PARTNER CONTENT: As the largest telecom service provider in Thailand, AIS, like its name, “Advanced Info Service”, has always adhered to the idea of providing users with the best information services, and leads the development of wireless network in Thailand. With Thailand entering the 5G era, to keep its leading position, AIS has newly acquired the 2600Mhz and 700Mhz frequency bands to enrich the existing spectrum resources. With the introduction of 5G, the network structure of AIS becomes more complicated, posing higher requirements for network O&M efficiency. As the network equipment and solution provider of AIS in the northeastern Thailand, ZTE adheres to the corporate culture of “Serving with dedication and being committed to our customers”, and is committed to providing customers with the best services and the best solutions. On the one hand, ZTE has put forward the end-to-end automatic intelligent tool solution to help AIS improve O&M efficiency and reduce O&M costs, and on the other hand, ZTE has organized experts to optimize the AIS network and continuously build a superb network to ensure AIS’s leading position of high network quality in the northeastern Thailand.

ZTE’s Wireless AI Solution Helps AIS Improve Efficiency and Reduce Costs

Thailand is a sparsely populated country with high mountains and hills in some areas. As the population is mainly concentrated in several large cities, network requirements are extremely uneven. With the spared of Covid-19 in Thailand, AIS faced increasing challenges in its networks O&M. How to use spectrum resources more effectively to meet the requirements of different users and reduce operation costs as much as possible is an urgent problem facing AIS.

ZTE’s wireless AI solution uSmartNet-RNIA is committed to providing a variety of automated intelligence covering all scenarios of the customer, including planning, construction, maintenance, optimization and operation, to meet the customer’s growing requirement for AI-based O&M, and also to help the customer improve O&M efficiency and reduce O&M costs.

VMAX-R precise planning to support network construction

At the beginning of 2020, as a network operator dedicated to leading technologies, AIS began the construction of its 5G network. however the challenge remained on how identify valuable areas of 5G and maximize returns with limited investment? ZTE has deployed VMAX-R intelligent planning platform together with AIS. Through the automatic identification of terminals supporting 5G services in the LTE network, the platform provides a powerful reference for selecting the location of 5G sites. In addition, for LTE and UMTS networks, the platform can analyze the value of sites from multiple dimensions such as coverage, load, user experience and competitor analysis to automatically identify the black spots in the network for eliminating blind spots. The introduction of the VMAX-R precision planning tool greatly improves the efficiency of network planning, and assists in the precise construction of AIS network.

Site commissioning on mobile phone

With the old site commissioning and maintenance mode, engineers must carry laptops to connect to the equipment on site, which is inconvenient and hard to operate in special weather conditions. To solve this problem, ZTE has launched a site commissioning solution through mobile phones, where engineers can complete site commissioning and maintenance by connecting a mobile phone to the site (via cable or WiFi). This tool greatly improves commissioning efficiency. Compared with the traditional site commissioning the commissioning time of a single site is shortened by 30%.

Intelligent drive test tool WNG, realizing automatic output of drive test reports

Network optimization drive test (DT) is an important method for checking performance indicators in wireless network optimization, such as wireless network coverage, upload and download rates. However, traditional DT features high costs and low efficiency, which have been the pain points of drive tests in the AIS network. ZTE proposed Wireless Network Guardian (WNG) solution, which is an intelligent network optimization DT solution based on cloud service + handheld terminal. It features lightweight equipment and simplified drive test. The cloud server delivers test tasks ranging from data collection to one-click report output, which are completed on handheld terminals, thus improving the drive test efficiency by more than 30%.

Intelligent network optimization platform, improving optimization efficiency and customer perception

In the existing AIS network, there are 7 different modes: GSM, UMTS, FDD LTE, TDD LTE, NB-IoT, FDD NR, TDD NR. The network structure is very complicated, and is difficult to implement optimization. According to the network architecture features of AIS, ZTE has deployed an intelligent network optimization platform together with AIS, including AAX alarm root cause analysis, EFP equipment health check and prediction, AAPC automatic antenna weight control, NQI automatic interference analysis and TopN poor quality analysis. These functions greatly improve the O&M efficiency of corresponding scenarios.

Serving With Dedication to Help Build a Elite Network for AIS

As the largest wireless network operator in Thailand, AIS has always imposed high requirements for network quality. To ensure the leading position of the AIS network, ZTE has established a dedicated network performance improvement team to work together with AIS, to analyze network conditions, formulate network deployment policies, and implement performance improvement solutions. With continuous efforts,  AIS network has always been the best wireless network among Thai consumers, and the number of users have continued to increase. In  3G, 4G, and 5G Speedtest , the scores of AIS has far led those of other operators in the northeastern region. In the latest assessment report of Ookla, AIS won the “Fastest 5G Mobile Network” award.

Embracing New Technologies to Promote 5G Industry Application Together with AIS

In May, 2021, AIS, together with the Thailand SUT University and ZTE, built a demonstration factory for Thailand’s 5G intelligence. By relying on the overall 5G solution, an ordinary factory is transformed into an intelligent factory integrating technologies such as 5G Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV), 5G AR remote guidance, and real-time VR monitoring, androbot arm, to empower 5G+industrial application innovation.

ZTE exclusively provides the entire technical solution for the intelligent factory, perfectly integrating 5G technologies with traditional factory production lines. Tanapong Ittisakulchai, Chief Enterprise Business Officer (CEBO) of AIS, said: “AIS has developed the solution together with the education department of the SUT University of Science and Technology and ZTE to better meet industrial requirements, aiming to build an intelligent factory model based on the overall 5G solution in the industrial field.”

We believe that AIS will go furtheron the road of intelligent networks. As always, ZTE will provide the best and all-round solutions working together with AIS as always for more success.