LTE SON Enhancing Operation Efficiency and Effectiveness

December 2010

LTE SON Enhancing Operation Efficiency and Effectiveness

Table of Contents
1 Executive Summary......................................................................................................................3 2 Operational Challenges for Operators ..........................................................................................3 3 SON Overview .............................................................................................................................4 3.1 Standards Development .........................................................................................................4 3.2 Architecture and Interfaces....................................................................................................6 4 Huawei SON Solution Highlights ................................................................................................7 4.1 Planning .................................................................................................................................7 4.2 Deployment ...........................................................................................................................7 4.3 Optimization ..........................................................................................................................8 Automatic Neighbor Relation (ANR)..............................................................................9 Mobility Robust Optimization (MRO) ............................................................................9 Mobility Load Balancing (MLB) ..................................................................................10 Inter-Cell Interference Coordination (ICIC)..................................................................10 4.4 Maintenance.........................................................................................................................10 Self Software Upgrade...................................................................................................10 Automatic Inventory......................................................................................................11 Subscriber and equipment trace.....................................................................................11 Self Healing ...................................................................................................................11 Real-time Performance Management and Reporting ....................................................11 4.5 Green Technology ...............................................................................................................11 Adaptive Power Adjustment..........................................................................................11 eNodeB regular time shutdown and startup ..................................................................12 5 How Huaweis LTE SON Differentiates....................................................................................12 6 Worlds 1st LTE SON Test Network ..........................................................................................12 7 Benefits for Operators ................................................................................................................14 8 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................15 9 Glossary ......................................................................................................................................15 10 References ................................................................................................................................16

Copyright 2010 by Huawei Technologies USA. All rights reserved.

LTE SON Enhancing Operation Efficiency and Effectiveness

1 Executive Summary
Operators world-wide are looking for ways to reduce their capital expenditures (CAPEX) for the new LTE infrastructure and operational expenses (OPEX) associated with operating the LTE network. Operators are challenged with the OPEX & CAPEX costs in the following 4 areas:

Network Planning Network Deployment Network Optimization Network Maintenance

Controlling the costs in each of the 4 areas would reduce operators total cost of ownership (TCO) and make them more profitable, which in turn would give them the ability to invest in enhancing customer experience by offering new applications and solutions on their 4G networks. Operators world-wide took the initiative to form an alliance called Next Generation Mobile Networks alliance (NGMN) to help drive and develop supporting standards through 3GPP (3rd Generation Partner Project) to reduce CAPEX & OPEX costs. Huawei in partnership with NGMN & 3GPP made a strong contribution in creating the standards for a solution known as Self-Organizing Networks (SON). This paper will highlight Huaweis Self-Organizing Network (SON) features and explain how these capabilities will positively impact network operations in the evolved LTE network. Huaweis LTE SON network solution will leverage network intelligence, automation and network management features to automate the configuration and optimization of wireless networks, thereby lowering costs and improving network performance and flexibility. Huaweis LTE SON solution brings two major benefits:

Curtails the CAPEX and OPEX incurred by network planning and optimization Improves overall network performance and operational efficiency.

The paper also describes our SON solution which encompasses a set of key features specifically addressing an operators LTE network rollout phases, namely, planning, deployment, optimization, and maintenance.

2 Operational Challenges for Operators

According to recent study from Yankee Group, 17% of wireless operators CAPEX is spent on engineering and installation services and 24% of a typical wireless operators revenue goes to network OPEX. Huawei has a unique perspective on network operational challenges having worked with many top wireless service operators around the globe. The current 2G/3G wireless networks managed by operators have thousands of network configuration parameters, which are pre-determined through computer simulation and further adjusted during deployment and optimization phases. In practice, the values of network configuration parameters are categorized according to a set of typical deployment scenarios such as dense urban, urban, suburban, and rural. But real life deployment scenarios are always different from the typical deployment scenario. The complexity only increases as operators start deploying future 4G wireless networks such as LTE and WiMAX and at the same time maintaining their 2G/3G networks. There will be even more parameters involved due to new, complex algorithms and capabilities associated with 4G technologies. This poses operational and network planning complexity regarding derivation of network configuration parameters and system configuration, which leads to significant CAPEX costs. Radio parameter configuration and optimization generates a lot of effort in drive testing and requires a large amount of manpower to support. The manual configuration of these parameters can lead to some values being non-optimized or sub-optimal. The parameters can also be mistakenly configured due to

Copyright 2010 by Huawei Technologies USA. All rights reserved.

