How Emetrics helped traveler select best mobile network provider in Lekki

 

The philosophy is simple. With careful Radio Frequency (RF) optimization, technically speaking, usable coverage quality (saddle brown) should lead to Fair or better (yellow, blue, or green) Emetrics.

Emetrics is a solution provided by Enextgen Wireless that assists users to visualise network availability in a location while Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) use same during network deployment to assess the RF signal strength, among others.

Usable (brown) or better (yellow, blue, green) Emetrics provides reliable basic internet connectivity. As such, a consumer looking for reliable internet connectivity only needs to avoid red Emetrics bins.

In other words, once the bin is not red, Emetrics has rated it as having high-enough signal quality for reliable basic mobile internet connectivity.

Since Emetrics is only concerned with signal quality, other core network issues (excessive latency due to traffic congestion or other core network issues) might still lead to poor internet connection experience.

In that case, consumer can look at throughput and ping ratings for the bin, if available, for additional sense of the likely cause of any poor connectivity experience.

The Mobile Number Operator (MNO) can use the enterprise version (access-controlled) for additional analysis.

Use-case examples:

1. Emetrics shows that Airtel provides contiguous LTE connection along the highway between Ibadan. Good for Airtel!
2. A Nigerian mobile network operator can use Emetrics to compare its coverage quality with that of its competitors. This is an independent quality evaluation. It is different than the proprietary benchmarking services performed by the MNO.
3. An MNO can use Emetrics to identify and resolve customer complaints within its coverage footprint.
4. An MNO can generate increased revenue and create additional value for its customers by using Emetrics to identify areas where quality improvement can increase data consumption.
5. Emetrics allows customers to assist MNOs in resolving coverage quality issues.
6. An MNO proud of its network can encourage a prospective customer to compare its network with that of its competitor in Emetrics.
7. With Emetrics, it is as easy to visualize network quality in the most rural areas as in urban areas.
8. A customer experiencing poor connectivity in a good Emetrics connectivity area can rest assured that the issue is not likely to be due to LTE signal connection but some other core network issues. This facilitates the ability of the MNO to focus its troubleshooting efforts for rapid issues resolution.
9. Emetrics is an independent source of mobile broadband coverage information that can be used by the regulatory agency as well as all other interested parties.

A typical example is a United States business executive who stayed at the Lilygate Hotel in Lekki. Before she left the United States, she browsed Emetrics to look for the best mobile network to subscribe to during her stay and found MTN and Glo but not Airtel or 9Mobile.

She found that both MTN and Glo had good LTE coverage quality.

Then she checked information on throughput and latency and found that Glo had acceptable values for both.

She chose Glo. She did not consider Airtel or 9Mobile because she did not see reports on them.

While she would have been happy with MTN, she chose Glo because the additional information on throughput and latency provided additional assurance.

Proprietary Emetrics is available to use for the following and more:

Single Site Verification

The site installer or installation crew can now collect site acceptance verification data using Enextlog installed on their mobile phones.

They can drive a route designed by the engineer for verifying correct antenna cabling and orientation without knowing anything about Radio Frequency.

The assigned engineers can use Emetrics to analyze correct antenna orientations and cabling from their desks. Antenna cross-cabling including diversity connection cabling issues can be identified and corrected.

Cluster Verification

Use Emetrics for acceptance verification for new clusters. After all cell sites have been properly installed and integrated into the radio access network, the cluster engineer has a drive team without any technical know-how collect Enextlog along a verification drive route.

Emetrics allows the assigned engineer to verify desirable interaction among all cells within the cluster. Overshooting sectors can be identified for additional down-tilting.

Handoff failures or absence can be identified and corrected. Even excessive packet delays or throughput deficiencies can be spotted using Emetrics.

Acceptance Go-No-Go decision can be made without any additional expensive data collection and or analysis tools.

Network Acceptance

Analytics on the collected Enextlog data can be used to define various criteria for network acceptance. For example, the percentage of bins with Downlink throughput above a specified value can be one threshold. Percent of geo-mapped bins with throughput classification in the brown range can be yet another.

The proprietary version is available through contract negotiation with Enext Wireless or Enextgen Wireless.