LTE Deployment: making the most of LTE features to deliver capacity where it’s needed most
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LTE introduces many new parameters to the radio network design problem. They come on top of the existing challenge of designing to maximise coverage with the fewest sites while minimising interference. For example, MIMO is not an LTE panacea. It certainly adds value but it needs to be used in the right places. Similarly, vendor specific adaptive coding and modulation can deliver great benefits but optimal value is not extracted by meeting one dimensional coverage and interference goals.
To deliver on all of the promises of LTE a radio engineer need to take into account all of LTE’s features. The best results can only be achieved with a combination of good data, good planning and excellent optimisation algorithms. The network will then deliver capacity where it delivers the most value to customers.
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Tags; ACP, AIRCOM International, Asset, Atoll, Automatic Cell Planning, Capesso, LTE Deployment, Planet, Radio Network Planning, Symena, TD-LTE, telecoms.com
Thank you for your questions, this Q&A is now closed. Please send your questions directly to Thomas at thomas.neubauer@symena.com
For more effective traffic balancing and higher efficiency within LTE network, would small cells be the preferred choice for deployment as compared to SDR macro sites that combined with 2G/3G technology?
Generally speaking, small cells will be required – sooner or later – to handle the traffic. However, there are different options to do that. Also, there are a number of unknowns to answer this question. It again depends on the available resources, existing 2G/3G networks, and deployment strategies at the respective operator. For example, how much spectrum do they have available in which band? Thus, it is again to evalute the different options based on the individual circumstances.
does capesso capabilities mimic SON capabilities?
Yes. We have successful field implementations on various C-SON use cases. For anybody interested, pls contact me offline for further details/results…
There appears to be a tendency for operators to concentrate on capacity & capability rather than augmenting their service offering with innovative value added services to justify demand for LTE. How do you see matters panning out in this regard?
We see a number of different approaches for justifying the demand for LTE, depending on where you are, and what the competition is doing. Additional spectrum that is becoming available is an important argument to handle the traffic that actually grows by ~100% per year (again, depending on where you are). If additional low frequency spectrum becomes available (e.g. 700MHz, 800MHz), this is certainly an argument. In many countries in Europe today only 2600MHz are available for LTE, … hence the situation is totally different. Evaluating the OPTIONS and giving them a $-figure is extremly important. This is where we (i.e. our solutions) help the most.
Which interface could be the most likely bottleneck in LTE network that impacts throughput performance?
A very good question. We have a number of commercial LTE deployments where our customers are using our performance monitoring and management platforms. Depending on the deployment and the actual deployment strategy we see (measure) different bottlenecks. If you contact me directly (thomas.neubauer@symena.com) I can connect you to my colleagues who can share detailed insights.
Hi Thomas, thanks for the insights. regarding the sharing of capacity between different technologies, which type of capacity is most likely to be shared?
As a user I dont care if my mobile data application (may this be a video, or any app) is running over 3G or LTE in future. Given the massive growth of data traffic, these traffic sharing and offloading capabilities can be planned and optimized to get the most out of the overall budget deployed.
Hi, do you offer a planning tool also for HFC-networks?
HFC (I guess you mean hybrid fibre coax) has some considerations where LTE small cells can essentially directly be plugged into the fibre network. We have capabilities to automatically plan the deployment for that. To find out more, we can discuss offline, … best to contact me directly at thomas.neubauer@symena.com and I will give you examlples.
How much more challenging are coverage issues and therefore cell sizes for LTE/4G vs 3G protocols?
Well, the coverage challenge depends primarily on the available spectrum you have for LTE. With LTE the key point I would however not so much see in the coverage. Coverage is a “must have”. The key challenge in that regard is all about CAPACITY … given the rapid traffic growth as shown.
Hi,
Having trouble connecting to the streaming server, can you please post the link for the non streaming version.
Hi the non streaming version is here: http://webinars.telecoms.com/webinar/nostream/
Does your tool also support TD-LTE
Yes, we have a wide range of TD-LTE customers, including very large scale deployments in the USA, India and Australia
Who are your customers?
You can find a list of some of our key customers on our webpage, or we can also send you some customer references. To find out what our solutions can do for you, it would be best to actually test it