Wireless Weblog sponsor Cognio helped Concourse Communications (recently acquired by Boingo) to keep an eye on interference for its Wi-Fi service in airports nationwide.

Concourse uses Cognio's Intelligent Spectrum Management System (ISMS Enterprise) to solve interference problems.

Airports, needless to say, are busy locations with many potential sources of interference. "We have obligations to both the host location and the traveling subscribers to ensure continuous uptime," says Dennis Burt, Concourse's Director of RF Engineering. "We also have an obligation to the airports to proactively identify potential problems and mitigate them."

Before Concourse deployed ISMS Enterprise, Burt says, keeping on top of those potential problems presented a serious challenge for the company. "If we did not have personnel in that location, we would hire subcontractors for urgent diagnostic work and usually fly in engineers from another location if the problem was severe," he says.

What's more, Burt says, until Concourse began using ISMS Enterprise, the company only found out about performance issues when customers complained.

With the deployment of ISMS Enterprise, Concourse technicians now have immediate access to a wide range of real-time and historical interference information. "We can now monitor interference over time and implement corrective measures from our central NOC without the need to send a technician on site," Burt says. "Technicians can pinpoint the exact source of interference, whether it is a microwave, cordless phones, or a rogue WLAN installed by an airport tenant."

The cost savings, Burt says, are significant. "When we have had to fly out a technician to identify a source of interference and reconfigure base stations in the past, the costs of the rush plane ticket, the other travel expenses, and the engineering labor came to an average of nearly $10,000 per event," he says. "But the cost could be even greater if we had to provide extensive testing to identify an intermittent interferer. By deploying the Cognio [ISMS Enterprise] at our other locations, we will virtually eliminate this cost from our business model."

Cognio is hosting a free webinar this Friday (June 9) entitled "See, Manage and Secure Your Spectrum." Click here to register.