LTE SON Enhancing Operation Efficiency and Effectiveness human errors. For example, if the handover hysteresis value is not configured properly or incorrectly configured, this can lead to high probability of dropped calls at the cell edge, thus negatively impacting the end user perceived experience. Though network planners can be trained to handle this in a professional manner, it will normally take a few years for them to acquire the knowledge and skills to do the job right. This puts workload pressure on network operation and maintenance for site visits, drive tests, and analysis of network performances, which leads to significant OPEX costs. Maintaining profitability is high on the agenda of wireless service operators around the world. However, wireless service operators revenue measured by the ARPU basis is generally declining. Thus, the operators are facing the double challenge of huge TCO (which is CAPEX plus OPEX) and decreased ARPU. To that end, it has become clear that a high performance and cost-effective solution to improving network operation and management will be attractive for maintaining a competitive edge and realizing increased success. The Self Organizing Network (SON) concept included as part of the 3GPP LTE is a promising solution that introduces the convenience of intelligent network management. The SON solution aims at improving network operation and maintenance by reducing the amount of manual processes, as well as maximizing the overall network performance by automation.

3 SON Overview
3.1 Standards Development
NGMN Forum
The NGMN (Next Generation Mobile Networks) Alliance has been an important industry forum to drive the SON framework and its use cases from the operators point of view. According to NGMNs requirements [1], the SON will be a highly intelligent network management solution. Based on the past human experience for planning, deployment, optimization, operation and maintenance processes, these processes will be automated step by step, thereby improving the network operation efficiency in order to achieve the ultimate goal of reducing CAPEX and OPEX. The SON framework addresses the following four functional areas: Planning The planning process consists of 2 steps: o o Preparation of all network configuration parameters (such as equipment, radio, transport from the EMS embedded planning tools Optimization during the roll-out of the network with special focus to the radio relevant parameters

Deployment The deployment process consists of hardware and software installation. According to NGMNs requirements, the hardware installation should be executable with low skilled personnel, and software installation and configuration shall be automatic. The base station shall be able to support the following major requirements: o o o One stop planning and configuration (single site visit) Plug & play Self-test

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LTE SON Enhancing Operation Efficiency and Effectiveness

Optimization Radio parameter optimization requires a lot of effort in drive testing and requires a large amount of manpower and resources to support. According to NGMNs requirements, radio parameter self-optimization will eventually replace the traditional optimization such that drive tests will be reduced to a minimum.

Maintenance

According to NGMNs requirement, most of the maintenance workflows should be automatic. The automation can improve network efficiency and reduce the operation costs significantly. These maintenance workflows include the following: o o o o o o Self-healing Self-configuration Real-time performance report Real-time performance management Automatic discovery of hardware and software upgrades Automatic inventory

3GPP Standardization Progress

SON is an integral part of LTE. The SON concepts are first introduced in Release 8 of the 3GPP standards as part of the LTE/SAE core specifications [2-5]. In the Release 8 of the standards, a number of SON features are supported to address self-configuration and self-optimization. The former covers features such as S1/X2 interface dynamic configuration, PCI dynamic selection, and automatic neighbor cell discovery, which enable the network to automatically perform installation procedures (plug-and-play capabilities). The latter covers features such as basic mobile load balancing which utilizes load information exchange between eNodeBs over X2 interface for interference management. In the Release 9 of the standards, additional SON features are supported to enhance the selfconfiguration and self-optimization. The former introduces SON for Home eNB, which enables the network to automatically install, authenticate, and configure the Home eNB before it is allowed to transmit. The latter include coverage/capacity optimization, mobility load balancing, mobility robustness optimization, common channel configuration optimization as well as energy savings and minimization of drive tests. All these features will help operators further reduce their OPEX. SON work is continuing for the Release 10 of the standards, which is expected to include incremental features for self-optimization enhancements.

