For more discussions and topics around SP Mobility, please visit our Mobility Community: http://cisco.com/go/mobilitycommunity Read the blog post (with hyperlinks) here: https://communities.cisco.com/community/solutions/sp/mobility/blog/2013/12/03/will-operators-leapfrog-to-lte-a

1. Will Operators Leapfrog to LTE-A?
Posted by Neil Shah
We are living in times where the mobile device is no longer a device to just make calls,
text, browse or a music player. In fact a mobile device is now the crux of our lives in
this highly app-centric world where every use-case is an application. Mobile device has
become the top source for information retrieval, content consumption and also for
content creation. This has been possible not just because device OEMs have built such
devices and ecosystems but also because of the rapid evolution of mobile networks
from kbps to Mbps throughput and broader capacity to support these users.
From developed markets such as US, Japan or Korea to emerging markets such as
Chile or China, operators have been on their toes to roll out the aspirational high speed,
reliable and cost efficient LTE networks to tackle the rising data deluge. Operators are
banking on charging premium for this ultra-fast broadband service to increase the
ARPU and tackle the loss of revenues in voice as well as to the long tail of OTT
players. However, there are a couple of things these operators should be careful about
with respect to current generation LTE networks.
Firstly, marketing LTE network's throughput and reliability might attract the subscribers
to upgrade their devices and plans but maintaining that promise is going to be the
biggest challenge operators are about to face. There is a significant probability we are
underestimating the amount of data consumption the mobile devices are capable of.
These devices are continue to getting bigger with sharper screens and faster speed,
a perfect recipe to consume more (& more) streaming videos on their devices. Thus it
will thoroughly test if the current deployed 'reliable' LTE networks are actually capable of
handling such consistent capacity sucking traffic. While operators might be already
thinking of offloading many consumers to WiFi to address hotspot traffic areas but
practically the capacity constraint bug is soon going to hamper many operators' these
first generation LTE deployments.
Secondly, since the global LTE rollouts, operators have been racing with each other on
how many hundreds of LTE POPs/markets have been covered. While this is an
encouraging sign but neither promises if it is a blanket coverage nor the depth of the
coverage. A patchy coverage with overall content consumption performance falling
back to legacy network quality or pushed to a Wi-Fi hotspot won't justify operators'
charging premium for the LTE service. Managing the future expectations of quality &
reliable IP based voice, video and content consumption from coverage point of view
should be another key pain point and cannot be assumed that the current LTE networks
will be able to handle those. (QoE) Quality of Experience should be at the center and
consistent enough as the user is on the move or in-building.

2. The current (or first) generation LTE networks deployed may reach saturation points
quicker than expected in some developed markets where the LTE (with smart
devices) subscriber penetration is exponentially rising. This makes a good case study
for other operators globally planning to deploy their first LTE networks. We will thus
eventually witness many operators to leapfrog straight to LTE-Advanced (3GPP
Rel. 10 & above) networks to leverage advanced features such as carrier aggregation,
HetNets, enhanced MIMO and thus better utilize the multiple band spectrum available,
tighter network control and boost overall capacity and coverage in a much better way. It
will also warrant the first generation LTE network operators to upgrade to LTE-A
sooner than expected, firstly to live up to the promised premium network quality and
secondly to compete with other operators leapfrogging to LTE-A.
For more discussions and topics around SP Mobility, please visit our Mobility
Community:http://cisco.com/go/mobilitycommunity