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Near-Term Revolution

By Martin Guilfoyle, Vice President, Research and Development, Syniverse 2/1/2011

February 2011

Ready or not, the LTE revolution is here. Considering its newfound presence both in operator marketing campaigns and network deployments, the long-term aspect of LTE may be regarded as a bit of an oxymoron. In fact according to Wireless Intelligence, 19 LTE networks were planned or implemented by the end of 2010. And in four short years this number will rise to at least 185 and account for more than 300 million global connections.

It’s clear that LTE should be considered a near-term initiative, and now is the time for operators to start planning for the technology.

The first area to consider is the challenges that must be overcome.

At Syniverse, we have been planning how to untangle LTE’s complexity for years. My initial thoughts years ago regarding LTE were along the lines of “how different can it be?” I quickly learned that LTE is indeed revolutionary.

As the natural evolution of so many technologies, LTE forces operators to interoperate with multiple diverse ecosystems as they collaborate for the first time. Adding to the complexity is the more than 130 different specifications, as well as frequency diversity based on the deployment region. Operators also need to learn new interfaces as the 25-year-old SS7 interface is replaced with LTE’s IP protocol and Diameter.

To overcome these daunting challenges, operators and new mobile entrants alike need an IPX network solution that fully supports both LTE and legacy 2G and 3G technologies. This is vital since a 4G offering will soon move from a “nice-tohave” to a “must-have”—the second reason why now is the time for LTE.

Operators must be prepared with the capacity needed to accommodate the mobile data explosion, with global mobile data traffic expected to double every year through 2014, according to Wireless Intelligence. And as bandwidth-heavy activities become more prolific, operators will need LTE’s increased capacity to ensure subscriber satisfaction.

Another reason moving to LTE should be an operator’s next step is its abundance of benefits. Its simplified, flat architecture, which eliminates many existing network components, creates significant cost savings. Subscribers will enjoy high-quality experiences, no matter how much data they are using, in turn reducing churn and enhancing revenue for operators. Additionally, operators will be able to deliver services more economically as the cost per megabit will be significantly reduced with LTE’s more efficient network structure.

Even through the complexity, these considerations pose great opportunity for operators as they begin entering the LTE playing field. No other leap in mobile technology has been so significant and so certain to make a deep footprint in the industry’s evolution path. Moreover, there’s no denying that the revolution is among us.