@ MWC: Single RAN solution just beginning of next-gen networks

BARCELONA, Spain – Single radio access networks are just the beginning of how new wireless networks should be architected, said Dr. Bernhard Scholl, VP, Deutsche Telekom, during a panel at the LTE Forum here. The baseband components need to be able to support different technologies, and the power-amplifier solution needs to be able to increase the output power but at the same time reduce the amount of power consumption. Further, the radio access network needs to be operated and managed as a single solution, not in silos.
In other words, work still needs to be done.
“We need to be able to protect our investment” in the networks going forward so flexible solutions that work holistically are imperative, Scholl noted, giving the example that while LTE technology is plug and play, companies still have to manually work on equipment that houses the 2G protocol.
While 2G and 3G advances were driven by technology, the movement to 4G services is driven by the customer, said Mats Lundback, director of technology strategy at TeliaSonera. “The engineers need to realize that.”
TeliaSonera deployed the world’s first LTE network in late 2009, and likely deployed the fastest LTE network when it turned on LTE service in Estonia six minutes after the operator got the license. (Estonia has a population of about 1.34 million people and is about the size of Vermont and New Hampshire.) TeliaSonera customers are sophisticated, with a 70% of wireless users owning smart phones in Scandinavia.
LTE download speeds get the attention, but end users are more interested in upload times, Lundback said. Professional photographers were invited to use the LTE network to photograph a Swedish royal wedding in June, sending their photos over the LTE network, rather than using the fixed broadvband network. In December, Lundback said the operator witnessed even more innovation as Japan’s Nippon TV used the LTE network to cover the Nobel Prize awards. The 4G network replaced an expensive fiber-optic and satellite connection that was extremely expensive. “That’s a new logic,” Lundback noted.
TeliaSonera is taking that new logic and applying it to new business plans. The service provider is charging 4 Euros a month for 3 Gigabyte speeds but 60 Euros for 30 GB speeds. Another interesting aspect to the 4G network is the Wi-Fi hotspots are using LTE for backhaul.
But challenges also remain with LTE technology. The move to get an IMS-based voice solution will include headaches and costs as the transition is made, Lundback said.
Harmonization between technologies and spectrum bands is better in theory than reality, noted Reiner Klement, VP of product management at QCT, Qualcomm Inc. Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. envisions moving more intelligence to the cloud to be able to better manage the diversity in spectrum and technologies, noted Zhu Haobing, CSO and CMO, Wireless Network, Huawei.