LTE is commonly considered as the primary 4G wireless technology. It promises faster data rates, increased spectrum capacity and improved performance over 3G. Early commercial services offer mobile broadband data services, with voice likely to be added at a later stage. The high speed service is being rolled out in many countries, typically by existing 2G/3G service providers, and is likely to be embedded in many data only devices such as tablet computers in the near term.

The system architecture has been designed from the outset to simplify operation management, with self-configuration, automatic sensing and setting of radio parameters and even self-healing in the case of individual outages. While features such as SON (Self Organizing Networks) will reduce much of the manual configuration overhead, there still remains a need to plan new sites/base-stations and transmission upgrades.

Although LTE can provide high performance and data rates, significant additional capacity can only be achieved by deploying many more smaller cells, known as picocells or metro-femto. Service providers will need to scale up the number and reduce the time to deploy new cells, managing networks with up to ten times the number used for 2G and 3G.

Planning LTE rollout

The high speed of LTE drives a requirement for high capacity backhaul to the cellsites. Where before, backhaul transmission to large 3G sites might be 40-80Mbits/s, typical LTE cellsites need transmission bandwidth of several hundred Mbit/s. With the first LTE base stations typically co-located with existing 2G or 3G cellsites, fiber Ethernet is a popular technology for this purpose. The same Ethernet connection can be shared between 2G, 3G and 4G equipment using a suitable multiplexor product or a base-station capable of handling multiple generation technologies. Wireless Ethernet is also a popular option where access to fiber is not viable.

During this transition phase, the planning and design of the network becomes much more complex. Many transmission and configuration changes are required. A modern OSS planning solution simplifies the task and brings significant efficiencies. For this reason, we have seen several network operators deploy OSS planning solutions as part of their LTE rollout, migrating their network across to the new system with each new LTE cellsite.

LTE activation

In these first commercial deployments, subscriber provisioning continues to be based on the HLR which is expanded to handle LTE service parameters. Later, we can expect to see full IMS rollout to support voice and other session based services. These will see the HLR upgraded or replaced by an HSS and a wider range of subscriber parameters. Many of today’s service platforms will either be upgraded to operate in the IMS environment or replaced/augmented by products that do. Provisioning and transition across to the wider IMS architecture will become more complex. Synchronization between old and new service nodes is critical to avoid discontinuity.

Other telecom technologies which affect OSS investments include FTTx, Ethernet and IP.