Category: Carriers

How NCR Telecom & Technology Uses iBwave to Design Converged Networks in the Enterprise

What’s the Story?

NCR is a leader in omni-channel solutions, turning everyday interactions with businesses into exceptional experiences. With its software,hardware, and portfolio of services, NCR enables more than 650 million transactions daily across retail, financial, travel, hospitality, telecom and technology, and small business. Utilizing NCR’s team of 17,000 service professionals, NCR Telecom & Technology(T&T) provides comprehensive services solutions encompassing consulting, field services, and remote management to the top telecommunications service providers and network equipment manufacturers across the globe. 

With a trend towards enterprise-funded Wi-Fi and Cellular networks built on common infrastructure components in the same venues, having a solution like iBwave maximizes the productivity of our design engineering and field workforce — Steven Strickland, Solution Management & Marketing, NCR Telecom & Technology

Each year, NCR Telecom and Technology:

  • Installs and manages over 100,000 wireless access points
  • Completes over 250,000 enterprise network deployments
  • Manages over 200,000 network end points
  • Executes 1.2M service actions

In order to design and deploy high-quality networks their customers can rely on, the NCR T&T division has chosen to use iBwave Design as their standard software to design multiple in-building wireless networks, including: DAS, Small Cells, Wi-Fi, Public Safety and cabling routes.Most recently, NCR has also invested in iBwave Wi-Fi for their professional services team to deploy a large amount of stand alone WLAN networks for their customers. In 2017 NCR T&T will have 17 certified iBwave Professionals.

NCR’s ability to standardize on one collaborative design platform is absolutely critical in delivering multi vendor wireless technologies to venue owners looking to keep pace with explosive mobile device growth. Our presales and professional services engineers are unmatched in their knowledge of enterprise networking and RF planning. It is my team’s inherent responsibility to equip our experts with the right tools to proficiently design in-building wireless networks and exchange information with our global field force in real-time. — Steven Strickland, Solution Management & Marketing, NCR Telecom & Technology

Why iBwave?

#1 THE ABILITY TO DESIGN CONVERGED NETWORKS

With iBwave Design, NCR is able to model and design multiple technology types (Cellular and Wi-Fi)  in-building wireless networks from within a single solution.

#2 ACCURATE PREDICTIONS FOR ANY NETWORK TYPE

By using iBwave Design, NCR has the ability to accurately run project predictions for virtually any type of wireless network they are deploying.

#3 SITE SURVEY AUTOMATION & CLOUD COLLABORATION

With iBwave Mobile Note, NCR significiantly reduces the survey data import process by using the app as an all-in-one site survey tool (data collection, documentation, and design) and then save all site info to the iBwave cloud so it can be worked on by an engineer in another location.

The Benefits of Using iBwave

Using iBwave as their standard software for in-building network design, NCR has seen significant benefits, including:

  • 20% Increase in Productivity
  • Increase in the Bill of Materials Accuracy
  • Increase in the Number of Deals Won
  • Decrease in the Time to Quote
  • Decrease in Time to Share Site Survey Data
  • Decrease in Time Spent on Project Co-ordination

Favourite iBwave Features

Here are a few of the features that the NCR T&T team has found the most valuable:

  • RF planning automation
  • Predictive mapping of cable routes and wireless access points
  • Automatic bill of materials and project costs
  • Wi-Fi & cellular design in one tool
  • 3D Output Maps
  • Prediction validation against measured data

DAS vs. Wi-Fi Network Design: What are the Differences?

With the launch of iBwave Wi-Fi in March of last year, you’ve probably noticed we’ve been a lot more focused on Wi-Fi network design than in the past.  And as part of that journey, some iBwavers have embarked on the CWNP certification journey – with our Director of Research, Vladan Jevromovic, receiving his CWNA certification last November. *applause* .

Recently, I was at the WLPC show with Vladan and as I was curious to know, I asked him this question: “Vladan, what are the differences that you’ve noticed between designing DAS networks and Wi-Fi networks?”

Here is what Vladan offered up. 

#1 Channel Re-Use Plan

In DAS and small cells, there is no channel planning – although for small cells there is sector ID planning.

#2 Non-RF Interference

These are things like cordless phones, headsets, microwaves….and they are everywere, and depending how polluted the RF is, a Wi-Fi planner may need to abandon the 2.4GHz band and design and deploy 5GHz only.

#3 Design Targets

If voice is the predominant application, the design targets are different than if it is not (design target is the same for DAS and small cells.)

