Movik Introduces the Intelligent RAN

The mobile data boom is prompting cellular network operators to make big investments in radio infrastructure. But if these operators had a better idea of how their radio assets are being used they’d be able to realize significant savings on future investments. That’s the word from John St. Amand, president and CEO of Movik, who spoke to TMCnet this week at Mobile World Congress (News - Alert) in Barcelona.

Given radio access network capital expenditures across the top 99 service providers in the world are $70 billion, that could mean big money, he says.

To help enable wireless service providers to manage their networks and their capex more efficiently, Movik has created a new product category called intelligent RAN. It will help wireless operators lower their capex and opex costs, as well as control quality of service.

Movik’s solution delivers real-time intelligence to service providers regarding what applications (both voice and data related) are being used by subscribers on which radios in the network. As a result, carriers can better optimize existing network resources (through network policy) and, thus, will need fewer radios than they would in a less efficient scenario, St. Amand says. For example, a carrier might choose to “optimize” video on a given sector once the radio in that geography reaches 40 percent capacity.

To implement policy, carriers can rely on Movik infrastructure or can use policy servers from other vendors.

Movik’s intelligent RAN solution can work with any vendors’ CDMA, 3G HSPA/UPA, LTE (News - Alert) or Wi-Fi radios. And the Movik solution can provide intelligence and policy across multiple radios, even from different vendors, in an integrated way.

Future releases of the Movik solutions, St. Amand tells TMCnet, will enable RF control by wireless endpoints.