AIO Systems: The synergy between tamper proofing, energy efficiency and cloud services solutions

The demands for running towerco operations today go beyond the services provided by conventional RMS vendors. True to its name, AIO is addressing the growing need for innovation under its All-In-One umbrella. Presently, towercos need to focus their attention on reducing energy costs, excelling in managing site operations while avoiding white collar fraud and system tampering. AIO’s solution relies on a simple and yet efficient synergy: increase energy efficiency, circumvent complicated white collar tampering and safeguard data, simultaneously providing towercos much needed operational flexibility.

TowerXchange: What kind of monitoring services and solutions are required at cell sites in Asia? And how does AIO’s proposition differ in Asia from other markets?

With the enormous amount of towers changing hands to independent towercos in Asia, the sheer volume and diversity of these towers is a daunting challenge in itself.

AIO’s power lies in the knowledge and experience we have worldwide.  Our site solutions and services are developed based on day to day site operations, through trial and error.  The Asian market is slightly more complicated than other markets.  We have to ensure towercos address complicated issues such as implementing and controlling alternative energy resources, countering sophisticated tampering, floods, humidity, multi-tenant disputes, et cetera.  The absolute synergy between AIO’s site hardware control elements, management systems, and cloud service solutions gives towercos the competitive edge.

TowerXchange: How does AIO ensure its clients operational and energy efficiency? 

With the complexity around energy at Asian towers, AIO’s site components together with our software and hybrid solution automatically selects the optimal energy resource in real-time.  A sophisticated algorithm calculates the status of batteries, rectifiers and system variables based on voltage, current, environment, temperature and humidity. Automated free-cooling units eliminate unnecessary use of air conditioning during stable temperatures… I could give you many other examples of how we ensure energy efficiency. This all occurs to secure the harmony of the site’s operation in real-time.  From a managerial point of view, you can easily assess data for any country for any site, establish whether or not energy consumption was optimised, how sites perform, what equipment operates the best under which conditions, and where to take specific pre-emptive actions.  Furthermore, AIO’s data validation structure is based on duplicated measurements, site behaviour profiles, data input verification systems and algorithms, assures the absolute accuracy of the data.

TowerXchange: What are clients demanding when it comes to reducing energy opex? And how is AIO addressing these demands?

Reducing the energy bill is usually on the highest list of priorities for towercos in Asia.  In India for instance, the sheer volume and type of users sharing the same power line may greatly impact the stability of power on site. Matters are further complicated with tapping into the power lines, operating the generators simultaneously whilst refuelling in order to inflate the bill, water or other liquids mixed with diesel and other forms of theft.  This is in stark contrast to Myanmar where towercos are simply interested in optimising energy usage and such practices are practically unheard of. Management requirements are further challenged by new legislation aimed at protecting the environment and reducing site carbon footprints.

AIO can tell you what the realistic cost of your energy bill should be, but our measures will also ensure that you can drastically reduce this bill. You will definitely know if someone is tapping into your line. Our intelligent solutions will automatically switch to alternative energy sources during inconsistent power supply, shut off generators during refuelling, or close fuel tanks if fuel quality is impaired. AIO is also at the forefront of resolving towercos’ concerns regarding environmental protection. With our energy, hybrid and environmental solutions we protect the environment simultaneously ensuring that towercos minimise opex.

TowerXchange: What do you mean by operational flexibility?

It has become clear to us that in the race to acquire more towers, companies are looking for a more flexible approach to run their operations. AIO takes operational flexibility a step further. We offer a whole range of services, geared for almost any business or operation. The first group of services are our cloud and NOC services. Towercos can simply choose to access the data or let AIO handle the full range of their operations: rollout, monitoring, alert response, performance, maintenance and more.

The second service is our Business Intelligence (BI) module. This module is centred on expanding the towercos’ operational intelligence across their entire network structure. Data is accessed over any web portal from any location, providing an overall global perspective of site operations that can be drilled down to the minutest KPI.

We have also recently developed a “pay-as-you-go” module structured in a way to facilitate businesses at any stage of their operations.  These modules will provide towercos with full flexibility, today and for future operations.

TowerXchange: How does AIO circumvent white collar tampering, whilst at the same time protecting site data?

It’s not easy to circumvent white collar tampering and you always need to stay a step ahead. Sites are usually setup with inconspicuous camouflaged SMART-Tampering components, advanced hardware controllers and accessories that are equipped with wireless communication. In many instances in Asia site data itself has been tampered with. The backup software has control systems in place that pre-emptively manage user levels and will automatically detect inconsistent data entries. AIO also protects wireless communication with effective firewalls that will protect site data. As I mentioned previously, data is further secured with our data verification systems.

TowerXchange:  What are the next challenges towercos will face in the near future and how is AIO addressing them?

Managing a wide variety of sites spanning across complex infrastructures and dispersed geographical locations is a challenge in itself for towercos. An optimal solution for both active and passive site management is urgently required.

A minimum prerequisite from most carriers today dictates that sites are managed uniformly by towercos. From AIO’s perspective this needs to be changed. AIO is in the finishing stages of developing a smart hardware controller that will correlate data via the SNMP communication protocol. The idea is to correlate both active and passive site data, which is combined within AIO’s BI module. This means AIO will provide towercos with the business intelligence on how to manage different infrastructure, both active and passive, from a global perspective.