Platforms for site intelligence, management and optimisation working group report

Laura Graves

January 05, 2017 04:00 PM

On 19 October, TowerXchange hosted the first working group on platforms for site intelligence, management and optimisation. With robust data being absolutely critical to decision making in site operations and management, the working group was designed to address some of the limitations that users are finding with current technology platforms, share success stories in the implementation of different systems and examine requirements on how technologies need to evolve.

Working group members

- Geert van Eijk, CEO, Helios Towers Ghana

- Nat-sy Missamou, Sharing New Business Program Director, Orange

- Hossein Khodayari, CEO, Fanasia

- Alisa Amupolo, CEO, Powercom

- Stefan van Heerden, Construction Manager, Atlas Tower

- Ahmed Saeb, Principal Category Manager, Networks SCM Technology, Vodafone Procurement Company

- Ankur Lal, CEO, Infozech

- Ohad Polinovsky, Telecom Director, Galooli

- Asher Avissar, CEO, AIO Systems

- Kishore K Das, CTO, Invendis

- Tshepo Motaung, Business Development, SADC Region, Abloy

Platforms for site intelligence, management and optimisation

Working group recommendations

RECOMMENDATION 1: Avoid having too many probes and sensors, simplify this to the most critical metrics

RECOMMENDATION 2: Ensure multiple layers of redundancy in transmission of your data

RECOMMENDATION 3: Examine your budget and determine what are your priorities to integrate

RECOMMENDATION 4: Use intelligent filtering and data infill to account for erroneous and missing data

RECOMMENDATION 5: Consider the pros and cons of embedded and third party RMS carefully

RECOMMENDATION 6: Establish a long term partnership between vendor and customer to ensure the system works as well in the field as the lab

RECOMMENDATION 7: Appreciate the value that time and the collection of longer term data brings to the ROI of your system

The top 5 limitations that need to be addressed:

1. Reliability: Even the most robust site management systems do not match the level of uptime that cell sites must be hitting. When towercos are pressured to hit 99%+ uptime but the monitoring systems can only promise 90%, the discrepancy can be problematic

2. Integrability: Vendors are so focussed on their own offerings that they neglect to look at how they integrate into other vendors’ systems; better interaction between suppliers is required to deliver the true end-to-end experience that buyers are looking for

3. Flexibility and scalability: Equipment on cell sites is subject to constant change, be it the addition of further tenants or the replacement of a diesel generator. Site management and monitoring systems need to be able to quickly and seamlessly adapt to such changes, a quality which some systems lack

4. Unmanageable data: With so many parameters now able to be measured, the sheer volume of data and number of alerts can make obtaining meaningful findings challenging. Simplification of systems and better definition of which parameters need to be measured is a key step moving forward

5. Lack of predictability: Whilst notifying the responsible party of a fault is beneficial, much more value can be obtained from flagging issues before a fault occurs. A much greater degree of predictability is required from systems currently on the market, with suppliers working hand in hand with tower owners and managers to identify warning signs that precede a fault.

Key questions buyers need answering in the decision making process

- Why do I need an independent RMS system, why can’t I just use OEM embedded solutions as these are now commonplace? What are the real advantages of third party systems?

- How many metrics should I try and integrate into one system? What just adds extra levels of complexity and what is fundamentally important?

- Is a single platform the ideal or does it make me more vulnerable if the system goes down?

- What is the reliability of systems and what layers of redundancy and backup are built into it?

- How are the prices of systems forecasted to change?

- What after sales support can I typically expect?

- How critical are missed data points and how useful are systems that work to fill in the blanks?

- How can you help me better predict faults before they occur?

- How future proofed are systems to the way in which networks and antennae are evolving?

Executive summary

An increasing number of site management, remote monitoring and access control systems are becoming available, each of which promise to give tower owners and operators better visibility and control of their site operations, driving improved efficiencies and cost savings. Whilst large sums are being spent on R&D by vendors, many users find that platforms do not stack up to expectations and have reported disappointing results. When working properly however, platforms have the ability to bring high levels of intelligence to sites, better predicting faults before they occur, tracking inefficiencies in operations and informing decision making processes. TowerXchange invited some of the most promising vendors to join both experienced users and first time buyers gearing up for major purchasing decisions in examining how the full potential of such platforms can be reached.

