Network Planning

The Core Planning team, experts in Network Dimensioning, define the physical and logical parameters of network elements, including the number of links, ports, and interfaces required to connect different network components. They select appropriate technologies and protocols to ensure efficient data transfer and compatibility between network elements to ensure our MNO customer's networks operate at peak performance, working with customer specific traffic routing and switching policies to efficiently route traffic across the network.

Our Core network planners ensure your core network is designed with redundancy and resilience to mitigate service impacts and secure network availability; planning & deploying redundant network elements, establishing backup routes and mitigating network failures and congestion.

Ensuring the security of the core network is of utmost importance. Core network plans include security measures such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems, encryption mechanisms, and access control policies to protect against unauthorized access, data breaches, and service disruptions.

Our Core Network Planners have in-depth experience on initial optimisation of core networks and the essential ongoing routine network and element optimisation required to maintain network performance and consistently maintain the user experience.

Key elements of Core Network Plan, Build and Manage ensure that our Voice Core customer's networks provide optimum service to their customers in terms of quality, continuity and reliability, we help operators to design and optimize their core networks to deliver reliable, high-quality, secure voice services to their customers; ensuring these key elements is the foundation to our success in serving our Fixed and MNO customers:

Network Architecture Design – tailored voice architecture; element interconnect for media gateways, soft switches, SBCs and Gateways, ensuring capacity, scalability, redundancy and efficiency.

Call Capacity Planning – correctly determining the resource requirements for voice traffic, peak volumes, signalling load and simultaneous traffic to efficiently determine network element capacities.

Codec Selection – the choice of codecs is significant in determining the balance between call quality and bandwidth; the correct choice of codecs also determines capacity requirements and influences operating costs.

Redundancy and Resilience – planning redundancy and resilience ensures high availability and reliability. Redundant connections, network elements and mechanisms ensure uninterrupted voice service in case of equipment or network failures but is expensive; efficiency and accuracy is the key.

QoS and Traffic Engineering – QoS is critical to maintain call quality. Correctly implemented traffic engineering results in sufficient resources, optimal call quality and minimises congestion.

Core Network Security – voice services are sensitive communications and security is vital, including encryption, secure signalling protocols, access control and authentication.

Connect44 provides in-building telecoms solutions and Distributed Antenna Systems planning in the UK and Europe, serving industrial, commercial and retail premises, including major rail terminals and Airports.

The scale of the projects range from single premises to industrial complexes, providing an end-to-end solution through smart feasibility, planning and design services.

Connect44 utilises the latest survey coverage measurement tools and radio planning tools to fulfil customer requirements and provide optimal future proof solutions based on foreseen capacity and physical growth. In addition, we provide post integration optimisation services as the world changes around the customers solution.

Connect44 provides end-to-end DAS services to some of the largest infrastructure and hosted services suppliers and site providers in the UK and Europe. We are often engaged in the fit-out design stages of building-construction and infrastructure build, to plan the location of network operator interfaces, cable routes and antenna system optimal locations.

For legacy buildings, retail centres through to commercial complexes and estates, we provide feasibility services and support customers in selecting the most efficient solution for planned and forecast requirements of geographic and capacity growth.

With more than two decades of experience, Connect44 provides resources and end-to-end RAN planning and optimisation services across its European & UK markets.

We recognise and understand Radio Network Planning and Optimisation as the foundation and one of the most important aspects for the successful build, operation and capacity management of a RAN.

Radio is the interface closest to the mobile user and therefore very strongly determines perceived quality.

RAN Planning has traditionally driven every aspect of the creation of the physical Radio architecture and its support structures, Radio hardware antenna systems, including even the location of the Core Network switching centres. Indeed the Radio planning and optimisation activity determines the cost and potentially the viability of the whole system.

In 5G architectures and more critically in 5G Stand Alone (5G-SA)we are moving to a new generation of radio planning aspects, where the Core/RAN networks and functionality become blurred into one another and the rising importance of planning and optimisation of Ultra Low Latency Applications, which requiring the highest possible data throughput-optimisation of the radio plan and for continuity-critical applications ultra-reliability of coverage, QoS and data session continuity.

Small Cell or Macro, we understand the intricacies of all areas of RAN planning, optimising coverage by small cell applications and ensuring seamless handover to and from the Macro-layer for service continuity and the challenges of capacity on small cell layers as the requirement for densification increases.

In 5G-SA there will be some of the greatest challenges yet to be overcome as Connect44 planners manage the synergies between the core, core-edge, Macro and small cell layers, optimising coverage in difficult areas, latency and content application within the constraints of environment, available site locations, hardware capability and capacity demand.