Copyright 2010 by Huawei Technologies USA. All rights reserved.

LTE SON Enhancing Operation Efficiency and Effectiveness

3.2 Architecture and Interfaces

Figure 1 depicts Huaweis SON architecture and interfaces.

Figure 1: Huawei SON Architecture and Interfaces Huaweis SON is implemented across four different entities: The Operators OSS manages the policies of SON via ITF-N. Huawei can provide the file interface for third party planning tools. Performance data can also be obtained via the ITF-N interface. Huaweis OSS manages the SON functions and algorithms which address self-planning, selfconfiguration, self-optimization, self-maintenance and self-healing. The Huawei OSS supports the ITF-N interface with the Operators OSS, and the ITF-S interface with Huaweis LTE and MME/Srd GW. The Huawei OSS also supports interfacing with 3 party planning tools Huaweis eNodeB implements the SON functions and algorithms. The eNodeB can analyze UE measurement reports locally to optimize cell resources. It supports the standardized S1 interface which communicates with the MME and S-GW entities, as well as the standardized X2 interface

Copyright 2010 by Huawei Technologies USA. All rights reserved.

LTE SON Enhancing Operation Efficiency and Effectiveness which allows neighboring eNodeBs to exchange directly relevant information pertaining to SON functionality. The UE can assist the SON functionality by supporting additional measurements over the air interface. The radio settings of the SON functions and algorithms can further be optimized on the basis of these UE measurements to improve network performance.

To sum up, Huaweis SON implementation is an end-to-end solution based on standardized architecture and open standard interfaces. This enhances our solution to work in a multi-vendor scenario and guarantee inter-vendor operability.

4 Huawei SON Solution Highlights

4.1 Planning
Huaweis self-planning solution addresses the following different aspects: Automatic generation of all planning data including RF parameters, radio network specific data and RRM control parameters with minimum manual intervention according to real deployment environment before deployment. Automatic adjustment of the planning data, e.g. PCI, neighbor relation, TA according to concrete detection of radio environment after initial deployment with default values. Iterative planning and adjustment, i.e. updating planning data including RF parameters, radio network specific data and RRM control parameters when a new eNodeB is added into or when a current eNodeB is removed from the existing network.

Huaweis planning tool and auto configuration tools are integrated in the OSS to minimize human intervention. This helps operator reduce TCO by saving OPEX due to minimal manual configuration saving OPEX for optimization after initial planning

4.2 Deployment
After the physical installation of the eNodeB hardware and the cable connections are completed, the eNodeB power can be switched on and Huaweis SON will trigger the following configuration processes automatically. Node Authentication The eNodeB initiates a two-way authentication with a secure server to verify its identity in the network and receive a temporary IP address assignment. Transmission Setup When the eNodeB finishes the authentication, it sets up the transmission. During this set up, the eNodeB acquires the transmission parameters from a configuration server through negotiation between the L1 and L2 parameters, thus ensuring a reliable, secure transmission connection. Software and configuration file download After the O&M transmission link is set up, the eNodeB downloads the software and configuration data from the configuration server and then activates them. Huaweis SON ensures the convenience, reliability, and smooth evolution of the data through version verification, automatic adjustment of the download bandwidth, and restricted FTP rate. Self testing After the download and activation of the software and the configuration data, the eNodeB starts a self test automatically, and generates a test report. When the eNodeB passes the self test, it is ready to provide services.

Copyright 2010 by Huawei Technologies USA. All rights reserved.

LTE SON Enhancing Operation Efficiency and Effectiveness With the introduction of small-cell low power nodes such as Micro, Pico, Home eNB expected to follow after a macro-cellular network deployment, the number of eNodeBs in the network will grow significantly The aforementioned autonomous mechanism provides a one-stop planning and configuration with plug and play capabilities. The auto-download and self testing reduce site visits and minimize human intervention. All these contribute to improving network operating efficiency and lower technical requirements of field manual operation, thereby saving further the operators OPEX.

