Cambodian operator Smart Axiata saw a significant uptick in Fixed Wireless Access users during 2021, with the service attracting more than 100,000 registered users for that year.
The service is available in more than 20 Cambodia provinces, and its growth has been driven further by Huawei’s FWA Suite, an intelligent solution that enables end-to-end (E2E) service automation.
The pandemic dramatically increased demand for home broadband connectivity in Cambodia as people sought to work from home, learn online and remain connected to the outside world. In Cambodia, Fiber to the Home (FTTH) deployment faced multiple roadblocks during the country’s lockdowns, so Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) became a natural choice for consumers.
Smart Axiata and Huawei are collaborating to bring premium broadband services and experiences to more unconnected homes as well as people in Cambodia. They have jointly leveraged the FWA Suite to facilitate home broadband service provisioning during the pandemic.
The FWA Suite solution enables automatic FWA service provision and provides reliable pre-evaluation for wireless throughput and coverage, as well as post-evaluation for proactive user experience management to reduce churn rates.
The FWA Suite makes zero-touch FWA service provision possible. Also known as the WTTxSuite, (Wireless to the X[everything]),the solution can be integrated by a smartphone app to help operators to launch FWA services, with Smart Axiata developing the SmartNas app to support users' contactless FWA service application. Users in Cambodia can easily apply for FWA services by inputting their home address on SmartNas app, with the system providing timely feedback for the data package and CPE type. After users enter their address information and pay online, the CPE will be delivered, and they can plug-and-play to enjoy FWA service conveniently. E2E automatic FWA service provision offers an added level of safety while the Covid-19 pandemic rages on.
During Smart Axiata’s initial trials in the capital city of Phnom Penh, network experience improved by more than 12%. This whole process of iterative optimisation for the whole city took only seven days to complete, which is far lower than any other traditional optimisation method. To date, the automatic provisioning of FWA services has reached the level of L3 autonomous driving network,and the FWA Suite has been commercially deployed in more than 80 networks in 35 countries worldwide.
