The document outlines Alcatel-Lucent's LTE Express solution, detailing its advantages in cost efficiency, capacity expansion, and technology evolution for network operators. It emphasizes significant savings, with an LTE overlay offering up to 48% cost reductions compared to converged RAN, and highlights the benefits of deploying VoLTE and virtualized RAN for reduced operational costs. Furthermore, strategies such as network sharing and the use of metro cells are presented as effective means to enhance service coverage and manage increasing traffic demands.

1. destination
LTE express
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“I need more
coverage and
capacity at less
cost. Can LTE
deliver that?”

2. LTE express
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Itinerary
COST
EFFICIENCY
Take the
direct route
to lower
costs
Published February 2014
Choose LTE overlay:
Reduce deployment costs by 48%
Get more coverage for less with
network sharing
Add more capacity at less cost:
Densify with metro cells
Reduce the cost of delivering voice:
Deploy VoLTE
Evolve to virtualized RAN
and significantly reduce TCO
Deploy LTE early, densify with metro
cells, and evolve to virtualized RAN:
Reduce cost per bit by 57%
Why Alcatel-Lucent LTE express

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LTE express
overlay savings
48% cost savings
over converged RAN
Caps 3G investment earlier
40-50% time savings
28% less down time
Choose LTE overlay:
Reduce deployment
costs by 48%
You need to increase
capacity to satisfy mobile
user demand, but you
also need an efficient cost
structure. LTE overlay
provides the foundation
for both.
Bell Labs modeling shows that an
Alcatel-Lucent LTE overlay delivers a
48 % cost savings over converged RAN.
And according to Informa Telecom and
Media research, the cost advantage of
an LTE overlay solution compared to a
converged RAN lasts for close to seven
years. By then most of the traffic will
have moved to LTE.
With LTE overlay, there is only one new
network to install, configure and integrate.
There’s no need to decommission and
replace legacy 2G/3G hardware at each
cell site. And you eliminate the costs and
risks of disrupting the stability of your
2G/3G network.
If you deploy LTE overlay, you have less
need to continue to invest in your 2G/3G
networks because your LTE network can
handle growing traffic demand. You’ll
invest in LTE infrastructure that is future-
oriented and that can be depreciated over
the longer term.
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Gain 21% TCO savings per site
with RAN sharing
Share
backhaul
Share
passive
assets
(sites, towers,
antennas)
Share
active
modules
(BBU, RRH)
Share
spectrum
(pooled, split,
dynamically
split)
Get more coverage for
less with network sharing
Why build it yourself,
when you can share LTE
deployment and costs?
Alcatel-Lucent LTE express can help
you lower your LTE deployment costs
by configuring optimal network sharing
options for maximum savings, while still
enabling you to retain control over the
performance of your network.
Network sharing can help you overcome
deployment challenges, such as limited
spectrum, lack of site availability and not
enough capital. Bell Labs modeling shows
that RAN sharing can reduce costs by up
to 21%.
There are many RAN sharing options,
ranging from sharing backhaul, eNodeB
passive assets such as sites and towers,
active modules such as the basebands
and radio heads, to also sharing spectrum.
Sharing spectrum allows you to optimize
your spectrum assets, while offering a
better peak throughput rate to users.
Alcatel-Lucent LTE express offers a
variety of spectrum sharing options
configured at the cell level. Spectrum can
be pooled, split, or dynamically split to
best fit your market requirements.
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LTE express
metro cell savings
31%savings with macro and
metro cells vs. macro
cells only
Add more capacity at less
cost: Densify with metro cells
Once your macro LTE
overlay is deployed, you’ll
need a cost-effective way
to densify your network
in areas with the heaviest
traffic. Which requires
less investment — adding
capacity with more
macro cells only or with a
combination of macro and
metro cells?
A five-year Bell Labs simulation
compared the two approaches for
densifying a mobile network in the
U.S. that provides service to 12 major
cities, including New York City, Boston,
Dallas, San Francisco and others. Total
subscribers were 10 million throughout
the five years and the initial traffic per
subscriber was assumed to be 300 MB,
growing 30-fold to reach 9 GB at the end
of the five-year period.
The simulation shows that 40% fewer
macro cells were required to address
capacity demands with an Alcatel-Lucent
LTE express metro cell deployment
strategy. That translates into a cost
savings of 31% compared to adding
capacity with macro cells only.
Why?
Metro cells are low-power, small form
factor devices that can be placed in
almost any hotspot location. Once
deployed, they can offload up to 60% of
macro traffic. This makes metro cells ideal
for providing dedicated capacity to high-
use urban hotspots, such as hotel lobbies,
restaurants, malls, train stations, stadiums,
airports and city streets.
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0 100 200 300 400 500
Source: Senza Fili 2012
CSFB
VoLTE
Network Costs in Millions
VoLTE has lower network costs than CSFB
Operators benefit
from VoLTE
Major Tier 1 operators are leveraging VoLTE
for simultaneous voice and data, global
roaming and a larger device ecosystem
VoLTE frees up spectrum
for LTE deployment
Greenfield operators avoid
CSFB roaming fees
71% Reduction in Network Costs
Reduce the cost of
delivering voice:
Deploy VoLTE
An LTE overlay built with
Alcatel-Lucent LTE express
enables you to immediately
take advantage of Voice
over LTE (VoLTE) to lower
the cost of delivering voice
service to your subscribers.
It is more cost-effective to carry voice
calls on LTE than on 2G/3G networks
because LTE is more spectrally efficient.
LTE Release 8 is up to 3 times more
spectrally efficient than 3G and up to
6 times more efficient than 2G Therefore,
carrying voice traffic on an LTE network
requires fewer carriers than carrying the
same traffic on 2G/3G networks.
Network models show the cost benefits
of VoLTE over a Circuit-Switched Fall-
Back (CSFB) approach where subscribers
are rerouted to the 2G or 3G network
for voice calls. One model shows that
CSFB requires 9,500 carriers to transport
voice traffic, but a network that leverages
VoLTE requires only half the amount of
carriers. This translates into a 71% cost
savings over CSFB.
Combining voice and data on one LTE
network with Alcatel-Lucent LTE express
not only improves spectral efficiency, but
also increases network utilization, which
further reduces costs.
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Virtualized
Baseband
Up to
55%TCO savings
RNC
SC GW
MME
OTHER
Fronthaul
Optimization
Optical
IP/Ethernet
Up to
25%TCO savings
Centralized
Baseband
Evolve to virtualized RAN
and significantly reduce TCO
A virtualized RAN
architecture enabled by
Alcatel-Lucent LTE express
can deliver substantial
Total Cost of Ownership
(TCO) savings, enhance
reliability, and increase
scalability and capacity.
Consider two examples.
With a virtualized RAN, centralized
basebands bring Baseband Units (BBUs)
into a pooled, coordinated and virtualized
cloud that can be shared by hundreds
of Remote Radio Heads (RRHs). Because
fewer BBUs are needed, site, energy,
transport, maintenance, and upgrade
costs are all reduced. And because BBU
resources are shared among many RRHs,
centralized BBUs also offer high capacity
and scalability, while simultaneously
increasing BBU utilization and
performance.
With a virtualized RAN architecture,
substantial savings are also achieved with
virtualized basebands, which consolidate
many network elements into one industry
standard, high-volume server. With
virtualized basebands, network elements
are network applications that run on
the same server. Virtualizing network
elements reduces deployment, site,
energy, and maintenance costs. There is
less hardware to deploy and maintain, the
hardware has a smaller footprint, and it
uses less power.
Virtualization offers infinite scalability,
allowing deployments to start small
and scale as needed without limits. It
provides high availability. And it improves
disaster recovery options because there
are fewer elements in the network that
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COST
TRAFFIC GROWTH
Start
3G
2x 4x 5x
57%
LOWER
COST
PER BIT
10x
TCO advantage from
LTE early deployment
LTE
LTE Small Cells
Virtualized RAN architecture
Path 1: Grow 3G.
deploy LTE later
Path 2: Overlay LTE, densify with small
cells, evolve to virtualized RAN architecture
Deploy LTE early, densify with metro
cells, and evolve to virtualized RAN:
Reduce cost per bit by 57%
Network costs are driven by
the need to increase network
capacity to satisfy the seemingly
insatiable demand for mobile
data. You have to grow capacity
to satisfy user demand, but at
the same time you must consider
your TCO to remain profitable.
How you choose to evolve
your network to meet growing
capacity demands has a major
impact on your TCO.
A Bell Labs study that compares the
cost of two technology evolution paths
provides insight into the best approach,
assuming a 10-fold increase in traffic
over a five-year period.
On the first path, the operator continues
to densify a 3G network to meet growing
data demand and deploys LTE later.
On the second path, the same operator
overlays LTE immediately on existing
3G sites to satisfy capacity requirements,
densifies the network later with LTE
metro cells, and finally moves to a
virtualized RAN architecture.
The study shows that Path 2
achieves a 57% lower cost per
bit than Path 1. Why?
LTE is more spectrally efficient and has
higher bandwidth than 3G. Therefore,
by deploying LTE early, the operator
can leverage the network longer before
costly cell splitting and/or other capacity
upgrades are required. Densifying the
network with metro cells improves the
economics by placing cost-effective
capacity directly where it is needed
most. And finally, evolving to an efficient
virtualized RAN architecture further
reduces capital and operational costs. RETURN TO THE ITINERARY

