Tell us a little about yourself. What does your job at Telefónica involve?
I work in Radio Optimisation Management, specifically in the Optimisation Processes Department. We deal with a wide range of issues related to the world of radio. A very important part of mobile communications is the radio interface. We work on the radio frequency signals that are transmitted and received from mobile phones to the antennas that we see scattered throughout cities, roads and mountains, which allow us to have coverage wherever we are.
How would you define radio optimisation processes?
Within the department where I work, we are responsible for establishing the necessary procedures to ensure that all radio configurations are adequate to provide the best service to our end customers. As the name suggests, we are responsible for all processes involving radio optimisation: mainly the commissioning and evolution of nodes, with monitoring of the same. But that’s not all we do:
- We study improvements and developments in each of the 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G technologies. Although most of our work is currently focused on improving and expanding the capabilities of 4G and 5G, we are also working on the gradual shutdown of 2G and 3G.
- We monitor the nodes with the worst performance so that our colleagues in the area can try to improve them.
- We participate in special projects (Rural, AVE, Private Networks, IoT, etc.) to integrate them into all our processes.
- We test and define the modus operandi of tools that help to optimise the network.
How important is this?
Very important. Coverage is a vital part of mobile communications, and our job is to ensure that all the network machinery that provides that coverage works excellently, achieving the best user experience.
Here’s a simple example: it is crucial to know how to choose the optimal moment and have a perfectly defined process for addressing the shutdown of one technology in order to migrate to another.
For example, 5G offers better performance than 2G and 3G. Therefore, we could say: ‘Let’s switch off these two obsolete technologies now and replace them with 5G because we will provide a better service’; but not all our customers have terminals that support 5G and we could leave customers without service in our eagerness to migrate quickly to the latest technology. From our headquarters, we help make the decision of when and define how that migration will take place.
What phases does this radio optimisation consist of?
The radio network is very extensive and complex. There are optimisation processes in all technical activities and new projects. Common to all of them would be three phases at a general level:
- Collect and analyse: whether field measurements, KPIs, needs,
- Study the appropriate solution in each case and implement it.
- And finally, verify that the final result is as expected.
To give a simple example, one of our processes is to monitor the worst cells in the network. Among other parameters, we monitor the speed offered to our customers. We collect measurements from all cells, and those that do not exceed a certain threshold set by the Quality department are analysed in an initial phase using internally automated processes and then sent to the optimisation teams in each territory, who take the appropriate measures to correct the deficient KPIs. The next time measurements are collected, we check whether the expected result has been achieved.
What is your relationship with 5G?
Optimisation processes are applied to all technologies. 5G is the newest and currently accounts for the bulk of our activity. We are in the midst of deployment with the bands specifically acquired for 5G, with deployment in rural areas where the spectrum of the three operators (MasOrange, Vodafone and Telefónica) is grouped together, to ensure that 5G reaches these sparsely populated areas, and with the migration of obsolete technology bands to get better performance from the spectrum.
All of this involves a procedure to ensure that these ongoing network improvements are carried out in a controlled manner, ensuring that the changes introduced do not have any negative effects and that the expected improvements in the services offered to our customers are achieved.
To what extent does the advancement and development of new technologies affect radio optimisation?
Absolutely. All the new features demanded by customers are supported by new technologies and features in the radio network. Although we have been talking about 5G ‘pure and simple’ for a few years now, there has been a very rapid evolution behind the scenes.
The functionalities and features of the initial 5G compared to the current 5G and the 5G of a few years from now will change a lot, but we will continue to talk about 5G, as has happened with 4G. All this evolution of functionalities that improve the network is coordinated from the optimisation area.
Each improvement is first tested in a small area. If it has the expected effect, it is extended to a province and finally rolled out nationwide. Keeping up to date with these aspects and putting them into practice is very interesting and challenging.
Who are the people you work with at Telefónica who you consider to be excellent at their job?
I have been fortunate to work with many extraordinary people over the years, in very different areas because I have not always been involved in radio optimisation.
