IoT and data analytics to reduce towers opex and improve efficiency

Founded in 1991, Cyient have been providing engineering and operations management services to towercos and telecom clients for more than two decades. Now, the company has successfully designed and implemented an IoT solution that allows towercos to remotely monitor and automate several maintenance processes, which has helped infrastructure providers to reduce cost and improve their operational efficiency. From its brand new Tower Operations Centre (TOC) in India, the company is monitoring their clients’ passive infrastructure assets all across the globe.

TowerXchange: Please introduce Cyient to our readers.

As an organisation, Cyient provides engineering, manufacturing, geospatial, network and operations management services to global telecommunications and industrial leaders. We focus on delivering high quality products, services and solutions that can help our clients in leveraging the power of digital technologies as well as opening market opportunities and gaining a competitive advantage against their competitors. 

From quieter flights and safer train rides to a more reliable energy supply, we provide comprehensive and complementary solutions to our clients to help them to achieve their operational and business goals. We have been working with different customers across the telecoms value chain since 1991.

TowerXchange: Congratulations on the opening of your IoT-enabled TOC in India! Tell us about the technologies you are using to improve uptime while reducing opex.

Thank you very much. This initiative was born to solve some of our clients’ main operational challenges while using IoT technologies to improve their operational efficiency. 

We have developed a very unique architecture that enables communication between sensors as well as an integrated, cloud-based analytics engine, which extracts and examines tower passive assets data for actionable insights. This innovation generates an increased tower uptime with 24/7 live monitoring of passive network assets while minimising operational costs.

TowerXchange: How do you translate monitoring data into actionable intelligence? And how does this all connect back to improving the efficiency of field operations?

The data sent by the sensors attached to the passive assets of the towers is used to monitor their health through a managed service center, which is providing 24/7 remote surveillance to all sites across the world.

Our tower centre engineers control and monitor the assets data and oversee all operational aspects including power, environmental factors, battery levels and fuel level in generators through the different IoT sensors that are installed in the towers. Then, all that information is transformed into actionable intelligence using the cloud-based analytics engine. 

We ensure that the field technician receives the right data at the right time so he can quickly resolve any possible issue. With this system, towercos can move from a reactive to a proactive maintenance model, which ultimately will improve their overall operational efficiency.

TowerXchange: What hardware does your solution stack include? Do you have sensors deployed on sites, or is the data collected from embedded systems in the cell site equipment and access control systems? 

The solution includes different simple hardwares such us multiple sensors, our unique EdgeX gateway that we internally developed and a very simple cloud infrastructure system

We cannot collect data from existing embedded systems but we deploy new sensors along with our field engineering team at the cell sites, which acts as the physical touch point by collecting and feeding assets information to the gateway device. Then, the gateway device pushes and presents the data to the software application and finally uploads that information to our cloud platform, where it will be ultimately analysed and transformed into actionable intelligence.

TowerXchange: Under what circumstances can cell site monitoring be fully automated, and at what point does it need human intervention?

The assets management monitoring can be fully automated by leveraging the IoT technology. We can remotely monitor and control all the physical assets using live data and there is no need of human intervention. Our customers are now able to reduce the frequency of regular field force inspections such us fuel checks, pilferage, battery health, et cetera.

The monitoring happens in real-time and the alarms can be classified on priority levels to address different issues based on their urgency or importance. However, we cannot completely eliminate human intervention, which will be required when an incident or event occurs. For instance, if a battery is not functioning, it would need to be replaced by a field force technician. Likewise, when an antenna tilted more than the permitted tolerance, operators can execute corrective actions.

TowerXchange: Our readers will always want to know: who is using your IoT-enabled monitoring solution?

We are working in partnership with our existing customers in Europe and Australia in developing this solution. We have successfully executed proof of concepts in the customer’s innovation labs, and now, we are executing the field trails. 

TowerXchange: How would you differentiate your solution from alternative providers of cell site monitoring and control?

Ravi Jesupaul, VP and Global Delivery Head, Communications, Cyient: We have developed a comprehensive single panel solution that takes into account all the challenges of tower companies. Cyient TOC platform includes consulting, IoT software/hardware development and deployment, field implementation - including installation and commissioning - and the managed services along with the ticketing system to monitor the assets remotely. This is an end-to-end solution and the uniqueness of our approach.