By
Sanjay Mewada
With NTT DoCoMo’s recent announcement that they will launch their LTE network in 2010, all eyes are on the Japanese operator and its quest to deploy the most sophisticated mobile network yet. Here is our ringside view on the OSS implications and requirements when considering an LTE rollout.
Before we dive into the OSS challenges, lets step back take a moment to discuss why a number of mobile operators across the world have made public announcement with committed timelines on LTE rollouts.
Key Drivers behind adoption of LTE
LTE - the next generation high bandwidth mobile network is aimed at improving current consumer access to complex content rich services over wireless devices. Japan-based NTT DoCoMo is motivated to roll out the first LTE network, because of the regional demand for advanced wireless applications and solutions. The demand for video, interactivity and content coupled with widespread adoption of smart phones has pushed the mobile operators to accelerate their deployment plans for LTE.
The key benefit of LTE is the ability to offer complex content rich applications over wireless infrastructure. In the new mobile environment, wireless broadband speeds have increased from 384kbps to 21 Mbps for 2-3G and in theory up to 100MB+ for LTE. For hopeful mobile operators, this means that LTE will enable unifying the voice oriented environment of today’s mobile networks with data-centric service possibilities of the fixed Internet.
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The key benefit of LTE is the ability to offer complex content rich applications over wireless infrastructure |
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demand for delivering content rich offerings over mobile, and what does my current infrastructure scenario look like?
OSS for LTE
There are several key OSS parameters that operators should invest in when planning LTE rollout.
Network Design and Planning
For the successful LTE deployment, network design and planning plays an integral role. For a successful LTE deployment, the design and planning capability needs to fully support both the design and the deployment steps in a unified process flow. LTE deployments will
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For consumers, the enriched user experience will be typified by the large-scale streaming, downloading and sharing of video, music, and rich multimedia content as well as ultimately streaming HD TV services over mobile devices.
For business consumers it will mean high-speed transfer of large files, high quality videoconferencing and secure nomadic access to corporate networks.
As operators consider the benefits of deploying LTE, they must consider some very important questions. What is the current
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utilize a combination of existing infrastructure assets such as location of sites with new infrastructure and equipment. It will also require optimizing the mix between existing and new assets. The design and planning process needs to have this complete end to end view and be able to allocate appropriate resources and assets including human assets to ensure a cost-optimized deployment
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