Drive testing

RF Drive testing is a method of measuring and assessing the coverage, capacity and Quality of Service (QoS) of a mobile radio network.

For benchmarking, sophisticated multi-channel tools such as Focus Infocom's DMTS and XGMA, Accuver's XCAL-Pu6, DingLi Communications' Pilot Fleet, Ascom's Symphony, Rohde & Schwarz-SwissQual's Diversity Benchmarker, Keysight Nemo Invex II, Aaronia RTSA Suite or RantCell application based QoE drive test benchmarking tool are used to measure several network technologies and service types simultaneously to very high accuracy, to provide directly comparable information regarding competitive strengths and weaknesses.

In this mode drive testing data is used to diagnose the root cause of specific, typically localized, network issues such as dropped calls or missing neighbour cell assignments.

Service quality monitoring is typically carried out in an automated fashion, using devices that run largely without human intervention carried in vehicles that regularly ply typical drive testing routes such as garbage collection vehicles, taxis or buses.

Cluster drive test is executed when the network is in active mode (i.e. providing service to customers) and inspect the interference amid two cells and handover taking place or not.

Operators use this data to get output which is further utilized to optimize the mobile network and deliver efficient service to users.

For example, telecom regulators from various countries constantly perform market level drive tests to identify under-performing operators whose user experience KPIs are not meeting regulatory requirements.

Operators conduct drive testing on an area to analyse user experience with respect to other cellular service providers.

Market level drive testing can identify their strengths (e.g., high data throughput compared to competitors) and this provides them an opportunity to up-sell their services in advertising campaigns.