AlanDick offers quality signal in Pakistan

The growing economy of Pakistan means that its mobile network operators are busy expanding their coverage to more and more areas of the country.

However, in global terms, Pakistan's booming cellular industry, like the country's economy, still has a lot of growth left in it.
And AlanDick, the communication infrastructure specialist, is helping every step of the way.

AlanDick has three decades of communication infrastructure experience; a track record stretching right back to before the first analogue networks were launched in the UK and Western Europe in the 1980s.

Today's GSM networks are a significant advance on those early networks, not least in terms of call quality and the ability to roam to hundreds of other networks around the world.

AlanDick has been operating in Pakistan since 2004, making it possible for the GSM networks to expand and improve coverage for their customers. The company's key ethos is quality, both in terms of the base station and network installation services it supplies to Pakistan's cellular networks, and the service that is offered to the networks’ customers.

Rolling out a cellular network takes a lot of planning before the installation team arrives on site. AlanDick's strategy is to carefully analyse the network and its customer's requirements in the area surrounding a cellular base station and map out what the likely coverage will be using sophisticated computer modelling software. Using information drawn from the thousands of base station installations that the company has carried out for its network customers around the world, its engineers can make informed decisions about the optimal site for the base station.

But the planning doesn't just end there. Before a base station goes up in a particular area, AlanDick's engineers must also predict the effect that the new base station will have on the coverage from other nearby base stations.

Because Pakistan's GSM networks are rolling out new coverage areas continually, AlanDick's engineers must apply this service quality analysis process to its customer networks many times over. Even when a cellular network has been fully built out, AlanDick's engineers continually make quality of service analyses for its customer networks, to determine whether the service can be further improved.

Technological advances, as well as lessons learned by AlanDick's engineers in other areas of the world, mean that the process of improving a GSM network's coverage continues ad-infinitum. For the cellular customer, this means that the quality of signal they receive from their network provider is constantly improving, both in terms of voice, text and mobile Internet coverage.

One of the key issues that AlanDick's cellular engineers are asked to focus on is that of indoor coverage in major public buildings, such as bus and rail stations, shopping malls and office blocks. Indoor coverage is something the cellular networks are constantly seeking to improve, as a good indoor signal means that more calls can be successfully made and received, so boosting revenues for the cellular network concerned through better connectivity.

And, although the networks are currently preoccupied with rolling out their coverage to new areas of Pakistan, the added value that AlanDick can offer them is its expertise in enhancing signal coverage inside of major buildings.


 

This quality ethos is something that AlanDick also applies to its own staff. The company's aim is to train and staff the company almost entirely with local people within two years of arriving in a country.
 
AlanDicks strategy is one of `training the trainers.’ The company is in Pakistan for the long term, and part of that involves creating a highly skilled set of local engineering professionals who adhere to the company's professional business ethics.
 
This strategy also lays the foundations of the companys development plans for the region, which will involve pushing the company’s operations north and west into the development markets of Central Asia.
 
The skill sets that AlanDick is passing on to the local staff in Pakistan include the process of continually monitoring and improving cellular call quality across an entire network. It has even developed its own hardware to automatically collate signal quality metrics and allow engineers to make informed decisions on how best to improve coverage in a given area still further.
 
Automating the process of call and signal quality in a given area allows networks and their engineers to monitor their entire networks more cost-effectively. This allows network engineers to focus more effectively on ensuring the best possible coverage for their customers. From a customer's perspective, this means being able to make and receive calls from a greater number of locations than before, as well as enjoying the benefits of crystal clear reception both inside and outside their homes, shops and offices.
 
The company's analysis suggests that, whilst Pakistan's GSM networks are focusing most of their efforts on rolling out coverage to new areas of the country as quickly as possible, they will soon be looking to upgrade and enhance coverage in existing areas. As and when the networks turn their attentions more fully to improving call quality in existing coverage areas, AlanDick's local engineering staff will be comprehensively trained in how best to satisfy this need.
 
AlanDick stresses that the networks are already doing well with their coverage, both in the areas they cover and the quality of calls that GSM users make and receive. As Pakistan's networks mature, so they will be looking at ways and means of improving the service they offer to their customers. AlanDick's staff have the experience they need to meet these needs. Quality is the watchword AlanDick uses in all of its professional dealings.