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Driven by the
increasing demand for such mobile broadband services as internet telephony,
videoconferencing, streaming video and mobile internet traffic LTE for mobile
is now the global standard. With high data throughput rates and high spectral
efficiency, LTE still faces the challenge of a fragmented regional frequency
landscape. An Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs report has video anticipated to be 70%
of internet traffic by 2014. With mobile traffic growing exponentially and
service revenues stagnating, mobile data service operators are eagerly
anticipating the navigation to LTE using their core network infrastructure.
To cope with the anticipated
explosion in data, radical changes in how mobile networks are implemented are
necessary. Adding macrocell sites cannot solve the problem. Cell sites are
increasingly expensive and difficult to locate, they outprice the budgets of
rural areas making them challenging for rustic developments. Michael Basset,
Wireless Marketing Manager for Alcatel-Lucent states, “An approach using small
cells smartly distributed across the network allows improving global reach,
capacity and in-building penetration.”
With LTE
utilizing an all Internet Protocol (IP) and possessing a much flatter
architecture initial data packet connections occur at speeds of 50ms. LTE also
provides increased connectivity while load sharing eliminates the need for
traffic to flow through a hub site.
Mr. Basset states
“The migration to all IP networks is something new to most service providers
and finding ways to leverage their mobile broadband assets and expose them in a
controlled and secure way to application and content providers has become a
must have.” Wireless operators need to be well versed in IP Technology and its
characteristics as LTE market growth continues. Traditional infrastructure
isolates each type of service from the others which fragments user exchanges. This
creates incompatibilities between services, carriers and over-the-top
providers.
Mr. Basset
continues, “The General Services Administration (GSA) listed 35 LTE commercial
networks in 21 countries in their October 2011 report and predicts 103 LTE
networks will be commercial by the end of 2012.”
Service providers
have the option to shift within the wireless value chain, optimizing user-paid data
revenue and expanding to capture new sources of revenue from content and
application providers. The technical complexity of the new technology, which
must support 3G services alongside LTE, means more expensive devices initially.
Costs will only begin to fall once a volume market for devices has been
established.
IT research firm
Ovum estimates that by 2014, the number of mobile broadband subscribers will
grow by 1000% and that there will be more than 2 billion mobile broadband users
generating $137 billion globally. With the anticipated growth in users and
complex services, the outstanding challenge remains finding a compatible packet
voice service to maintain the 64% of revenues generated through voice.
Sources:
http://newsroom.intel.com/
http://next-generation--communications.tmcnet.com
http://www.brightsideofnews.com
http://www.gemalto.com/lte
http://lteconference.blogspot.com
http://www.forbescustom.com/telecompgs/ltep1.html
http://www.fiercewireless.com/nextgenspotlight/pr/future-mobile-communications | 