Discussion in the group kicked off with a brainstorming of key requirements from site management, monitoring and access control systems - highlighting the features and benefits that are the most valued by users

1. Integrated task force management, access control and job ticketing to support SLA enforcement

2. Track when and how preventative maintenance has been done - and alert the user when it is not

3. Sense and alert when the system has been tampered with

4. The ability to analyse information region by region

5. Ease of sharing information with tenants and other parties

6. The ability to inform prior to an incident occurring

7. Easy integration into OEM embedded monitoring systems

8. Segregation of information tenant by tenant to support separate invoicing

9. Simple for subcontractors and staff to use

10. High uptime and quick repair time when it does go down

One of the biggest requirements that is often listed of a site management system is its ability to offer a fully integrated, truly end-to-end solution. Whilst in theory this sounds like the ideal solution to be aiming towards, in reality the measurement of a large number of parameters comes at price - not only in a financial sense but also in the added complexity that it brings.

Whilst full integration is often an aspiration of those setting out to buy a site management system for the first time, some of the more seasoned site management system users advised against overcomplicating your system by introducing too many sensors and probes. There can be a temptation when starting out to try and integrate everything into one system but some users have found this impractical, preferring instead to distill the system down to the core essentials.

For smaller companies, this is even more important. With more limited budgets available, the high cost of very sophisticated, fully integrated systems is prohibitive, forcing the company to consider which elements are a top priority to integrate.

In terms of deciding what systems are important to invest in, participants questioned their peers over what value they thought third party remote monitoring systems brought to operations. With much equipment, particularly when it comes to energy components having its own embedded monitoring devices, the question was raised as to whether additional systems were surplus to requirements.

Having third party monitoring systems does add an extra level of redundancy which protects against system failure, but often there are discrepancies between the two readings, further complicating interpretation of increasingly large data sets. With each system producing data in its own proprietary protocol, ensuring that each system is functioning correctly becomes a bigger challenge when multiple systems are deployed and can add extra workload.

Vendors in the room explained some of the work they had been doing to eliminate erroneous results (read some of our interviews later in the report) and underscored the importance of ensuring the intelligence is built upon only sound rules. As well as incorrect data points participants discussed how to handle missing data points and algorithms that have been developed to better “fill in” gaps, particularly important when the output relates to invoicing.

The robustness of systems and the uptime that they can provide was one major talking point during discussions. Perhaps one of the biggest criticisms of monitoring systems was the level of downtime; towercos in the room explained how their SLAs with MNOs stipulate they must have 95-99% uptime on sites, yet no platforms in the market can provide close to this, although some vendors mentioned they had newer higher performance systems starting to approach this.

Often the reason behind failure can be beyond the control of the vendor, with the missing data a result of a communication error through the operator’s network. In order to protect against this it is important to have multiple layers of redundancy in the communication; be it multiple SIMs, OSS feeds or other mechanisms. Being able to fix the system quickly should it go down is of the utmost importance, a metric which can be affected by the level of after sales support offered by a given vendor. Similar to the point raised in many of the discussions at the event, seeing a vendor-user relationship as a long term partnership and rather than a standalone deal is key to the success of implementing site management systems effectively.

Alongside improved reliability of the system, perhaps the biggest development that users would like to see with platforms is their ability to become more predictive, notifying tower owners and operators of a potential fault before it occurs. In many instances, the vendors explained that the capability was there and that the longer that a given system is installed, the more effectively they can track trends which proceed a fault.

Similarly the longer systems are used the more information can be gleaned from site equipment and how efficiently it is operating. Whilst vendors are unable to share learnings between their clients on what sort of performance they should be expecting and what they can do to improve it, they will be able to comment that they believe something is operating sub-optimally and can be improved upon.

Speaking of trials, one user explained their process of whittling down a range of systems to a choice of one, advocating homogenisation of platforms for ease of operation. One challenge faced by vendors is that product trials are often over very short periods of time, meaning that users are unable to see the benefit of a system in that period, longer term trials they felt would be more indicative of a system’s performance.

Discussions in the group showed that whilst awareness of system capabilities varies between different MNOs, towercos and O&M firms, the technical capabilities on their wish lists are very much ready, at least in the lab. Putting these into the field in a network setting, with large amounts of variables and unknowns however is where the challenges can arise and where vendors need to work closely with their clients to ensure that robust, reliable and insightful results are being obtained and used.

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