Network engineer: Unsung heroes of the pandemic situation

Today, the world is struggling against an unprecedented challenge in the form of the novel coronavirus. To safeguard people from this life-threatening disease, many countries around the world including India are going through a nationwide lockdown.

This has forced almost all the businesses to work from home. Further, people in the essential services sectors such as healthcare, pharma, and law enforcement etc. are working relentlessly to win the fight against this pandemic.

In this time of crisis, information and communications are critical. Mobile networks are an essential part of the communications backbone that is enabling all of us to stay connected. In fact, telecommunications services are categorized as an essential service by the government of India and it goes without saying that the need to be connected has never been more evident.

Staying connected

Ericsson studies indicate an average 20% to 70% increase in voice traffic across networks with more number and longer voice calls being made by people arising out of the COVID-19 situation. People are spending more time online at home and as a result more traffic is generated every day.

Most operators are experiencing a 10~20% increase in data traffic (both upload and download) on the mobile network with video streaming services also contributing to the data increase.

The Indian telecommunications industry has come together to ensure seamless connectivity throughout the country. Service and technology providers have deployed technical staff at their network management war rooms to closely monitor critical operations and ensure uninterrupted mobile and broadband services amidst the lockdown.

All necessary approvals and measures have been taken from DoT to ensure all critical service personnel can safely and freely travel during the lockdown to resolve all network-related issues.

Some of the ways by which technology providers such as Ericsson are balancing capacity and performance of networks is by reviewing hardware and software capabilities and deploying emergency licenses wherever required. The network features are reviewed to ensure that the planned capacity is fully activated.

Network re-planning and end to end re-dimensioning activities focusing on network design, capacity, performance, and traffic handling are carried out by Ericsson engineers to ensure that the customer experience from the network is not compromised. Machine Learning-enabled capacity planning enables the Service provider to proactively identify and act on network bottleneck issues. Application-based (e.g., web, chat, video) traffic handling is managed through service-aware configuration.

Celebrating the heroes

The telecommunications sector in India and around the world is working in collaboration with each other to ensure continued connectivity. Numerous people are working behind the scenes, amidst the Covid-19 crisis to make sure our phones and computers have seamless network connectivity round the clock. We realize the importance of their service to provide connectivity.

Network engineers and field staff today, are working around the country to maintain the best possible service and minimize the impact of the disruption caused by the virus. Despite restricted movement, they are conducting site visits and taking up maintenance tasks to ensure that the networks are running.

As some sites are in very remote areas where communities rely on these sites to provide mobile coverage. Throughout this time, we have been receiving many stories from our network engineers who have demonstrated a great resolve and commitment towards their job.

For instance, in one of the North Eastern Regions, a field maintenance engineer went to restore a site which had been down for 2 days. In his first attempt, he was unable to visit the site on the first day due accessibility issues. However, with the help of his local sales team and public officials he was able to visit the site the next day and restore it.

As the heroes on the frontlines are working tirelessly to keep people healthy and safe, the network heroes serve the nation by keeping society connected. Their morale on ground remains high as ever and their service remains of great importance during this crisis and deserves to be acknowledged.

• Nitin Bansal, MD, Ericsson India.