4.3 Optimization
There are many operational parameters in a LTE system. Most are determined through laboratory simulation and further adjusted in trial networks. Usually, the values of the parameters are categorized according to a set of typical deployment scenario. It should be understood that it shall be necessary to optimize frequently these parameters according to real deployment scenario in order to maximize network performance. Manual optimization of these parameters generally involves extensive site surveys and drive testing, analysis of the performance data and re-configuration of the parameters. The SON automates these processes by diagnosing network problems, identifying the faults, and invoking the appropriate SON algorithms to resolve the problems. Figure 2 depicts Huaweis SON optimization concept. The SON algorithms in the eNodeB are responsible for resolving the RRM-related problems which concern with multi-user and multi-cell network coverage and capacity issues. The SON algorithms in the OSS are responsible for resolving the network problems. All these SON algorithms collect measurements from multiple eNodeB and UE, subscriber trace data and alarms to locate the root problem causes.

Copyright 2010 by Huawei Technologies USA. All rights reserved.

LTE SON Enhancing Operation Efficiency and Effectiveness

Figure 2: SON Optimization Concept Huaweis SON algorithms include the following key mechanisms: Automatic Neighbor Relation (ANR) The ANR automatically identifies unknown or missing neighbors to a cell. This reduces the planning requirements of neighbor cells and enables the system to adapt to variations in the real world environment. By using the ANR functionality, an eNodeB is able to detect the surrounding cells and acquire enough information based on UE measurement reports to use these new cells for handover purposes, without any pre-configuration from the OSS. The addition of neighbor cells can be achieved when a new detected cell is found and automatically included in the eNodeBs neighbor list. The automatic deletion of neighbor cells can be achieved when these cells have very few handovers or experience frequent handover failures. Furthermore, the OSS can decide whether any neighbor cell is an abnormal cell and prohibit handover to that cell. Mobility Robust Optimization (MRO) The MRO attempts to eliminate too-early and too-late handover failures as well as ping-pong events. Both too-early and too-late handovers are captured at the source eNodeB by exploiting the fact that the source

Copyright 2010 by Huawei Technologies USA. All rights reserved.

LTE SON Enhancing Operation Efficiency and Effectiveness eNodeB is informed of these handovers that have been prepared by the UE context release mechanism. Correction of the problem is performed by adjusting the Cell Specific Offset. The reduction of ping-pong events is achieved by exploiting the UE history Information that is transferred from the source eNodeB to the target eNodeB during handover preparation. When the UE history information is received, the target eNodeB can detect if a ping-pong event occurs by checking whether the time the UE spent in the source eNodeB is less than a ping-pong time threshold. If so, the ping-pong is corrected by increasing the Cell Specific Offset. The MRO algorithms also determine whether the idle mode parameters (for example, Qoffset) need to be adjusted together with the active mode parameters. This is important so that when a UE transits from idle to active in the cell border region it does not immediately send a triggered measurement suggesting it be handed over to a neighbor cell. Mobility Load Balancing (MLB) The MLB attempts to balance the cell load traffic among different cells by triggering UEs in more congested cells to move to less congested cells, through automatically tuning the cell selection and mobility control parameters. Huaweis SON supports intra-frequency, inter-frequency and inter-RAT MLB and takes into consideration not just RF resource usage, but also physical resource usage such as eNodeB processor load, and transport resource usage. Inter-Cell Interference Coordination (ICIC)

To reduce mutual interference among different cells, the ICIC enables eNodeBs to locate interference areas and automatically optimize resource allocation accordingly. Assisted with the measurement reports from the UE, Huaweis ICIC algorithm can be summarized as follows: 1. eNodeB locates interference area according to RSRP of both serving cell and neighbor cells in the received UE measurement report. 2. eNodeB optimizes cell edge frequency band due to real network topology. 3. eNodeB optimizes allocation of preferred PRBs (uplink) used at cell edge through exchanging load information with neighbor eNodeB over X2 interface. 4. eNodeB optimizes allocation of high power PRBs (downlink) used at cell edge through exchanging load information with neighbor eNodeB over X2 interface. The key value of ICIC is to improve frequency usage efficiency especially when cell load traffic is medium to high.

