Remote Monitoring in Telecom: A brief Review

Transcription

1 Remote Monitoring in Telecom: A brief Review Ziema Mushtaq Dept. of Computer Science, University of Kashmir, Srinagar sheikhz123@gmail.com Syed Mohsin Saif Research Scholar, Dept. of CS &IT, School of Computer Science and Information, MANUU, Hyderbad. sms.manuu@gmail.com Mudasir Manzoor Kirmani Research Scholar, Dept. of CS &IT, School of Computer Science and Information, MANUU, Hyderbad. mmkirmani@gmail.com ABSTRACT The traditional trend of establishing communication links via guided medium has almost turned out to be obsolete now. The whole globe has turned out to be what is called as global wireless village. The growing and exploring nature of the internet of things has peddled the wireless communication infrastructure with unprecedented pace. The scope of establishing wireless mobile communication installation has not gained pace in developed nations but among the developing nations across the world as well. Inspite of gaining popularity, sophisticated in the present system continues to remain the main challenging domain with reliability, cost and security as well to address these challenges respective measures need to be revisited to leverage the present communication infrastructure by installing new constituent structures like BTS management, reliability security, power management etc. The World is increasingly wireless mobile phones are extremely used across both the developed and developing world and their popularity and sophistication continues to rise, so too does the need for new infrastructure consisting of telecom towers or BTS (BASE TRANSCIEVER STATION) to ensure reliable coverage[1]. The growing competition among the telecom companies have put all the telecom service providers in highly competitive race to establish efficient, reliable, robostic, economical and optimal telecommunication infrastructure. The emerging demand of mobile connectivity has put an extra challenge as hoe to anticipate these growing demands and make the system run smoothly with optimal operational cost [2]. This will enable you to optimize energy consumption, reduce the number of service visits, facilitate maintenance and reduce your carbon footprint. As more and more people rely on mobile communication in their daily lives, the pressure on telecom infrastructure is increased. We want telecom base station to achieve higher performance while decreasing operational costs. There are many actions that can be taken to improve telecom operations with reduced budgetary e.g., using newer energy-efficient equipment and integrated power management systems to use power more efficiently and effectively [3][4]. These actions may work well when a new site is being built, but the investment may be harder to justify on existing sites as it requires replacing existing, well functioning equipment with new. Keywords: Base Transceiver Station, Operating Expenses on Telecom and Security INTRODUCTION Remote monitoring can be used to monitor and control all the equipments that support the operation 6

2 of a telecom sites. There are normally three applications of Remote Management Solution: Fault Management: The ability to detect a critical event at the site and use the information to take action. Configuration Management: The ability to adjust equipment at the site to achieve optimal operation. Performance Management: The ability o measure how the system is performing and reduce energy consumption as well as optimize operation. In other words remote monitoring makes it possible to monitor everything that keeps the base station running. Communication Gateways are the devices that handle the connection to the device or equipment being monitored. The connection is generally through Serial or Ethernet based communications link using protocols such as Modlus RTU,Modlus TCP,SNMP etc. A gateway sends information via the internet or the mobile network(gsm/gprs/3g) to the cloud based data center.a common challenge to solve is access to remote sites as many solutions require open ports in firewalls to the field installations[5]. It is normally batter to avoid such solutions as open ports in firewall reduces the protection of the site and VPN based access may give access to other components that what the connection may be intended for. A more secure method is to use Renewable energy management See how much energy the solar panels or wind turbines are producing. Energy metering See exactly how much energy the BTS is consuming. Genset management Test-start your gensets via the web. Fuel management Monitor the fuel level in your diesel tanks. Access management Detect when doors have been opened and the site has been accessed. Remote management of Telecom Base Stations (BTS) HOW REMOTE MANAGEMENT WORKS There are three main elements to a modern remote monitoring solution. The first is the physical layer that comprises a communication gateway that links to your equipment acquires the data and communicates to the remote server. The second is the remote server that collects and stores the data, and third is the software services that provide secure access to the data through user interface. 1. Communication Gateways: a solution where the communication gateway initiates the communication to the remote server and also uses communication protocols that only map selected data from selected devices to the remote server instead of open transparent access to the field s site. It may also be a good decision to use a solution which allows communication gateways to be preconfigured for the intended applications such solutions make installation simple and require no programming or it expertise at the time of installation and make solutions easier to deploy in the field[6]. 2) Central server: Acquired data as well as information regarding events acquiring in the field are sent to the 7

