Introduction

This book evaluates a range of design and deployment strategies for LTE network business development, and presents a process for planning and evolving network roadmaps.

Among those who will find this book useful are new field engineers who have been entrusted with the arduous tasks of deploying 4G networks. The initial chapter in the book endeavors to arm you with enough information to understand what you are doing, and why. The book also demonstrates how self-organizing networks (SON) can help improve the deployment process and help reduce the round trip time in optimizing and tuning your network. Subsequent chapters cover roadmap development and how it improves your ability to plan, build, and deploy more successful networks.

From a broader perspective, this book is for all people involved or entrusted with the maintenance of 4G networks, including architects, product managers, and program managers. Senior management executives will also find the book valuable, as it give them the requisite knowledge to better ensure that relevant stakeholders are involved in the process of roadmap management and evolve strategies to ensure that their 4G networks remain operational, meaningful, and successful. We cover potential roadblocks to successful deployments, and how to avoid or overcome them. We also delve into roadmap management, with suggestions on how to keep them relevant using reliability engineering, organizational culture, and evolution concepts.

How This Book Is Structured

Chapter 1, “Network Planning,” covers the nuts and bolts of deployment, and gives a speedy tour of the whole process.

Chapter 2, “Self-Organizing Networks and LTE Deployment,” gives a general overview of SON concepts, and helps explain how SON attempts to solve various deployment issues.

Chapter 3, “Deployment Challenges in Evolving 4G,” introduces readers to the challenges of LTE deployment, and highlights trends in user and traffic profiles , as well as newer trends like the Internet of Things, which need to be accounted for by LTE networks.

Chapter 4, “Network Roadmaps,” introduces roadmap concepts for networks and provides further coverage of factors that can affect stakeholders.

Chapter 5, “Network Roadmap Evolution,” focuses on how network roadmaps have to evolve and adapt to changes in technology, markets, deployments, and traffic patterns.

Chapter 6, “A Process for Network Roadmaps Evolution,” presents a detailed set of processes for network roadmap management and evolution.

Prerequisites

For the deployment-related sections of the book, readers are expected to have knowledge of LTE and radio basics, and have some practical idea of what is to be accomplished. For sections covering network roadmap management and evolution, readers should have a basic understanding of network product development.