Mastering the Waves: How Advanced Network Benchmarking Propels the Maritime Economy

The vast expanse of our oceans, once a communication frontier defined by sporadic signals and limited bandwidth, is rapidly transforming into a thriving digital landscape. As the global marine economy surges and national strategies increasingly focus on maritime development, the demand for robust, reliable, and high-performance wireless networks across sea areas has never been more critical. This is where the expertise of wireless network testing and optimization professionals, armed with the right tools, becomes indispensable.

This article delves into the intricacies of large-scale marine network coverage assessment, drawing insights from a groundbreaking project in Zhejiang Province. We'll explore the unique challenges of offshore network benchmarking, the advanced methodologies employed, and the transformative impact of precise network data, showcasing how cutting-edge tools like Dingli's Pilot Matrix and Pilot Walktour are building confidence and setting new standards for maritime 5G deployment and beyond.

The Unseen Frontier: Why Maritime Connectivity is a National Imperative

For coastal regions like Zhejiang province, where the marine economy is a cornerstone of growth, stable and pervasive communication at sea is not merely a convenience—it's a strategic necessity. From ensuring the safety of fishermen and facilitating emergency rescues to empowering intelligent fishery management, high-definition shipping backhaul, and digital transformation of island tourism, every facet of maritime activity hinges on reliable connectivity.

However, offshore environments present a formidable array of challenges that are fundamentally different from terrestrial network testing:

Vast and Dynamic Coverage Areas: Unlike land, the sea offers no fixed infrastructure for signal propagation. Coverage can fluctuate wildly (from 0.21 km near shore to over 43.74 km in far-sea areas), influenced by the curvature of the earth, sea surface reflection, and the sheer distance from coastal base stations. Maintaining consistent signal quality across these distances is a monumental task.

Unique Propagation Characteristics: Saltwater itself can attenuate radio frequency (RF) signals. Multipath fading, caused by reflections off the undulating sea surface or offshore structures like islands, oil rigs, and large vessels, can severely degrade signal quality. Tropospheric ducting, an atmospheric phenomenon, can sometimes extend signals far beyond normal ranges but is unpredictable.

Environmental Volatility: Marine environments are prone to extreme weather conditions—heavy rain, storms, fog, and high winds—all of which significantly interfere with wireless signals and complicate testing logistics. Maintaining stable line-of-sight and signal integrity under such conditions is a constant battle.

Infrastructure Scarcity: The absence of optical cables and the difficulty of deploying and powering offshore base stations mean that reliable infrastructure is sparse, making long-distance communication inherently complex and energy-scarce for remote installations.

Service Delineation: Voice and data services behave differently over the waves due to varying frequency priorities, signal modulation techniques, error correction mechanisms, and network resource allocation. Often, voice services demonstrate better effective coverage than data, and high-frequency 5G bands (like 3.5GHz) experience a sharp drop in speed in far-sea areas, posing a challenge for high-bandwidth applications.

Interference: Beyond natural elements, maritime environments can have sources of interference from other vessel communications (e.g., radar, AIS), satellite communications, and even inter-operator signal bleed, requiring careful identification and mitigation.

These complexities underscore the need for a specialized, rigorous approach to network assessment, going far beyond conventional drive tests.

The Zhejiang Paradigm: A Comprehensive Approach to Marine Network Measurement

Recognizing these challenges, the Zhejiang Provincial Sea Area Operator Network Coverage Assessment Project embarked on a mission to systematically evaluate the 4G/5G network quality of China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom across its entire sea domain. The project's core objective was to provide robust data support for marine economic development and maritime communication infrastructure planning.

The project covered approximately 4,500 kilometers of test routes, extending from the coastline's baseline boundary (averaging 46.57 km from shore) to the theoretical coverage limits of each operator's network. This ambitious scope demanded a holistic and highly precise testing methodology.