Connect44 has been serving Vendor Agnostic solution providers for many years from the provision of simple shared antenna systems through the latest generations of optimised multi-user shared radio systems, MORAN applications across multiple vendor solutions and have been heavily engaged in the vendor-agnostic (VA) solutions in 5G and 5G-SA.

Since 2020 Connect44 has been engaged in the 5G and 5G-SA, ORAN and Vendor Agnostic space, working with leading MNOs, vendors and integrators in the UK and Europe.

5G-Stand-Alone (5G-SA) has seen the greatest proliferation of the Vendor Agnostic applications and we will continue to develop our services as the 5G-SA environment becomes fully defined.

Throughout Europe, Connect44 has planned, delivered and managed tens of thousands of radio point-to-point (microwave) and fibre (FTTx) network connections which will be in the hundreds-of-thousands by the mid-2020s for residential, commercial and site-specific applications.

A significant number of these have been Radio Access Network (RAN) connections enabling every generation of mobile technology.

For the remainder of this decade and beyond, the evolving exponential rise in data volumes being transported for business-to-business and machine-to-machine commercial requirements and the sunsetting of legacy mobile and microwave transport technologies will continue the demand for consistently high-quality transport planning activities.

Connect44 is prepared to meet and exceed customers’ demands.

Connect44 deliver a range of services from outsourced functions such as site pre-installation visits (PIV), microwave asset audits and data fill validation, through active-capacity-management to full turnkey microwave planning services where Connect44 will deliver a customer’s strategy and achieve their required outcome; always ensuring efficiency through combined planning of network architecture and capacity.

For Microwave Transport Line of Site validation, Connect44 utilises its in-house pilot team and latest drone technology to create a 3D environment on our MYX platform, mitigating site visits and enabling the identification, in detail, of any issues on the Line-of-Site (LoS) path, from the transport planner’s desktop in a virtual 3D environment.

Connect44 can support, assist or turnkey deliver a customer’s growth/change requirements, flexibly developing change requirements as the customer’s network grows and requirements change, always ensuring control of the plan and efficient investment profiles to manage change within budget.

Connect44 has a wealth of experience in planning and management of the transition from microwave transmission to fibre and the associated impact mitigation.

Our design team will work with your requirements to create an HLD. The HLD is often misunderstood as the first stage of delivery, it is in fact also a key tool to validate the customers business requirements and outcomes; the topology, technology, protocols, budget validation, key components and important aspects to be considered for cost management and governance authority.

The HLD feeds into other aspects for delivery such as the low-level design (LLD), delivery budget establishment, and high-level delivery plans.

The LLD defines the details required to build, implement and activate the network, such as component specification, connectivity mapping, detailed capacity management parameters, device configuration, port allocations, IP addresses, etc.

Connect44 expert planners and delivery managers can assist in creating the detailed plans and scheduling required to create individual site to whole network Low Level Designs.

From the HLD and LLD there a host of further Project management and other planning activities that will be implemented, such as fibre physical route mapping, dependency planning, alignment of delivery planning against dependencies, field delivery support, etc.

Connect44 Project Managers and Delivery Managers have a wealth of experience working with customers and planners to create the detailed designs and associated delivery schedules that achieve successful outcomes.

Our design process begins by analysing the field and soundings, from pipes, connection to existing networks, train paths built in the area, etc. Based on the answers to these questions, we are able to provide a high-level assessment that will enable feasibility budget estimations.

Detailed planning and utilisation of existing infrastructure efficiently enables cost-optimisation. In depth analysis of legacy utilities prevents potential delays in the civil engineering phase of FTTx delivery/expansion. Identifying potential blockers in the early stages, such as obstacles or road crossing bottlenecks mitigates delays, excess costs and regrettable spend.

Connect44 knows fibre delivery, we therefore know all of the points of failure for fibre delivery and assist customers by managing fibre orders and the delivery process of vendor-product fibre delivery.

We ensure orders are correctly validated and accepted, mitigating delays; we ensure booking of access to premises and premises physical access happens on plan and we ensure fibre product acceptance and as-built records are completed.

It sounds simple but there a myriad of dependencies to manage. Our customers achieve a significant increase of delivery success at all stages of the process through our order management activities.

Connect44 supports customers by ensuring their fibre-product delivery is completed in line with the order specification, mitigating issues with performance or physical connectivity.

We complete specific checks to ensure the fibre point of presence has followed the specified safe routing and is in the specified location on site, amongst other validation activities, through to complete independent fibre performance measurements to validate attenuation and throughput.