Mobile networks today are highly complex in nature. With
evolution of networks from 3G to 4G and explosive subscriber growth, the amount
of data flowing through the networks have increased manifold. Along the way,
networks have become denser with introduction of new solutions such as
femtocells and picocells (personal base stations) that boost mobile network coverage
and provide additional capacity. This is where the concept of Self Organizing Networks
or as it generally referred to as SON was developed. Old ways of managing the
network in terms of service availability or network capacity planning are not
scalable. The mobile first world needs an innovative approach to the way modern
day mobile networks are managed and the way network coverage and capacity is
planned. Similarly, operators need to find ways to reduce CAPEX and OPEX
without sacrificing on network quality and maintenance needs.
SON is a concept (set of highly complex algorithms) where
automated processes are used to monitor the network and measure its performance
and network analytics is used to gauge the feedback for making critical
decisions that help manage the complex network and reduce the costs. There are 3 main areas over which mobile
networks use SON algorithms for self-optimizing and balancing:
Self Configuration
Self-configuration allows wireless base stations or access
points to be plug and play. They need as little manual intervention as
possible.
Self-Optimization
Radio resource is often the bottleneck when it comes to
mobile networks. With SON, the radio resources are managed efficiently and
intelligently thereby providing optimization of coverage, capacity and
interference.
With SON, networks can perform mobility load balancing where
by cells which are heavily loaded can transfer load to other cells which are
lightly loaded thereby achieving the optimal balance. This load balancing
technique can be used even with different radio technologies e.g. between 4G
and 3G networks and also during handovers (Handover take place for e.g. when
the call is active and you are driving from one place to another without
dropping the call.)
Self-Healing
Any complex system experiences intermittent failure or
faults/errors. This can lead to service interruption or poor service quality.
Self-Healing involves automatic correction of network parameters and removal of
failures to mask the effect of the fault or failure. This self-healing
capability provides the necessary stability and reliability for mobile
networks.
With advent of Machine learning and Artificial intelligence, SON can be done at much larger scale and with more accuracy. Imagine a scenario where a region is facing poor signal coverage or low throughput numbers. While such a issue would have needed much intervention from engineering, going forward smart algorithms can isolate the root cause of such issue and lets say if the cause is some configuration mismatch or routing issue, they can fix the issue without manual intervention.
AI & ML will be more important as today's wireless networks evolve to 5G. 5G will result in network densification and there will be tons of wireless nodes deployed (Macro cells, femtocells etc) and service automation will be key in scaling of next generation networks and their day to day operation.
