Mr. Prathet Tankuranun, Chief Technology Officer, Total Access Communication PLC. or dtac said, “dtac has a clear standpoint and a long-term target of giving the benefits to consumers and Thailand. We have planned to invest on network development and expansion. We rather give our customers better experience in using our service than make up some numbers on speed test apps and then forget all users’ needs. Our strength is our 4G service on 1800 MHz band that occupies the widest band of 20 MHz abundant for all dtac customers to sense smooth experience on digital services.”
The satisfaction index in data-hungry world does not perform only on the network speed but also on user app experience. For example, time-to-content and time-to-share are key performance indicators that have direct impact on customer satisfaction in the mobile phone network. Also, the indicator includes the smoothness of app response during busy hours (7 p.m. to 9 p.m.), the most-accessed Facebook period for Thai users. dtac is extremely pleased with the results achieved in this project with Ericsson and Facebook. Experimental results were not done in the laboratory, but were directly taken from the applications. Also, they were used to improve the user app experience on practical devices, network, and real-time applications for several designed situations. Then, optimization was successfully done especially on Facebook. Thus, dtac users will have better experience in our overall network performance, not only just Facebook,” added Prathet.
Ms. Nadine Allen, Head of Ericsson Thailand said, “2016 marks 110 years of Ericsson in Thailand and over the years Ericsson has been working with customers, partners, and government to revolutionize the way Thai people live, work and communicate with each other. Through our long term partnership with dtac and established collaboration with Facebook, we are proud to participate in this unique project to help bring positive app experience for smartphone users. The resultant whitepaper detailing the methodology and findings from the project provides operators and developers a deeper understanding on many network variables that can impact user adoption, which is particularly critical as we work to connect the unconnected to the internet.”
Mr. Markku Makelainen, Director of Global Operator Partnerships, Facebook said, “Our goal is to bring affordable internet access and connectivity to the two-thirds of the world that don’t have it. As part of this effort, we work with operators and our partners to help optimize their networks to provide a more robust experience on the Facebook app and other services. We are excited to share learnings from our work with Ericsson and DTAC in the hopes that it may help others enhance mobile networks around the world.”
The success of the study meant that Facebook users were not only able to get content from their friends faster, but could also share their experiences within a quicker time period. In addition, Facebook users could be served from the same mobile network node, without having to build additional infrastructure and hardware. This provides benefits to both mobile operators and users, in terms of delivering a superior customer experience through an optimized network.
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NOTES TO EDITORS AND PRESS
About the optimization results
The measurement started in mid-2015 where typical Facebook interactions were triggered from Facebook test accounts and measured on different mobile test devices in central Bangkok; an area chosen for its very high traffic load, due to a high number of data subscribers. The partners then correlated user-centric Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) from the Facebook application with network performance KPIs, in a way that made it possible to understand the perceived user experience in various network conditions. Adjustments were then made to the DTAC network to optimize network resources for target improvements. The resultant optimizations improved Facebook app experience by up to 60 percent:
· 13-34 percent improvement in app experience during ‘busy hour’
· 54 percent improvement in time-to-content
· 63 percent improvement in time-to-share
· >60 percent improvement in Facebook upload and download time
