Au Wireless Success Story
How a Colorado ISP identified equipment issues, added AP capacity, and improved subscriber QoE with Preseem
Au Wireless Success Story
A network really is the sum of its parts. If any of those parts are faulty, this can negatively affect other equipment and lead to poor quality of experience (QoE) for subscribers.
Such was the case with our customer Au Wireless, an ISP based in Golden, Colorado. Au has been providing high-quality internet to homes and businesses in and around Golden since 2015. We recently spoke with Jonathan Morrison, a network admin at Au, about how they used Preseem to identify problem areas in their network, increase access point (AP) capacity, and improve subscriber QoE.
Finding Network Issues with Preseem
Au recently did a trial of Preseem Plus, which contains advanced RF analytics tools that help ISPs proactively manage their networks. After activating Preseem Plus, Au discovered that APs with Cambium ePMP Force 190 radios were displaying poor RF and Business Value scores.
These scores mean that subscribers on this AP were likely having a poor experience, and were also hurting the business by taking up too much airtime and limiting capacity.
Jonathan and the Au team consulted with Preseem and decided to upgrade to the ePMP Force 200 model on those APs. The impact was immediate and positive. In the first example we looked at with Jonathan, we saw that a customer on one of Au’s APs where the radios had been upgraded saw both their RF and Business Value scores increase dramatically.
Diving deeper into how the scores are calculated, we can see that the RF Link Rate moved above the AP line of 100 Mbps and has stayed there consistently since. Previously, the link rates had been below that line and were showing lots of jitter. The RF Efficiency scores showed an immediate and consistent improvement as well.
Graphs from Preseem showing RF Link Rates above 100Mbps for Au Wireless
Jonathan said the scores have given Au insight into the limitations of the ePMP 190. As a result, he said they’re likely to go straight to the 200 from some 180s they have when they do their next round of upgrades, based on what they’ve seen in the Preseem metrics.
Lowering Latency and Adding AP Capacity
We then looked at another example of an immediate improvement in RF and Business Value scores when the switch to the ePMP Force 200 was made. Airtime transmit utilization and frame rate also improved, and there was a 10% improvement in latency. The AP Health and Available Subscriber Capacity metrics also increased.
Graphs from Preseem showing decrease in latency and RF Airtime Utilization at Au Wireless
Improving these particular scores means that Au will be able to add more subscribers to their APs. This in turn means they can get more from their existing equipment and increase revenue in the process. Outbound discards were also down, meaning that the AP is dropping fewer packets.
Not too shabby, considering this was just from upgrading three CPEs! Jonathan also confirmed that no other external factors could account for the improvement.
“Overall, I’ve been really impressed with it so far. I think it’s really cool, just seeing all these metrics,” he said. “Your guys’ system is what showed us the light there (that) the 190s were dragging us down pretty far.”
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