Handset Behaviour
Users perceive the performance of their network through their phone.
As far as they are concerned, their phone is the network. The rest of the infrastructure is invisible and irrelevant to them.
It seems obvious but the handset is the only tangible part of a mobile network that customers want to come into contact with. No matter how much effort goes into the wireless infrastructure, it’s the phone that really defines and personifies the customer experience.
This means, for example, that if a faulty terminal is the cause of dropped calls, the subscriber will simply assume it’s a network error. Given the high cost of subscriber acquisition, unresolved handset problems could lead to the loss of a valuable customer.
The network perspective
Don’t wait for customers to tell you that their phone is having network compatibility problems … let their phone tell you. Device-centric feedback shows how well the device is interacting with the network.
With TAP you can quickly build up a performance profile for each make and model of terminal and identify those that perform well on your network.
TAP enables trend analysis of terminal performance that directly influences the subscriber perception of terminal quality issues such as weak batteries or poor baseband performance.
At its simplest, this device-centric feedback enables network operators to automatically develop a profile of device characteristics.
With this information, operators can make better informed decisions about which devices to retail and offer better standards of pro-active customer care.
The user perspective
As more and more functionality is squeezed onto handsets, interoperability of software is a real issue. This is especially true when customers can add functionality to their phones, from ringtones to full applications. TAP gives you ongoing handset feedback.
Mobile phones are increasingly complex devices. They not only enable voice and supplementary services, but also provide access to web-based services such as email, web sites, RSS feeds and VoIP. All of these are complicated services to configure and use.
TAP enables operators to highly automate device management to ensure that applications within the phone work properly. Example benefits of this are to help offset calls to Customer Care for device related issues and to help the subscriber consume and pay for more services.