3 management server by the communication gateway at selected logging intervals as demanded by the application to communicate with the server, gateways generally use either quad-band GSM/GPRS,3G or Ethernet based communication using TCP/IP based protocols. Information held on this server can be displayed graphically in the form of customized dashboards. 3) Graphical Dashboards: Information stored on the remote server can be presented using a standard web browser or integrated with other applications used for maintaining the field sites or application handling logistics. There are normally several different tools and functions available at the server to simplify configuration available at the server to simplify configuration of a graphical display, customize reports or functions to provide access to the data stored on the server. A configuration can be packaged as a pre-configured progile that can be displayed to sites in the field and present a common user interface with the information presented in the same way for each site. S.No CHALLENGE IMPACT 1. Poor quality of grid Requirement of large bttery power banks and expensive DG sets 2. Additional burden on operating expenses. 3. Less control on remote and local human dependencies 4. Long running hours of DG requiring diesel in large quantities 5. Climate change and increased social pressure to go green Manpower for refilling,maintenence, reconcilition,back office KPL, defaults, low maintenance, network outages Air and sound pollution,high fuel costs and the theft Capital investment in green power Expenses Management on Telecom Infrastructure "if you can't measure it, you can't manage it" There are many things that can be done to improve the operation of existing telecom sites,but the key factor to successfully be able to reduce operational costs is information. By understanding when, how and if equipment is operating, we are able to make better decisions regarding site maintenance and take actions when necessary [7]. 1) Energy Metering: By adding intelligent energy meters at strategic locations in your site, you will get a detailed overview of how much energy each part of BTS is consuming e.g., with an AC meter installed directly after the mains and the DC meter which measure the consumption of the telecom load, you can easily calculate the sites Energy Efficiency(ER) Additionally Energy meters can be added to individual equipment to see how it is performing and when it is time to do maintenance. 2) Perform Service when needed: A lot of equipment used with a telecom site requires regular service to operate reliably. Telecom sites are often serviced according to a pre determined service schedule. As site visits are costly we may be able to reduce the service costs if we only send the service team to sites that actually need service. The challenge is to know when service is needed at individual site. By analyzing the operation of equipment remotely, we are able to understand equipment health and more efficiently schedule survive visits in the field. 3) Improve reliability and operation of diesel power generators: Diesel power generators are often used for back-up power at telecom. In rural areas the luxury of a reliable power grid might not be present and in such cases the diesel power occasionally combined with renewable energy sources such as wind or solar power. A great percentage analyzing the basic operational parameters, such as fuel levels, battery levels, oilpressure and coolant temperatures. Service of power 8

4 generator is normally carried out at certain intervals e.g., after operating a generator for certain number of hours By being able to see the operating hours remotely, we are able to make a decision of when to send a service engineer to the site. 4) Minimizing Fuel Theft: Fuel theft can be significant problem and reports have suggested that in certain regions as much as 40% of the fuel disappear before it is used. Avoiding fuel theft completely, a remote maintaining system that connects to a fuel sensor can be used to ensure that the right amount of fuel is delivered at a refill. By using an intelligent level sensor, It is possible to track the fuel level of the track. Another method to ensure the security of wireless communication over GPRS or 3G dedicated SIM cards with private APN. This means that is not possible to ping to try to access the remote site except through any other link than the intended connection to the data center. Data storage at the remote server also needs protection. It is common practice to regularly perform so called penetration tests of the remote server to ensure the security protection is up to date and detect any security holes. Access to remote monitoring system is normally centrally controlled and requires authentication. Multilevel password layers are used to provide permissions to access different functions and the server authenticates users and ensures their correct access levels. The server also records all user access as well as attempted access. Tracking the level of fuel in a tank remotely increases our awareness of what happens to the fuel on site and helps us understand when theft occurs. TECHNOLOGY OPTIONS (Solar Power/Wind Turbines) 1) Diesel consumption can be drastically reduced to bare minimum - Drastically reduce operational costs. - Reduce emissions and noise pollution. 2. Dependency on grid can be completely eliminated. 3. Maintenance required is reduced. 4. Saves 40,000 tones/year of carbon emission caused by DG of 100,00 cell low towers. 5. Attractive government subsidy for power. SECURITY Establishing a secure communication path with remote monitoring solutions requires solving a number of technical challenges. Moving data off-site raises concerns over both its security and availability. By using solutions that are "Firewall Friendly" and restricts communication to only the intended data, it is possible to limit the amount of information that can be access and reduces the possibilities of misusing the remote access. A secure and reliable remote management solution requires encryption both between the power generator in the field and the data center as well as between the data center and the web interface. CONCLUSION What to gain with Remote Monitoring: 1. Ensure that the Base Station has constant supply of power and measure energy consumption. 2. Ensure that Backup power is ready to kick if needed. 3. Emergency service visits. 4. Receive and direct alarms to service personnel whatever certain thresholds are reached. 5. Generate reports on how different equipment is performing and analyze over time. 9

5 Cost and Conclusion: Custom made remote monitoring systems are often costly to develop and time consuming to deploy. A ready made remote solution makes it possible to quickly deploy solutions at a lower cost. 1. The cost of communication gateway is normally less than the average cost of a service visit and by cutting down on travelling, it is possible to reduce a company s carbon footprint and only do service visits when really needed. 2. Remote Monitoring may not be the answer to all supervision issues at telecom base stations, but its secure performance and potential to reduce operating costs is likely to have a major impact. REFERENCES: 1. Z. Shunyang X. Du, J. Yongping and W. Riming, Realization of Home Remote Control Network Based on ZigBee, Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Electronic Measurement and Instruments, (2007), August 16-18, Xian, China. 2. A Fang, X. Xu, W. Yang and L. Zhang, The Realization of Intelligent Home by ZigBee Wireless Network Technology, Proceedings of the 2009 Pacific-Asia Conference on Circuit, Communications and System, (2009), May 16-17, Chengdu, China. 3. Y. Ha, Dynamic Integration of Zigbee Home Networks into Home Gateways Using OSGi Service Registry, IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics, vol. 55, no. 2, (2009). 4. J. W. H. Qin, The Design of Wireless Intelligent Home System Base on ZigBee, Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Communication Technology, (2008), November 10-12, Hangzhou, China. 5. D. Yan and Z. Dan, ZigBee-based Smart Home System Design, Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Advanced Computer Theory and Engineering, (2010), August 20-22, Chengdu, China. 6. IEEE : Wireless medium access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY)specification for lowrate wireless personal area networks (WPANs), (2006). 10