Since its inception, the telecom industry is on a growth trajectory. Even the recent economic downturn did not impact the telecom business as much as it affected the other sectors. In fact, with WFH being the new norm, the industry is snowballing.
The global telecoms stats also speak of this impressive growth. From3.3 billion active mobile broadband subscriptions around the world, it increased enormously to 7.7 billion in 2020. If we go by the global mobile data traffic forecast report, the numbers on monthly traffic are expected to reach 77 exabytes by 2022 compared to 11.5 exabytes at the end of 2017. For tapping into such colossal growth, telcos need to buck up for all challenges ahead and focus on the key areas.
Some of these challenges are related to customer engagement, network infrastructure, driving innovation, etc. However, ensuring quality assurance in all these business segments through network performance tests or roaming testing is crucial for all telcos. Here is how QA services can help businesses operating in the telecom sector.
Testing network infrastructure
Some of the critical areas of the telecom industry include managing network inventory, network configuration, service provisioning, and fault management. Most of these functional areas are crucial to a network because it impacts the network’s support management to keep the business always on-track.
It is also through software components such as Business Support Systems (BSS) and Operation Support Systems (OSS) that supporting the operation of end-to-end solutions is made possible. Hence, testing these software components is the key to maintaining a robust network infrastructure.
Testing OTT services
With the fast internet service and the usable bandwidth offered by ISP &CSPs, most of the OTT platforms have moved to mobile handsets. OTT gaming and audio-visual services are not the core expert areas of the telecom business, so they struggle with integrating these services.
Nonetheless, seamless integration of OTT platforms is essential because it helps telcos boost revenue.
In this regard, software testing service providers, with their expertise in comprehensive OTTtesting, can be of great help for telecom companies. Whether it’s interoperability or UI/UX testing, Quality engineering service providers play a crucial role in every stage, right from testing to deployment.
Testing network security
Whether it’s the cyber-attacks on SS7 protocols, DNS (Domain Name Security)attacks, or SIP (Session Initiation Protocol)hacking, cyber threats to network security have significantly increased with the advancements in the telecom industry. Hence, sustaining a secured network has become a significant concern for this sector.
To maintain robust security throughout the network, telecom companies need to conduct timely external network security checks and penetration tests. It is the QA service providers, with their experience and testing specific know-how, that can help telecom companies provide a safe and secure network to their users.
Supporting innovations
As already discussed, the telecom sector is increasing both in terms of revenue and volume. The sector is also continuing to bring in new competitors who have innovative ideas with them. To stay in the competition, the existing telecom service providers constantly need to innovate and develop new ideas.
Due to this competitive nature of the telecom market, there is more pressure on companies not just to innovate but also to provide hyper-customized services. Such a level of personalization tends to increase the complexity of the network, resulting in the need for robust and regular telecom software testing and assessment of the network performance.
Ensuring positive user experience
Like every other service industry, the success of telecom companies depends not just on a new product but also on exemplary service to their existing customers. Many users still use a primary mobile phone to make phone calls and send messages, so it also becomes essential to look after their needs.
Testing the backend infrastructure and IVR menu service helps in speeding up the communication with the operator. As a result, it creates a high-quality and positive user experience and enhances loyalty among the long-term subscriber base.
Supporting billing systems
As a result of providing personalized telecom services to subscribers, the complexity in the billing systems has also increased. These systems demand a high degree of integration over a wide range of technology and application stacks.
For telecom operators, ensuring a robust billing process is crucial not just from a revenue standpoint but also from other areas such as customer trust, interoperability, availability, and so forth. Any interruption in billing support services can negatively impact the organization, so QA testing every area of billing for its effective implementation is crucial.
Enhancing output quality
Being highly cost-intensive, investment in every area of the telecom industry, be it technology, infrastructure, innovation, or skillsets, must be output-driven. With adequately integrated quality engineering services, telecom companies can realize telecom service providers’ business goals, linked to optimized labor cost, output quality, and efficient process, cost-effectively.
Testing 5G capabilities
In 2021, 5G is the buzzword. As per the Ericsson Mobility Report, 5G is estimated to reach approximately 1.5 billion subscriptions by 2024. All telecom operators will try to capture most of this growing 5G market.
The significance of this new technology is not just limited to its blazing fast speed. It also has a few other desirable features such as fast response time, extraordinary internet capacity, reduced latency, quick response time, etc. To successfully adopt this futuristic 5G technology, unique software testing capabilities are required. This is where experienced QA service providers can come in, especially those adept in all 5G testing processes.
Parting thoughts
Software quality assurance is a niche industry domain. It requires unique domain knowledge, not just of the process but also regarding testing tools and testing environments. Enterprises that are serious about achieving their business goals and providing a better user experience to their customers opt for pure-play software testing service providers. They are also preferred because these testing companies, like Qualitest, have a large pool of both QA automation testers and manual testers to take care of all the software testing requirements in a telecom company.