Opinions: LTE - It's A Bit Like a Fast Car

Answering a question at a Light Reading conference in London on “the customer experience”, David Chambers, Solution Marketing Manager in Amdocs OSS Division, likened LTE networks to a high performance car – but not necessarily in a good way.

Chambers described how the sales talk for those high speed performance cars much loved by petrol-heads was all about brake horse power, downforce, acceleration and the distribution of the drive; yet of course, while we are attracted by the specifications, it is the actual ride itself – the what it’s like to drive piece - that seals the deal and makes us happy to drive the car.

LTE, said Chambers, with its promise of higher speeds, faster downloads and a wonderful new world of mobile surfing was using the same tech spec sales talk – but again, it would be the ride that determines customer satisfaction. And if that’s the case, then earlier in his presentation Chambers had more than a few words of warning.

Quoting from an Amdocs survey of network planners Chambers said that some 63 per cent were already complaining of data network congestion. What’s more, he warned that Cisco were forecasting a 39-fold increase in data traffic by 2014 and that Telefonica O2 were already seeing data traffic doubling every six months.

Chambers words and numbers represent a clear and present danger for the operator community. Already faced with being by-passed in the revenue chain by over the top suppliers, operators need to find a route to profitably fund the investment and serve the demands of the data-hungry smartphone generation.

It seems obvious that the macro network alone cannot hope to be the solution. And operators, while they invest in LTE and more core bandwidth need to also think about the ride. Seamless integration with hot-spots, microcells and femtocells in busy public places and indoor locations – are a key part of the solution.

The majority of mobile data is not consumed while mobile – it is consumed while stationary indoors in homes and offices. Operators need to deliver the best ride by offloading traffic from the core network to the best available, least congested, route whether that is Wi-Fi, a 3G femtocell or a future LTE hotspot.

Maintaining the customer experience and owning the whole journey is the way forward. Otherwise operators will find that the customers will find their own way to speed and smooth the journey – and that could be a different car altogether: remember Skype anyone?

Hi Andy G
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