#4 Hidden Nodes

DAS always blasts at full power. With Wi-Fi you can’t just leave AP blast full power as it will increase a chance that some clients will not hear others, which will increase packet collision at the Access Point, which causes re-transmissions, which slows down everybody.

#5 Legacy Data Rates

With Wi-Fi, you need to make a decision whether to enable or disable low legacy data rates (1Mb), because having them “ON” may cause “sticky client” problem – i.e low data rate clients stay connected to an AP longer than necessary instead of handing off to another AP.

So while we are sure there are a lot more, this has been Vladan’s experience so far. 

Do you design both DAS and Wi-Fi networks? What differences do you see? Comment below.

5 Common Questions about iBwave Wi-Fi

After going to a good handful of conferences over the last 6 or 7 months, there seem to be a few questions/comments we get a lot. And fair enough, we’re still kind of the ‘new guys’ on the Wi-Fi block. So, I figure if we get asked these questions at the shows, maybe they are questions others are interested in as well…. 

Here we go. 

1. Who is iBwave?

We launched our Wi-Fi only software in March 2015, and it’s funny because although we’ve been around for over 14 years, this is one of the most common questions we get when we visit the Wi-Fi conferences. And fair enough – like I said, we’re still the new guys on the Wi-Fi block and we haven’t been around in the Wi-Fi only space for long. Because while we’ve always had Wi-Fi in our software, DAS has always been our focus or what we’re known for.

In a nutshell, here is our history:

iBwave was started by two friends back in 2003 here in Montreal  – they were working for telecoms, noticed how manual the process was to deploy indoor wireless networks (when they were just becoming more and more popular) and decided to develop a software to address that issue which is now known as iBwave Design. And it worked – iBwave soon became the industry standard software for designing indoor DAS networks and is used by many of the large operators, OEMs and system integrators around the world. It’s been used for some of the biggest indoor spaces to install DAS networks – the London Olympics Village, this year’s Rio Olympics Indoor Arena, and Kyle Field Stadium, to name a few. 

And while we’ve always included Wi-Fi as a technology in our flagship software iBwave Design, in 2015 we decided to launch it as it’s own stand-alone product – which is how iBwave Wi-Ficame about, and how we started hanging out at all the Wi-Fi industry shows.

This brings me to the next often asked question/comment….

2. “Looks great, too expensive though”

This is a common one. When we launched iBwave Wi-Fi, we knew the price had to be competitive with what is on the market – and so that is what we did. 

Here is the pricing basics:

Shared licenses are also available, as well as bundle packages for those who need multiple licenses.

All pricing for iBwave Wi-Fi can be seen here: https://www.ibwave.com/buy-ibwave-wifi

3. Speaking of licenses, how does licensing work?

For the PC software (iBwave Wi-Fi) you can buy either a single license or a shared license. With shared licenses, 5 people can share one license, although only one person can use it at a time.

For iBwave Wi-Fi Mobile there are only single licenses, no shared licenses.

4. How does the cloud work?

We basically have two cloud options – one which is a simple 10GB of iBwave Cloud storage that comes with your iBwave Wi-Fi Suite that you can use to save, access and share your files through. And then we also have another product, iBwave Unity, which is our cloud-based site management solution for larger companies or system integrators who have multiple sites and want a way to view and manage all their projects and sites from a single hub.

In either case, the cloud keeps all of your project information synchronized at any given time. That means that basically, anything anyone on the project does on the project, regardless of it’s on the mobile app or in the PC software, the project information is always synchronized, it’s always accessible to others, and it’s always the most recent information. 

5. What makes you different?

There are a few things we think make us different, here is a quick list:

  • iBwave Cloud – (see #4)
  • iBwave Wi-Fi Mobile – a cloud-connected mobile app to do active/passive surveys, capture site photos and annotations, and do simple designs and heatmaps from a tablet.
  • 3D Modeling – always a crowd favourite, our 3D modeling capabilities are pretty advanced. But they aren’t just pretty – 3D modeling is great to view heatmaps, and to impress your customers by showing them the network in 3D.
  • Design beyond Access Points – with iBwave Wi-Fi you can place vendor-modeled routers, controllers, switches, antennas, cabling, and you can even place things like racks and cabinets. Then produce a single bill of materials and cost estimate report with it all.
  • Prediction Calibration – To ensure the most accurate prediction results, you can use a measurement from your active survey to calibrate the prediction results during network simulation.

So there you have it, a few questions we commonly get and hopefully were interesting to you as well.

Interested in trying iBwave Wi-Fi? Get a 14 day free trial here.

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