Testing Wireless Networks Featured Article

(Editor’s Note: This article refers to a video interview shot in San Jose as part of TMCnet’s “On the Road” video series. To view the entire library of videos from Road Shows and other industry shows, as well as product demos and interviews in our in-house studio, visit TMCnet Videos home page.)

Recently Fanfare’s president and CEO Tom Ryan met with TMC’s Rich Tehrani (News - Alert) to briefly describe how his company’s automated testing solution was helping telecom companies to deliver high quality products to market faster. “Our products are tailored to help Q&A organization to do a much better and faster job of getting through that cycle,” said Ryan.

For example, he noted, take an individual test engineer who might spend four weeks traditionally doing a quality task. After implementing Fanfare’s (News - Alert) automation technology, the same task can be done in four hours, asserted Ryan. Next, he cited another example at the departmental level. Here, he continued, a director or vice president, who is responsible for 100-500 folks, is able to get through his quality cycle 30-40 percent faster with Fanfare’s automation technology.

That’s tremendous productivity, commented Tehrani. “It was long overdue for this market,” replied Fanfare’s CEO. Ryan then continued to shed light on Fanfare’s success with large equipment manufacturers, like Cisco (News - Alert) and Alcatel-Lucent, resulting in expansion to other marketplaces such as storage networks and service providers. “It turns out that these service providers have more complex problem that they have been trying to solve,” Ryan said.

As a result, he continued, we are now working on both sides. “And are finding a platform application for our technology,” asserted Ryan. To explain that point, Ryan asked Tehrani to focus on cycle time required. He said large equipment maker will spend 1-3 months testing a new device or new release before passing it to a large service provider like British Telecom. BT (News - Alert) will then spend 18-24 months doing acceptance testing. So it is a solid 2 years and no one is making any money during this time, stated Ryan. And guess what? Most of the work is being done in ad hoc or manual fashion,” added Ryan.

Consequently, he continued, with Fanfare’s automation technology we have been able to bring huge productivity gains and high ROI while accelerating revenues for all these companies.

Specifically, what does a company need to do to take advantage of your services, Tehrani asked Ryan. Before answering the question directly, Ryan highlighted three fundamental things involved in this solution. First, we provide leading-edge technology, which is the enabler. Plus, it takes two more things—people and the process. “So an organization really needs to sit down and think what their goals are,” explained Ryan.

Continuing, he hinted that involves acquiring technology, deploying technology and training associated people -- and modifying the workflow. In essence, how do I adopt my present day workflow to take advantage of this automation technology. So, it is kind of a three legged approach, affirmed Ryan.

To Tehrani, it was a template for best practices. Tom concurred and said that there is a group within Fanfare that is responsible for helping customers with that process.

Speaking of growth, Ryan said that Fanfare started with one very large company four years ago. Today, there are 140 customers around the world using Fanfare’s technology and reaping the benefits. 

Tehrani’s next question was related to conversion taking place in the wireless, infrastructure and some other technologies. “Yes, it has been very exciting for us,” stated Ryan. He said that as customers started to move into different areas of the enterprise, they began to use the Fanfare automation technology to address some of the problems in the area of expansion.

Architecturally, the way our technology is built, a network, a data center and a cloud all look the same through a Fanfare lens, Ryan explained. As a result, “We are able to leverage that technology and bring it across multiple marketplaces,” said Ryan.

In summary, the company went from servicing equipment manufacturers to service providers. And then moved into data centers -- most recently, it has been extended to the Cloud, which is really exciting for Fanfare.

In conclusion, Ryan commented, “If you are a customer doing any kind of quality assurance or testing around your network, data center or even your Cloud, there is good chance that Fanfare can add tremendous value.”

To see the video, please watch below: