Operators are beginning their move to LTE, evolving their business models to achieve exciting new services and improved financial results. While LTE offers new opportunities in service capabilities, significantly improved data rates, and latency performance, it also brings business and operational challenges. Operators will need strong vendor partners to help separate the hype around LTE from the real challenges of understanding and deploying this new technology. This research brief will highlight three tactics for winning the LTE game:

1. efficient deployment
2. smooth integration
3. optimal operations and management execution

LTE deployment will require large upfront investments, starting with the costs of acquiring spectrum, followed by network planning and deployment, service development, customer migration, marketing, and other transformation expenses. Backhaul, real estate, and service delivery expenditure are also three major cost components that should be carefully planned. Operators will have to develop a detailed end-to-end migration strategy to minimize their costs.

Operators will need assistance in developing revenue-generating services as well as strategies for provisioning and billing for these services. Without a thorough understanding of these issues and a strategy for addressing them, operators will face delays and frustration. Strong vendor partners are essential to minimize the risks of migrating to LTE by bringing together the required ecosystem to develop and deploy new services and service combinations. Leading network equipment vendors have proven experience in managing the transformation of multi-technology, multi-vendor networks and can assist operators in navigating these challenges.

This research brief provides an overview of the current LTE market and addresses the technical and business challenges that operators will face as they migrate to all-IP networks. It provides insight into operators' common questions and helps them address the following:

• How do we effectively plan for and design the networks to mitigate risks or uncertainties?
• How do we implement our end-to-end networks most efficiently with the least disruption and the lowest cost?
• How do we concurrently manage and operate both the new networks and the legacy networks and how do we decommission the legacy networks over time?

Download and read this whitepaper to learn more.