Zong has proposed Pakistan Telecommunication Authority to ensure telecom operators’ quality of service through OSS monitoring. For those who don’t know, each operator has designated OSS solutions through which they monitor and maintain networks in real-time for any technical or procedural issues.
For the purpose, Zong held a training session for PTA officials with the theme of “Growing Together Through Knowledge Sharing”.
Training sessions was attended by notable representatives of PTA (Pakistan Telecommunication Authority) along the lines of Directors, Deputy Directors and Assistant Directors amongst other team members.
The activity commenced with a visit to Zong’s Telehouse at I-9 Islamabad, whereby PTA officials were given a round of the Equipment room and Centralized Network Operations Center (CNOC).
Thereafter they visited Zong Headquarters, where the Regulatory team, CNOC team, Radio Access Network (RAN) team presented their workings as well as gave a live OSS system demo.
The attendees highly appreciated the first of it’s kind interactive knowledge sharing session for learning and regulatory harmonization.
With reference to the event, Sajid Mahmood Chief Regulatory Officer (CRO) Zong noted that “The importance of achieving a certain degree of regulatory harmonization must be acknowledged for the progression of Pakistan’s telecom industry.” He further expressed how Zong will continue to take the lead in conducting such initiatives. “Zong shall endeavor to engage in and conduct further such educational activities, and hopes that our Regulator’s participation in today’s session will be mirrored in all such future sessions, enabling both the industry and PTA to benefit from such learnings.”
“Sajid Mehmood, Chief Regulatory Officer (CRO) along with PTA representatives and Zong Regulatory Team at Training Awareness Session for PTA on Quality of Service.”
Currently PTA conducts drive tests through which various KPIs for quality of services are determined. These drive tests are conducted on specific days (usually once in an year) and on specific routes only where special equipment is used to calculate KPIs to determine quality of service for cellular operators.
Mr. Nouman Khalid, Head of Regulatory Affairs, Zong told ProPakistani that technology has evolved over the years and consequently there is a strong need for evolution in regulatory affairs as well. He said that regulator should come ahead and employ automated OSS solutions to ensure QoS for cellular operators that offer network-wide visibility with near to real time sampling of data for assessing the quality of service.
When asked, Mr. Nouman said that his company won’t have any issues in granting PTA access to Zong’s network data for consistent evaluation of QoS KPIs.
According to Mr. Nouman, PTA can employ drive tests and OSS monitoring in parallel for determining various network KPIs.
Below are few of the KPIs that PTA can determine through OSS:
Below are few of the KPIs that PTA can determine through drive tests:
Mr. Nouman said that with evolution in technology, there is a need for amendments in certain KPIs. For example for establishment of a voice call over 4G network, mobile devices switch back to 3G or 2G networks that consume 1-3 seconds and hence call setup KPI of 6 seconds is almost impossible to achieve.
He said that that regulator should engage discussions with industry to achieve best user experience for array of telecom services.
