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Shell scripts Bash Python InfluxDB Grafana Kotlin JavaScript HTML
I was very close to leaving the company in April 2022. I had a meeting planned on Friday and still remember when I was thinking about what I would say to the manager. However, when I was leaving the office on Thursday evening, I got a question: "Excuse me, was that you who asked about Expericom?" It was me indeed, but it happened two months before. For some reason, when I returned home, I decided to write a short email in case they would book a meeting, they booked that meeting on Friday. I was not quick enough to say the manager about my leaving by then, the meeting with Expericom was booked one hour before and ended up with an invitation – I decided to give it a try. That was the starting point of my job rotation at Expericom. You could ask your favourite search engine about "expericom ericsson". But if you have developed a strong allergy to marketing language, I can explain it differently. I guess, you either have a smartphone yourself or have at least seen one. Usually, smartphones are being used with some kind of mobile subscription from a mobile phone network operator. (Unless it is about emergency call, which is a little bit different story.) Hovever, such mobile phone network operators usually cover whole countries or at least regions. But the coverage area of Expericom is much smaller – a few quarters near the Ericsson office in Gothenburg and also at some research sites. The point of Expericom is not to compete with national operators but rather to become the internal infrastructure for other projects at the company. And also being a way for the company to notice those challenges that customers might face in their daily routines. In other words, it is a real operator – with real base stations, real packet core, real support systems and real SIM-cards. A real end-to-end network with just a few dozens of users, mostly internal ones. From the beginning my official responsibility was to make sure that all LTE and 5G networks worked as they were supposed to. The main focus of my work was on its packet core part. However, since I tend to make notes and to track issues, the area of my maintenance responsibility quickly started to grow. Already during my second week I got the phone number of an external customer who was having issues in the network. The manager said: "I do not have time myself now. But he is very kind and nice talking to. Good luck!" The customer was very kind indeed and I found the root cause during the same evening. Previously I was developing products, at Expericom I was actually using them. Quite an interesting time. Sometimes just maintenance work, sometimes handling emergencies, sometimes configuring new features – it was the technical and quite fun part of my work.
If one asks about programming languages that I needed to use in my work, I would probably mention shell scripts, especially Bash. Besides, I also had to use Python a lot, especially when I was working with end-to-end testing. Connected devices were sending a lot of diagnostic information – the real live traffic. A few of my scripts were processing that data and saving it in the database (InfluxDB was chosen). That data was later shown on a few Grafana dashboards – Expericom has a lot of screens. One more aspect that I might need to mention is summer periods, they were often dedicated to student internships. In my case it meant supporting those students with the necessary changes in the infrastructure and also developing server parts for their projects. Finally, it required debugging, troubleshooting and further development of their client applications written in Kotlin during those summers.
A month after my start a worried man approached my desk and asked whether the manager of Expericom was somewhere around. Alas, he was away. Then I was asked whether I knew what was shown on one of those screens, then on another. It felt slightly strange since I usually know what I am working with. And then I heard: "Good! You seem to know the stuff. I have a few visiting managers from Stockholm and was hoping for his presentation. Now I will take them to you. Just tell them the same things you were telling me! Maybe also about other projects." I was talking for 10 minutes or so before he grabbed the listeners to continue their tour. Before leaving, he said: "Thanks so much! The manager now owes you a fika!" Even though I have never received that fika, such speaking to external audience was fun. During my job rotation I got a few such events when I was representing Ericsson and telling about different projects to external visitors. Sometimes in English, more often in Swedish. Public speaking is an interesting activity, since I had to adjust those presentations to different audiences. Talking to high school students and speaking to management team members from a key customer usually need to be handled differently. But when I had to do the same presentation several times a day, it suddenly became less exciting – I was feeling like a parrot repeating the same thing. One day I was involved in yet another such event, that time it was about sustainable AI. I remember hearing something about EU and politicians, but nothing concrete. There were indeed a few people in nice suits, some of those people were passing by, others asked me a few questions. I also noticed some people with badges showing Swedish and EU flags. Suddenly, one of the managers approached me and asked: "How does it feel speaking to a minister?" My answer was: "A minister? Which minister?" She started laughing: "Okay, it clearly feels good!" I guess, it says enough about how much I am interested in Swedish politics. I had some thoughts that I might see some politicians. But maybe being unaware was actually a good thing – it saved me from being too nervous in front of big decision makers. By the way, participation of officials in such events is usually documented – I could find a press release (sorry, government documents are usually in Swedish). And now I know exactly the person who were asking me questions.
Have you ever heard about Mobile World Congress? If you are not working in the mobile communications industry, you might be unaware of it. But for those who are working in that industry, it is one of the most important trade shows. If I remember correctly, in 2023 Ericsson had 34 demos there. One of those demos was mine. To be more specific, mine was the technical part that held together Ericsson equipment and the application made by the partner company. Of course, I was not working alone – the whole demo project used several products and I had access to a few brilliant experts in each of those products. But making a technical solution that could make everything work together became my task. Perhaps, those four days of Mobile World Congress in 2023 became the most spectacular part of my time at Expericom. For those who keep asking me about programming languages, I can mention Python. In the early stages of the project I also had to do some prototyping in JavaScript. Perhaps, some would also argue that I used HTML – I would argue that it is a language for markup, not programming.
I know, simply reading about something usually requires really strong imagination. It is much easier when one can actually see it. So, if you want to get a better idea, feel free to check out the official broadcast. I tried to make the link point to 42:10 – the beginning of the discussion about mission-critical networks. The screen on the left is the one with the demo. You might want to listen for a few minutes. But if you would rather read my explanation, just be aware that first response operations sometimes need to be organized when avalanches occur in the mountains. The main point of that demo is showing that rescue operators can adjust quality of service (QoS) depending on what video stream is more important at a particular time. Having the highest video quality on every stream is simply not feasible. Therefore, the limited resources of the network can be focused on the video streams that show the most important information. Once other video streams become more important, the focus could be switched to them instead. Perhaps, I should also say that you can try asking me more about deeper technical details of the project. And then I will tell you a few details about the non-disclosure agreement (NDA). What I can disclose is the fact that my demo was run about 200 times during those 4 days of Mobile World Congress in 2023. Despite having unstable equipment at Expericom and having to deal with frequent connectivity challenges, my application could handle those issues – no one noticed any problem during presentations in Barcelona.