Architecting the Assessment System

The success of the Zhejiang project lay in its meticulously designed assessment system, which ensured comprehensive and accurate data collection:

• Extended Test Scope: Instead of only measuring near-shore, the assessment proactively stretched to the operator's coverage limit areas, using the sea baseline as a critical reference. This ensured that far-sea "blind spots" and performance bottlenecks were thoroughly identified.
• Full Service Scenario Coverage: The testing encompassed both critical voice and data services to reflect real-world user demands:
  • Data Services (PBM Test): To simulate heavy data usage, PBM (Performance Benchmarking Module) multi-thread upload/download tests were configured with 30 concurrent threads. Crucially, the system incorporated an automatic re-connection mechanism, restarting the connection after 10 seconds if a disconnection occurred, ensuring continuous data collection even in fluctuating signal conditions. This provided realistic offshore network performance benchmarking for throughput.
  • Voice Services (VoNR & MOS): For voice quality assessment, 5G VoNR (Voice over New Radio) mobile-originated/terminated calls were conducted, each lasting 180 seconds, with an automatic call timeout of 15 seconds and a 20-second interval between calls. A critical component was the use of a MOS (Mean Opinion Score) box (or MOS-recording test equipment) to provide real-time call quality evaluation using the POLQA (Perceptual Objective Listening Quality Assessment) algorithm. This objective assessment of VoNR quality assessment in a challenging marine environment provided invaluable insights into voice reliability for safety-critical communications.
• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): A comprehensive suite of KPIs was monitored and analyzed, including:
  • Signal strength (RSRP/SS-RSRP)
  • Signal quality (SINR/SS-SINR)
  • Service success rate (for both voice and data)
  • Throughput distribution (high, medium, and low speed ratios)

Empowering the Mission: Dingli's Advanced Network Testing Tools

The execution of such a large-scale, complex marine network assessment project was made possible by the intelligent design and robust capabilities of Dingli's professional network testing and optimization tools:

• Pilot Matrix 5G Test Terminal: As an automatic drive test equipment, Pilot Matrix 5G was instrumental in collecting detailed RF data across the vast sea routes. Its 4G/5G dual-mode testing capability allowed for simultaneous assessment of both generations of cellular technology, providing a comprehensive view of operator performance. The ability to present test trajectories on a map was crucial for visualizing coverage along the challenging marine paths. Pilot Matrix is designed for large-scale, automated data collection, which is essential when covering thousands of kilometers of dynamic sea area.
• Pilot Walktour Mobile Test Software: Complementing the sophisticated data collection of Pilot Matrix, Pilot Walktour, a mobile phone-based test software, was used to capture data that truly reflects user network quality perception. This combination ensures that the assessment covers both the underlying network performance and the actual experience of an end-user, such as a fisherman or a crew member at sea. Its ease of use on standard mobile devices allows for flexible and widespread deployment across the test team.
• Pilot Pioneer Expert Analysis Software: The sheer volume of data collected by 9 highly skilled engineers (responsible for field testing, backend monitoring, data statistics, and report generation) from three operators across 4500 km of sea area required powerful post-processing. Pilot Pioneer Expert provided:
  • GIS Trace Visualization: Crucial for mapping network performance onto geographical marine charts, allowing engineers to pinpoint exact locations of coverage gaps or performance issues.
  • Multi-Dimensional KPI Statistics: Enabling comprehensive analysis of all collected KPIs, identifying trends, correlations, and anomalies that would be impossible to discern from raw data.
  • Advanced Data Processing: The software efficiently cleaned, correlated, and transformed vast datasets, preparing them for in-depth analysis and reporting. This was essential for the network benchmarking and multiple network benchmarking goals.
• Logistical Preparedness: The project's success also hinged on meticulous logistical planning, including the provision of unlimited test SIM cards from all three major operators and robust procedures for data collection and backend monitoring to ensure data integrity and real-time visibility despite the offshore environment. Addressing challenges like power supply on vessels, secure data offloading, and personnel rotation schedules were paramount.

Unlocking the Ocean's Potential: Project Impact and Value

The Zhejiang project was more than just a technical exercise; its findings are directly empowering safety, driving economic growth, and shaping future network investments.

