It is a fact that most wireless service operators today have deployed network probes to monitor network performance and gather insight on customer experiences. Although network probes or interface probes or deep packet inspection what ever they are called gather a lot of information they are still insufficient in fully understanding customer experiences. Why is that?
Let's start with a few issues in deploying network probes
Having said that of all customer touch points, probe is very limited to network usage, its in fact the most limited form of CEM solution. While most customers will most likely play games on their devices, ruse OTT applications, probes are limited to use of the network and does not really capture what negative experiences customers have. Now add instances where customers complain even though their usage is outside the network… On the extreme it is questionable whether probes are really effective. Take this scenario into consideration, a customer made a phone call, according to the probe record the call was cleared normally after 2 minutes. However in the device the subscriber call kept on going for another 8 minutes then dropped. Here you get a very unhappy subscriber (due to dropped call), lost revenue to the operator (can not bill the 8 minutes that the probe did not see) and a customer complain for bad experience.
Take into account customer experience in a data network, let's say that a customer is browsing the internet and he/she feels that browsing is very slow, even though he/she can see HSPA+on the phone's notification display. On this instance the probe sees that full HSPA+ speed is available to the subscriber but it fails to see the other applications in the background that are using bandwidth. Here you get a complaining customer and a confused engineering team wondering why they can not replicate the problem with any of their specialized test devices
Deployment of network probes are very expensive and considering that when a mobile operator moves to LTE they most likely can not use the same network probe and will need to make another big investment to be able to manage customer experiences. Further more of all the data network probes gather, how much are really fully processed and useful to the operator?
Having said that probes are of course useful in one way or another such as determining network performance. However it is insufficient in managing customer experiences, the investment for an operator is better spent somewhere else if they are looking for customer experience management solutions….
Let's start with a few issues in deploying network probes
- Very expensive, a deployment to a medium-size operator can cost millions
- Gathers a lot of data operators can not actually process or use
- Invasion of privacy and no subscriber opt-in and opt-out. By default subscribers are monitored without their knowledge
- Focused only on network, not on actual device
- Limited to on-network usage as a touch point
Having said that of all customer touch points, probe is very limited to network usage, its in fact the most limited form of CEM solution. While most customers will most likely play games on their devices, ruse OTT applications, probes are limited to use of the network and does not really capture what negative experiences customers have. Now add instances where customers complain even though their usage is outside the network… On the extreme it is questionable whether probes are really effective. Take this scenario into consideration, a customer made a phone call, according to the probe record the call was cleared normally after 2 minutes. However in the device the subscriber call kept on going for another 8 minutes then dropped. Here you get a very unhappy subscriber (due to dropped call), lost revenue to the operator (can not bill the 8 minutes that the probe did not see) and a customer complain for bad experience.
Take into account customer experience in a data network, let's say that a customer is browsing the internet and he/she feels that browsing is very slow, even though he/she can see HSPA+on the phone's notification display. On this instance the probe sees that full HSPA+ speed is available to the subscriber but it fails to see the other applications in the background that are using bandwidth. Here you get a complaining customer and a confused engineering team wondering why they can not replicate the problem with any of their specialized test devices
Deployment of network probes are very expensive and considering that when a mobile operator moves to LTE they most likely can not use the same network probe and will need to make another big investment to be able to manage customer experiences. Further more of all the data network probes gather, how much are really fully processed and useful to the operator?
Having said that probes are of course useful in one way or another such as determining network performance. However it is insufficient in managing customer experiences, the investment for an operator is better spent somewhere else if they are looking for customer experience management solutions….
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