KCCTech Finds New Ways to Become a Major Global Wireless Service Provider

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KCCTech provides innovative turnkey services and solutions globally for wireless carriers and private enterprise networks. Since it began in 2016, the organization has seen year-over-year expansion of over 100 percent. 2022 is proving to be another growth year as the carriers expand their 5G network infrastructure. Even so, the company is still finding new ways to grow through Open RAN (ORAN), Internet of Things (IoT) and the enterprise market.

“Certain carriers have been in the forefront of the 5G buildout and others are playing catch up now,” said Ike Ahmet I. Cark, Co-Founder & Managing Partner at KCCTech. “But carriers have to continue to invest to stay in the game. If they don’t consider investing, they may fall behind quickly and the quality of the network may be immediately impacted. Furthermore, with the increased frequency bands and complexity of wireless networks, there is increased uplink clearance and passive intermodulation (PIM) problems.  This requires not only experienced engineering and field teams to troubleshoot and mitigate these PIM problems, but also need for data analysis with machine learning through software solutions for improved network performance.”

The Internet of Things is on the rise as well. “Along with additional smartphones, new IoT connected gadgets are quickly being introduced into the system together with other new technologies and innovations,” Cark said. “They’re all increasing the need for expansion of the infrastructure and capacity in multiple different approaches and solutions.”

KCCTech is also seeing growth in ORAN technology. “We’ve been investing significant time and effort on ORAN to answer the demands, which opens the door to alternative equipment manufacturers, increased competition, and of course, provides additional flexibility to build private networks at a fraction of the cost.”

Domestically, DISH Wireless and other private enterprises have opted for ORAN, and internationally, many countries across Europe, Southeast Asia, and South America, are choosing ORAN. “There’s a huge demand for ORAN because it is more cost effective and eliminates dependency on conventional RAN OEMs that control the end-to-end system, but at the same time, creates challenges including interoperability, functionality and answering to the increased use cases that IoT devices bring,” Cark said.

5G-LAN is the New WiFi

 A growing number of enterprises are selecting 5G private ORAN solutions utilizing the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) as they shift away from WiFi networks, or complementary to their existing WiFi networks. The public safety requirement for citizens to be able to dial 911 inside buildings has been established in the U.S., which is contributing to enterprise demand as well.

“The reason for this shift is that WiFi is currently not able to handle the capacity, the throughput and the latency requirements of the enterprises, even though they have come out with improved versions of it,” Cark said. “Another critical reason is the network security on WiFi is basically not able to fulfill the needs of the enterprise.”

The significant expansion of the ORAN private 5G network market has given the firm the ability to expand its involvement in the network buildout. “We’re able to position ourselves in a very unique role,” Cark said. “We’re not just ordinary systems integrators, but we provide end-to-end 5G network management including testing, deployment, optimization, 24/7 NOC and field operations.”

ORAN Success Spawns Lab-as-a-Service

The growth of ORAN has birthed another area of expansion for KCCTech in the form of its new Lab-as-a-Service (LaaS). The service provides setup, operation, testing, and analysis of multi-vendor 5G Private ORAN hardware and software, and user equipment (UE). LaaS supports multiple configurations and vendor equipment interoperability. LaaS represents a small but growing percent of its revenue.

“We’re actually seeing an increasing demand for lab-as-a-service with the testing certification program,” Cark said. “We expect this to be a big component of wireless infrastructure buildout in the near future before deploying in the field.” KCCTech partners with the leading organizations in ORAN verifications within multiple countries.

In ORAN, all the different hardware and software components such as RU, DU, CU, Core and Orchestrator may all come from different companies. The operator expects that equipment and software from different manufacturers and interfaces will work all together. KCCTech has taken on the job of verification and certification of ORAN configurations from a quality assurance perspective to ensure each component works together.

“Technology doesn’t always work smoothly,” Cark said. “There are times where we need to troubleshoot and make sure it’s functioning. And that’s what we validate in the lab.”

After the laboratory work, KCCTech deploys ORAN in field trials known as proof of concept (POC) in designated areas and tests it to make sure it’s fully functional before it goes to a wider rollout. The lab and POC process will be repeated as new equipment, new versions of the existing equipment and new software are included. It all must be tested and certified before it’s rolled out.

While ORAN opens new avenues for technology development, Cark is quick to note that KCCTech’s current mainstay is still conventional macro network builds, which are going forward at full speed. The company’s operations across most of the U.S., as well as globally, have grown.  KCCTech’s steady expansion continues, and they are hiring key talents in the industry to fill various roles.

A recent video conference to celebrate KCCTech’s sixth birthday connected employees from four different continents. KCCTech leadership is committed to treating them all like family.

“We try to interact with every individual as much as possible,” he said. “When someone needs something within the family, that’s when we all step up to support them. That’s what we do here at KCCTech.”

For more information about KCCTech, visit: https://www.kcctech.com/.

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