Wimax standards and Security The Wimax

Other Trial Considerations

In many cases, trial data are published and compared to existing models or (if extensive enough) used to create a new propagation model. Many other aspects of major customer trials are important to service providers, such as: customer qualification, installation, support, troubleshooting, and overall estimation of customer satisfaction.

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  The overall trial goal makes a significant difference in trial results: the customer selection process for instance may focus on capacity limitations in a specific area, or it may be geared toward testing distance limits of a radio system; clearly trial results will be different.
  
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  Trial architectures vary. Most WiMAX radio systems use Ethernet network interfaces, but many systems require a mixture of backhaul
  

or longhaul transport, which include microwave, copper, or fiber links, over TDM T1, T3, SONET, etc.

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  Integration to a monitoring system is also a major portion of a tech- nical trial. Major network element (including customer devices) should be monitored. Maintenance, repairs, and upgrades should be performed in a low-intrusion maintenance window to limit the impact of downtime.
  
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  Most network elements should be controlled remotely and cen- trally from a network operations center. Good control of network elements, including customer equipment, is precious for system support, especially when it reaches large scale.
  
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  Data collection is highly important for a trial. As a successful trial moves into production, ongoing data analyses are still important for network optimization.
  
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  Customer satisfaction surveys and focus groups are also an integral part of a complete trial; they should also continue into production phase and be compared to network quality metrics.
  

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