4.4 Maintenance
After the planning and deployment stages, the eNodeB will be ready to provide active services. The maintenance stage will also start. Based on previous field experience, the maintenance work costs more labors and human intervention. The SON should automate the maintenance processes as much as possible. Huaweis SON solution provides the following key self-maintenance mechanisms: Self Software Upgrade After a new software version is available, Huaweis SON determines which eNodeBs need to be upgraded and executes the software upgrade procedures automatically. The upgrade policy can be customized intelligently based on the real network topology. To ensure a smooth and reliable software upgrade process, Huaweis SON provides the following capabilities: 1. Check for compatibility between versions of software and hardware 2. Adaptive utilization of the download bandwidth,

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LTE SON Enhancing Operation Efficiency and Effectiveness

3. Service verification after upgrade 4. Customized upgrade policy 5. Automatic rollback to previous software version Automatic Inventory Huaweis SON can automatically collect equipment inventory information during initial equipment installation, and when there are any equipment changes report it to the operators OSS to enhance reliability and efficiency of inventory management. Subscriber and equipment trace Huaweis SON provides subscriber and equipment tracing functionalities that comply with the 3GPP 32.42x series. Signaling tracing tasks for a specified IMSI can be initiated from the core network. The core network activates the tracing tasks on the eNodeB through standard signaling, which enables the eNodeB to report all the signaling messages related to the IMSI to the EMS for storage and further analysis. The EMS also supports interface tracing, including tracing of the S1, X2 and air interfaces. Self Healing

To further enhance the overall network performance, Huaweis SON supports an intelligent Fault Correlation and Decision Analysis mechanism on all types of possible faults detected at both device level and equipment level from the eNodeBs. This mechanism is integrated with Huaweis EMS and expertly analyzes and correlates the faults reported and provides a repair or compensation policy for each type of fault. Real-time Performance Management and Reporting For performance management, Huawei supports policy setting and control of level-based and classbased counters. The level-based policy divides counters into 3 levels: NE-side counters, intermediate counters, and NEM-side counters. The NE calculates intermediate counters based on NE-side counters and send them to NEM, thus speeding up the reporting performance. The class-based counters are classified into maintenance counters, basic KPIs, and real-time KPIs. The reporting periods, storage periods and processing methods of the counters vary according to the types of counters. Maintenance counters, which are used to analyze the network quality and identify network problems, have relatively short storage periods. Basic KPIs, which are used to generate reports, have relatively long storage periods. Real-time KPIs have the shortest reporting periods, which can be as short as 30 seconds. They are applicable for real-time monitoring and are not stored.

4.5 Green Technology

Huaweis eNodeB adopts innovative, green technology in power amplification and power saving management features as follows: Adaptive Power Adjustment Huawei Adaptive Power Adjustment solution, based on the traffic load, supports dynamic adjustment of the PA working state, and thereby improves PA efficiency and saves eNodeB power consumption. The typical application scenarios are described as follows: 1. According to the change of traffic load in the day and at night, the PA working state is changed dynamically. 2. According to the change of traffic load in the working days and non-working days in the business districts, the PA working state is changed dynamically. 3. At the early stage of network deployment, the traffic is usually low, and the PA working state should be adjusted based on the actual traffic.

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LTE SON Enhancing Operation Efficiency and Effectiveness eNodeB regular time shutdown and startup In some scenarios, such as high-speed railway, which will stop operating at late night, the eNodeB can be shutdown and startup automatically at preset time based on the operator's configuration.

