We have a portfolio of different management features”, began Sami Honkaniemi, managing director of Mentura Group, introducing an enhanced version of the company’s TETRA Management Suite, which will become available shortly. “In the new version they are becoming more integrated, more one product, and it provides more convenience to the end user.

“What we are displaying here is the TNIB Optimiser. We are gathering information about the network from the infrastructure side, but we are also monitoring the network from the radio interface side – so we are getting both viewpoints. And the Optimiser is a tool for analysing the air interface performance and validating that the network is actually performing as configured. If there is any kind of deviation – let’s say, you have a frequency plan with certain parameters, and handover parameters – we are validating those live in the network and telling if there is any kind of performance problem there.

“So the Optimiser closes the 360-degree cycle of viewing. It’s like we are monitoring calls, we are receiving calls, getting a network performance indication, getting all data, and then we combine this with the air interface data and provide a real understanding of what’s actually happening. So when the network operator is doing network improvement and optimization, they can move very quickly to the analysis because they don’t have to go collecting this information.”

Direct radio access

A powerful feature of the Optimiser, he went on, is that it can collect field strength information directly from any suitable radio, over the air. “If a user is complaining about coverage issues or bad signal, we can activate that RSSI and immediately his position will appear on the map and we’ll start collecting over the air from that specific radio, without him really even noticing. We can immediately get coverage information from different parts of the network. It minimizes test driving, or avoids it.”

The other part of the suite is devoted to subscriber management. “That’s very powerful, profile-based provisioning, so you can generate batches of subscribers based on a standard profile all at once”, Mr Honkaniemi said. “Say, 100 radios with that profile: you can generate the radios and the subscriptions and allocate numbers and so on, making service provisioning very efficient.”

Already using the suite are countrywide networks in the Middle East, in Mexico and in Mentura’s homeland, Finland. Also using parts of the suite are oil and energy companies and airport operators.

“In PMR, in the TETRA environment, we believe that you shouldn’t separate the network management from management operations”, he added. “You must have this information under control in the same way as you know which unit is going where. And that is what we are providing.”

TETRA eXTRAS at full power