test data Service Availability There‘s still much money lost due to service unavailability

 How good are the Roaming services really? Importance of QoS source: GlobalRoamer customer test data  Voice Call Establishment Duration: 8,9 seconds  Mean Opinion Score: 2,97 (fair)  SMS Delivery Time: 12,4 seconds  MMS Delivery Time: 94,5 seconds Beside availability also quality measurements matter! It’s all about KPIs… „How long would a customer wait to be connected?“

QoS parameters u Current situation: u KPIs differ between operators according to their internal quality policy based on u service importance portfolio u maturation of technology in the country u Roaming related KPIs are rarely specified u Outlook: u Standardized KPIs are recommended by GRQ group u Aim is to measure everywhere the same and to make results comparable! u Unfortunately KPIs are only specified for Voice and SMS so far u To generate all KPIs the operators need different tools Key Performance Indicators

QoS parameters The Key Performance Indicators proposed by GRQ KPIs Voice - DescriptionKPIsWhich tool can generate it Network Access (customer being able to register on the network) Location Update success rateActive probing system Service accessibility (from customer hitting the send bottom until hearing a ring tone) NER (Network Effectiveness Ratio)Passive monitoring system PDD (Post Dialling Delay)Both systems Connection establishment (from customer hitting the send bottom until a successful establishment of the service) CSSR (Call Setup Success Ratio)Active probing system REL (ISUPv2 signalling transparency)Passive monitoring system OCN & RDN (ISUPv2 signalling transparency)Active probing system Connection retain ability (from a successful establishment of the service until service is terminated) CCR (Call Completion Rate)Passive monitoring system ALOC (Average Length of a Call)Passive monitoring system Connection quality CLI deliveryActive probing system SpQ (Speech Quality)Active probing system KPIs SMSKPIsWhich tool can generate it Network Access (customer being able to register on the network) Location Update success rateActive probing system Connection establishment (from customer hitting the send bottom until a successful delivery of the SMS) SMS Delivery Time (SDT)Active probing system SMS Completion Rate (SCR)Active probing system

different testing methods u Active testing solutions u Real end user simulation u Provide QoS parameters, real-time reports/alarms u Generation of dedicated test calls (billing, new services) u Passive monitoring solutions u No customer experience testing u Provide QoS parameters, real-time reports/alarms u Detailed trace information available covering however only part of the chain

different testing methods u What is the ideal solution? u Usage of all two methods to get the full picture u Data correlation between these systems (intra) and between Roaming partners (inter) u Modest price u What is reality today? u Active and passive testing solutions exist u No data exchange and correlation between the systems, limited or no exchange between Roaming partners u Active testing solution preferred due to best cost-value ratio

u Benefits of active probing: u Investment is not that high! u Preventive testing is possible before new services are launched, new network components are introduced and new Roaming agreements are signed u Revenue assurance testing to verify if provided TAP files are matching with the test calls u Immediate reaction is possible and bug fixing likely happens before customers get affected u Customer view can be realistically simulated u Easy implementation and test execution requiring no support from Roaming partner testing methods to guarantee QoS

Easy access via the web Countries of GlobalRoamer Test Locations GlobalRoamer extension in 2007 GSM/GPRS Test Locations GSM/GPRS and UMTS/WCDMA Test Locations GSM/GPRS and UMTS and HSDPA Test Locations 3G Active probing solution - GlobalRoamer

 All services can also be tested within a 3G environment Test Cases  Initialization  Basic Call  Supplementary Services  SMS  WAP (1.x / 2.0)  GPRS / IP  IVR  MMS  Voice Quality  Push-to-Talk (PoC)  Streaming  Web Browsing  Video Telephony testing methods to guarantee QoS Reports based on KPIs ALARM Alarms based on user definable thresholds

testing methods to guarantee QoS u One example what active testing can tell you: lse De Kee (Base Belgium): "Using GlobalRoamer, we realized that the success rate of our CAMEL calls was only around 50%! Additional to that, we then realized that another 50% of the successful tests weren’t billed! Thanks to GlobalRoamer, we could detect this and immediately take the respective actions."

different testing methods u What shall we do to improve? u GSMA guidelines are a first, very good start to achieve common and comparable GRQ information. Now operators have to use them! u Guideline do not yet include IP and other services u Testing must be intensified and move from an ad-hoc to a continuous process u Vendors must invest to increase worldwide coverage (2G and 3G) u Vendors must implement the GSMA guidelines (or operators must push them to do!) u Interfacing possibility between Active and Passive probing systems; is that something vendors should look at? u Mobile alliances shall use their international presence to intensify passive and active probing

Please feel free to ask… Florian Leeder Phone: q & a