naxtlab

2023.03.03

NEXTLab has taken a big step forward in entering the global market by visiting Europe for approximately two weeks from February 5th, Sunday, to February 17th, Friday. The enthusiastic CEO, Sungmin Kim, and senior engineer, Woojin Jo, visited telecommunication companies in France, Germany, and the Netherlands to demonstrate the key solutions to them.

The prospects that they visited were Bouygues Telecom and SFR (Société française du radiotéléphone) in France, Vodafone in Germany, and Rebox in the Netherlands. Among them, Bouygues Telecom and Vodafone gave a series of tests to run beforehand as PoC (proof of concept) of NEXTLab’s solutions using STB Multimeter. The tests were performed successfully in Korea, and in addition to those test cases, NEXTLab also proposed to carry out additional tests provided by STB Multimeter’s diverse functions.

In addition to meeting NEXTLab’s prospects, this trip was a great opportunity to strengthen bonds with its business partner, nPerf, and discuss more details on future solution co-development. NEXTLab values its business partners as much as its prospects.

Below is the interview of the senior engineer Woojin Jo, recollecting his memories on the trip. 

Q. What was the best/the most difficult part about this business trip?

Woojin Jo(hereafter W) : The best part was that we finally got an opportunity to enter the overseas market and acquire more clients outside of Korea. On a more personal level, it was nice to be able to practice my English-speaking skills. However, the trip schedule turned out to be a bit too tighter than planned, so I was constantly under time pressure. We traveled from France to Germany and the Netherlands, then back to France again, so there was a lot of time spent on transportation. Add the jet lag and the fatigue coming from adapting to the time zone difference to that. Naturally, I was very tired.

Q. Which part of NEXTLab’s solutions were the prospects most interested in?

W : I would say they were most interested in our log viewer, which visualizes various set-top box log patterns and enables our clients to find the root causes of errors easily. They also paid attention to the random test (also known as the Monkey Test) and the intelligent monkey test. Currently, European telecommunication companies do their QA work regarding set-top box performance and video quality using script-based tests. So taking a random-based approach to testing was a fresh perspective, and our intelligent monkey test definitely grabbed their attention too.

Q. Many people would be familiar with script-based, or in other words, scenario-based testing. However, the term ‘intelligent monkey test’ is a little hard to understand. Can you explain it a bit further, please?

W : Of course. The ‘intelligent monkey test’ tests various ways to reach a single menu. For example, let’s say a subscriber of a pay-tv service watched an episode of “The Walking Dead,” and wants to watch the next episode the next day. After returning home, he/she turns on the TV and the set-top box, then he/she would navigate a series of menu to find the VOD and play it. But as you know, there are multiple ways to do this. He/She can go to “My VOD” menu, move the cursor between the previously watched VODs, and find “The Walking Dead”, then go to the next episode. Well, this isn’t the only way to navigate. He/She could also go to the search menu on the Netflix “Home” page, then enter “Walking Dead” to search for the series, then navigate to the next episode. As you can see, since there are multiple ways to play a single VOD, scenario-based tests may not always replicate OTT service users’ experiences exactly. However, the intelligent monkey test will automatically test those different paths to reach a menu, which brings the tests closer to measuring the subscribers’ QoE (quality of experience).

Q. Thank you for a detailed explanation. In your opinion, what exceeded your expectations during the solution demonstration meetings?

W : Well, that would certainly be applying cloud servers for our solution. Originally, we used physical servers for our clients in Korea, because usually using physical servers has a higher performance compared to cloud servers. So naturally, when we applied the cloud servers for our meetings in Europe, we thought that the response time would take far longer than in Korea. To our surprise, the delay in response time was shorter than what we had expected, and it was good to confirm that the delay was short even with live video streaming included in our demos. This proves that our solution is viable to use outside Korea.

Q. Wow, it’s really interesting to hear that the cloud server was more stable than what we had thought earlier! As NEXTLab delivers its solutions to all top 3 telecommunication companies in Korea, I’d like to know the difference between having business meetings in Korea and in Europe.

W : Firstly, there is a big difference in the needs of our Korean clients and European prospects. The main difference is the network infrastructure. From the late 1990s to early 2000s, the South Korean government invested a large amount of capital in setting up the network infrastructure in the IT field. This led to establishing Korea as the country with the highest internet speed in the world, according to a global trend report published in 2014 by Statista, a German research company specializing in statistics. On the contrary, in Europe, the internet speed and performance isn’t as stable as in Korea. That is probably one of the reasons why European telecommunication companies are interested in network quality measurement. Basically, collecting network logs is an important precondition in most of the tests, while Korean pay-tv service providers are relatively not as interested in it.     

Next, their TV system and usage environment is different, so we needed to adjust to that when preparing the test cases. 
For example, Korean TV channels usually start from “000”, but when we prepared for a PoC for an European prospect, the starting channel number for their pay-tv app was “200”, so we had to keep that in mind. 

Last but not least, the language barrier did exist, as neither of them nor us used English as first language. 
As we prepared additional tests during the trip, they gave us a document requesting certain test sets, but due to the difference in terms, there was a minor difficulty in understanding exactly what they wanted. 
But this led me to think that our intelligent monkey test will be fairly competitive in Europe, because it tests different ways to reach one menu, and therefore the language barrier will be lower than other tests. 

Q. It seems NEXTLab’s intelligent monkey test solution is really ready to set sail in European waters! Last question here. Could you share a funny incident during the trip?

W : Sure! We had dinner in a French restaurant with Arik Benayoun from our business partner, nPerf, but Arik’s dinner menu was different from what he ordered. We told the server that he got the wrong menu, but the restaurant did nothing for us. Personally, I learned to appreciate the high service level of Korean restaurants, because at least many of them try to apologize sincerely if they make a mistake.

Q. I see. I can relate to his experience personally, because one time when I visited a restaurant, my lunch order was completely forgotten, and I found out about that after 30 minutes had passed! The owner apologized, but it still felt bad to wait all that time for nothing. Well, I guess that’s it for today. Thank you very much for your time.

W : No problem.

Overall, the business trip to Europe proved to be a very fruitful experience for NEXTLab. It was a great opportunity to compare the Korean and European markets and gain a deeper insight into the difference in their needs.

Although the two who left Korea to meet the prospects in Europe worked hard to prepare for the solution demonstrations, the development team in Korea also stayed late and worked overtime to ensure the system was fine. It was impressive to see everyone unite and work as a team for a common goal.

With the precious lessons learned from this trip, NEXTLab will continue to create outstanding automated testing solutions for pay-tv service providers and internet service providers. Now that there is a better understanding of NEXTLab’s solutions’ strengths, there will be more room for additional upgrades in the future.