5 How Huaweis LTE SON Differentiates

As most of the LTE SON user cases and functionalities are specified by 3GPP standards, there are still a number of innovative implementation approaches in our LTE SON solution to improve the solutions performance and operational efficiency. We believe our LTE SON solution can offer the following key differentiators: We adopt a hybrid SON architecture approach. Our SON solution is a combination of a centralized approach and distributed approach. The centralized approach means all SON functionalities are executed in the OSS, while the distributed approach means all SON functionalities are executed in the network element level (i.e. eNodeB). Our hybrid mode can benefit from both centralized and distributed approaches in the sense that local and coordinated decision making of radio resources between eNodeBs can be executed in an autonomous manner, thus improving the response time of the eNodeBs to changing radio conditions. At the same time, the autonomous configurations at the eNodeBs can be monitored and reported back to the OSS to provide a higher-layer view of control and correction when necessary in a closed loop manner. This helps improve the overall operational efficiency from the onset of employing our SON solution. We embed RRM algorithms into SON solution. Our rich RRM features such as ANR, MRO, MLB, ICIC are embedded with our SON solution. This approach allows our SON to automate the configuration of the different RRM features and use measurements from eNodeB and UE to optimize the RRM configuration parameters in an autonomous manner. Hence, analysis of the performance statistics and setting of the optimal parameters can be handled faster at the eNodeB to deal with changing radio conditions while maximizing the overall radio network performance. We develop a Green SON solution. Environmental protection has become a key issue for the world's population. In order to address this critical issue, Huawei has integrated environmentally friendly concepts into our product design and planning. Our SON solution is designed to work also with our eNodeB hardware to support power saving management mechanisms, such as intelligent power supply shutdown, intelligent fan speed control, and dynamic PA voltage configuration. This leads to reduced power consumption and added energy cost savings, thus minimizing both operators TCO and the impact on the environment. We deliver a controllable and reliable SON solution. Our SON solution is fully controllable by operators. The operators can turn off or on features and set up the corresponding policies based on practical network considerations and preferences. The system KPI reporting and system logging are transparent, thus allowing the SON policies and performance to be monitored and evaluated and any NE-based instability to be recovered.

6 Worlds 1st LTE SON Test Network

In 2009 Huawei successfully completed the worlds first SON testing for an LTE/EPC Test Network with one of the leading operators in Europe. The LTE/EPC Test Network, deployed in a real world environment, aims to collect user experiences and verify underlying technologies. The Test Network consists of 60 radio cells that geographically cover a variety of environments ranging from the heart of the city to highways in and around.

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LTE SON Enhancing Operation Efficiency and Effectiveness The test results demonstrate that in a number of complex environments, the network achieves outstanding results in aspects such as quality, stability and reliability. In addition, performance of this network in terms of the dropped call rate and successful handover rate is even better than the local 2G network. The LTE/EPC Test Network achieves a maximum of 50Mbit/s in downlink and 50Mbits/s in uplink, with applications such as high speed file transfer and high quality video on demand. The SON testing was conducted on Automatic Neighbor Relation (ANR), one of the critical features in Huawei's SON solution, achieving a highly satisfactory result. The primary feature provided by ANR is the ability to establish neighboring cells through the terminal measurement reports when the neighboring cell structure is not planned in advance. The result of the field test demonstrated a high successful handover rate, meeting the requirement for future LTE commercial networks. Therefore, ANR is able to not only improve the overall LTE network performance, but it also helps to reduce both the work load and operation costs in neighboring cell maintenance by avoiding problems that might result from improper neighbor planning. These features of ANR have a significant impact on the LTE commercial network. Additional features of SON, such as the Mobility Robustness Optimization (MRO) feature will also be tested in the next phase.Figure 3 below represents the path undertaken by the car-carried terminal. During the first round of drive testing, the number of neighboring cells or eNodeBs that were established automatically was 74, with a successful handover rate of 91%. During the second round, this number rose to 94 with the successful handover rate rising to 97%. The result demonstrates that SON can help automatically establish a neighboring cell list while increasing successful handover rate and reducing human intervention cost.

Figure 3: ANR Field Test in the LTE/EPC Test Network Empowered by the SON solution, the test network has features such as self-configuration, selfoptimization and self-recovery. As network topology changes, the SON solution will ensure a high level of network connectivity and optimization of network-wide performance. In the second quarter of 2009, Huawei released the SON commercial solution, which is the primary component of its leading package of LTE solutions. This solution greatly reduces the operation costs associated with network planning, network deployment and network optimization.