9. LTE express
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To learn more about how Alcatel-Lucent LTE
express takes you to LTE sooner, contact your
local Alcatel-Lucent sales representative.
Why Alcatel-Lucent LTE express
Your destination is LTE, and we’ll get you there on an LTE overlay route that is faster, simpler and future proof. We have the
products, the experience and the services to help you rapidly deliver the outstanding LTE experience your consumer and enterprise
customers are demanding.
Faster
Available now: We deliver the fastest and
furthest-reaching high capacity network.
Faster time to market: We have the right
wireless and IP experience, expertise
and services gained from deploying
the world’s largest LTE networks. Our
complete LTE overlay solution can be
deployed in record time, beating all
market estimates.
Simpler
Turnkey solution: Market and network
planning, site selection, network design,
integration, backhaul, power, maintenance,
SON and more.
Expertise of the world’s specialist in
IP Networking and Ultra-Broadband
Access with a leading portfolio spanning
macro, small cells, backhaul, packet core
and applications. We have built — and
continue to build — the largest, highest
capacity LTE networks in the world.
One throat to choke: We worry about
project dependencies so you don’t have to.
Future-proof
Scalable architecture: LTE overlay
architecture designed for huge signaling
and data plane scale.
Scalable networks: Near invisible and
low power small cells increase network
capacity up to 10x.
Scalable operations: Build, Operate,
Transfer (BOT) delivers massive near
term turn-up of resources when and
where needed.
Ongoing innovation: Backed by our
innovation powerhouse Bell Labs,
Alcatel-Lucent continues to bring advanced
lightRadio™ technologies and products to
market. Our LTE investment is shaped by
the world’s largest and most aggressive
FDD and TDD operators deploying Carrier
Aggregation, VoLTE, eMBMS, virtualized
RAN and small cell HetNets.
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