Since 1974 Teltai has been providing products and services to the telecommunications industry in Taiwan. Early in 2007 industry developments for WiMAX mobile, the government sponsored M-Taiwan project and the imminent award of six WiMAX licenses (now issued) in Taiwan inspired Teltai to prepare itself to be a key player in this important new market. Teltai now offers a broad portfolio of world class products and solutions, including; network management systems, network planning, testing and optimization tools. The portfolio is designed to help operators improve network quality, coverage and capacity, while significantly reducing costs by using all the latest techniques and tools.

Teltai?™s advanced products improve the way telecom operators plan, implement and manage their network resources, and enable operators to improve customer service and infrastructure management. Infrastructure management systems involve the processes of discovery and inventory management. For a network management system to operate effectively, it must utilize an accurate database that lists all the network?™s physical resources, including hardwired sections of the network as well as network elements, and that provides a full accounting of where and to whom available bandwidth, telephone numbers, and Internet Protocol (IP) addresses are allocated. In a small operation with a few dozen customers, the network operator may well be able to memorize such information, but in a fully evolved metropolitan network with hundreds or thousands of customers, that is clearly impossible. Thus, inventory management software becomes a virtual necessity. 

Network planning software is used for selecting and positioning base station sites, determining coverage, and even pre-optimizing the network before roll out begins. When the first 2G networks were designed the operators developed their own spreadsheets and other manual methods to do their planning. Some companies then developed software tools that added a new level of precision to the process and this was continued into 3G network planning. Then some smart mathematicians designed automatic cell planning tools (ACPs) for 3G networks initially, and then the ACPs were rolled back to include 2G as well. ACP?™s are now integrated with planning tools and for the first time new WiMAX mobile networks can be designed with the lowest site count possible for a given performance requirement in terms of coverage and capacity. The operator will want to develop a vision of how the WiMAX network will work once it is built, and if possible take into account the current and future developments in smart antenna designs to future proof the network. Only the most advanced equipment, tools and techniques will enable a level of planning certainty that will lead to the vision of smart or self optimizing networks and at the same time minimize the initial network investment.

Virtually all of the infrastructure vendors use ACPs for their for infrastructure bid preparations but interestingly generally only offer planning tools in their final turnkey packages to operators, and not the ACP that helped them plan their initial network design. These vendors are driven to use ACPs as a defence against price competition, improve the performance of the radio network design taking into account cost-performance trade offs, and to be able to quickly submit revised plans and bids as requested by an operator.

Operators will clearly want to minimize their investment (CAPEX) and ongoing operational maintenance costs (OPEX). The main benefit of an operator taking control of the network design and operational maintenance is to reduce these costs. Using the tools that the infrastructure vendors use to prepare their bids seems like sensible insurance against making mistakes, and has the additional benefit of helping with the evaluation of vendor network designs. Therefore, keeping the planning and optimization in-house should be considered best practice for WiMAX network operators.

Once network roll out begins for the WiMAX operators they will need to be able to test and optimize the network from an engineering perspective and from a mobile customer?™s viewpoint. Teltai currently has the world?™s only WiMAX network drive test tool available. This can be used with a variety of Customer Premises Equipments (CPEs), a PCMCIA card which is the equivalent of the handset in a 2G of 3G network. All of the leading WiMAX chipset vendors are represented with an even larger variety of CPEs based on these chipsets supported. End-to end customer experience also needs to be tested. These same CPEs need to be profiled and then probes installed in the network to make test calls on a 24/7 basis to ensure network quality of service is at its peak. Teltai has a solution available for this too.

Teltai is now a leading provider of best of breed radio network planning and optimization tools to the WiMAX industry in Taiwan and its expertise extends from the planning of wireless infrastructure, deployment, and optimization to the ongoing routine testing and maintenance of WiMAX systems. It seems that Teltai has gathered together an unmatched portfolio oftools and solutions designed to increase the value and performance of WiMAX wireless network operators.