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LTE SON Enhancing Operation Efficiency and Effectiveness

7 Benefits for Operators

Huawei offers several key benefits for operators deploying our LTE SON solution:

Figure 4: Huawei's LTE SON Key Benefits for Operators CAPEX and OPEX Reduction Huaweis SON self-planning features aim at minimizing repeated manual configuration via automatic generation of network operational parameters according to real world environments. The SON selfconfiguration features provide a one-stop planning and configuration mechanism with plug and play capabilities. The auto-download and self testing reduce site visits and minimize human intervention. Huaweis SON self-optimization features consist of a rich set of optimization algorithms such as ANR, MRO, MLB, and ICIC. They aim at reducing the number of drive tests for field optimization and minimizing human intervention through automatic tuning of the network operational parameters. The SON self-maintenance features such as software upgrade and inventory management also help further reduce manual field operation efforts. All these contribute to improving network operating efficiency and lower technical requirements of field operations personnel, thereby saving the operators CAPEX and OPEX. Enhanced Subscriber User Experience Huaweis SON solution not only improves network operation efficiency, but also enhances subscriber user experience. The SON self-optimization algorithms such as ANR, MRO, and MLB help reduce handover failure rate and call drop rate, which contributes to improving a subscribers perceived user experience. Commercial-ready Solution Aligning with Global LTE Deployment Huaweis SON commercial solution was released in 2009 and is currently offered as part of Huaweis suite of LTE solutions. The SON features are categorized into four main phases of LTE deployment, namely, planning, deployment, optimization, and maintenance, and are planned to follow global LTE introduction. This is an attractive future-proof solution approach as operators leverage the selfplanning and self-configuration features in the initial deployment phase and later enhance the overall network performance through the self-optimization and self-maintenance features. Standard-based Solution Enabling Interoperability and Interworking

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LTE SON Enhancing Operation Efficiency and Effectiveness Huaweis SON solution is developed based on open, standardized interfaces in compliance with 3GPP LTE standards. This enables operators to deploy our SON solution to work in a multi-vendor network as long as the other vendors equipment is also 3GPP LTE compliant.

8 Conclusion
Mobile operators facing challenges to control their network construction and operating costs when deploying LTE networks can use SON to minimize manual configuration of network parameters and generate CAPEX and OPEX savings. As a global end-to-end network solution supplier, Huawei has a clear strategy and roadmap to deliver LTE/SON leveraged from our vast network operating experience in legacy 2G/3G and WiMAX technologies. By using Huaweis SON solution for LTE network deployment, operators can improve network operation efficiency and effectiveness. Moreover, the self-optimization suites (ANR, MRO, MLB, ICIC) can further enhance subscriber user experience.

9 Glossary
2G 3G 3GPP 4G ANR ARPU CAPEX EMS ICIC KPI LTE MLB MRO NGMN MME NE NEM NMS O&M OPEX OSS PA PCI PRB RRM RSRP SAE SGW SON TA TCO WiMAX Second Generation Third Generation Third Generation Partnership Project Fourth Generation Automatic Neighbor Relation Average Revenue Per User Capital Expenditures Element Management System Inter-Cell Interference Coordination Key Performance Indicator Long Term Evolution Mobility Load Balancing Mobility Robustness Optimization Next Generation Mobile Networks Mobility Management Entity Network Elements Network Element Manager Network Management System Operation and Maintenance Operational Expenditures Operations Support System Power Amplifier Physical Cell Identifier Physical Resource Block Radio Resource Management Reference Signal Received Power System Architecture Evolution Serving Gateway Self-Organizing Networks Tracking Area Total Cost of Ownership Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access

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LTE SON Enhancing Operation Efficiency and Effectiveness

10 References
[1] NGMN Recommendation on SON and O&M Requirements. December 2008. Available at: http://www.ngmn.org/uploads/media/NGMN_Recommendation_on_SON_and_O_M_Requirements.pdf [2] 3GPP TS 32.500, Telecommunication management; Self-Organizing Networks (SON); Concepts and requirements (Release 8), December 2008. [3] 3GPP TS 32.501, Telecommunication management; Self Configuration of Network Elements; Concepts and Requirements (Release 8), December 2008. [4] 3GPP TS 32.502, Telecommunication management; Self-Configuration of Network Elements Integration Reference Point (IRP); Information Service (IS) (Release 8), December 2009. [5] 3GPP TS 32.511, Telecommunication management; Automatic Neighbour Relation (ANR) management; Concepts and requirements (Release 8), June 2009.

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LTE SON Enhancing Operation Efficiency and Effectiveness

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