Enhancing Maritime Safety and Operations

The detailed Voice Call testing and VoNR quality assessment provided critical insights into communication reliability for emergency scenarios. For instance, achieving an impressive voice call success rate exceeding 88% in areas like Zhoushan directly translates to safeguarding the lives of fishermen and shipping personnel. By identifying and addressing areas of poor voice quality or dropped calls, the project has significantly bolstered the lifeline for those at sea.

Fueling Marine Economic Growth

The comprehensive "Sea Area Network Capability Map" generated from the assessment is a game-changer for the marine economy. This map, containing precise heat maps of throughput by operator, signal strength contours, identified dead zones, and areas of high latency, provides invaluable data for:

• Intelligent Fishery Monitoring: Enabling real-time tracking of fishing vessels, optimizing routes, and supporting remote diagnosis of onboard equipment.
• High-Definition Shipping Backhaul: Facilitating the seamless transmission of large data volumes from ships, including real-time navigation updates for ECDIS (Electronic Chart Display and Information System), vessel performance diagnostics, and cargo monitoring (e.g., temperature and location for cold chain logistics). This allows for predictive maintenance, route optimization for fuel efficiency, and enhanced supply chain transparency, potentially saving billions in operational costs.
• Digital Transformation of Island Tourism: Providing tourists with reliable connectivity for navigation, communication, and digital services, enhancing their experience and boosting local economies.
• Emerging "Smart Ocean" Applications: The improved connectivity paves the way for advanced applications such as remote precision aquaculture with real-time monitoring and automation, autonomous shipping operations, and remote medical consultations for seafarers.

By exposing coverage deficiencies – for example, finding that over 10% of far-sea 5G downlink speeds were below 5Mbps – the project provided actionable intelligence that has spurred operators to collaborate on base station deployment and technical problem-solving, strategically optimizing their networks to meet the burgeoning demands of the marine sector. The trajectory maps (4G PBM RSRP, 5G PBM SS-RSRP, and SINR) provided to the operators are crucial for their network planning and optimization teams.

Guiding National Strategy and Future Expansion

The Zhejiang project's innovative methodologies, particularly the "sea baseline extension testing," are now serving as a standardized assessment template for other coastal provinces nationwide. This directly supports China's national "Marine New Infrastructure" and "Maritime Power" strategies, ensuring a consistent and high-quality approach to maritime 5G deployment and network expansion across the country.

The lessons learned, especially regarding the nuanced performance of different frequency bands in marine environments (e.g., the superior penetration of lower frequencies like 700/800/900MHz for voice and emergency communications vs. higher capacity but limited range of 1.8/1.9/2.1/2.6/3.5GHz for data), are critical for strategic network planning. The project also highlighted the significant differences in actual coverage distances among operators due to variations in their base station equipment, locations, antenna heights, and the use of ultra-long-distance technologies. Understanding these disparities through rigorous multiple network benchmarking is vital for informed investment.

Conclusion: Charting a Course for Confident Connectivity

The Zhejiang Provincial Sea Area Network Coverage Assessment Project stands as a testament to the power of meticulous wireless network testing and data-driven optimization in challenging environments. It effectively removed the "black box" surrounding sea area network coverage, providing a high-precision, all-service assessment that is directly contributing to enhanced maritime safety and robust marine economic growth.

For wireless network testing and optimization experts in the telecom industry, this case study provides a compelling reference. It demonstrates that with the right approach and advanced tools like Dingli's Pilot Matrix and Pilot Walktour, even the most challenging marine environments can be comprehensively measured, benchmarked, and optimized. These tools empower professionals to:

• Conduct large-scale marine network coverage assessments with unparalleled accuracy.
• Perform sophisticated offshore network performance benchmarking across diverse services and operators.
• Gain deep insights into VoNR quality assessment in real-world maritime conditions.
• Generate detailed marine network measurement reports (RSRP, SS-RSRP, SINR trajectory maps) that drive actionable network improvements.

As the world increasingly looks to the oceans for economic and strategic opportunities, the demand for resilient and high-performance maritime connectivity will only grow. Projects like Zhejiang's, powered by industry-leading solutions from Dingli, are charting a clear course towards a truly "Smart Ocean," equipping telecom professionals with the confidence and precision needed to conquer the waves of wireless network challenges.