In today's mobile wireless networks, many network elements and associated parameters are manually configured. Planning, commissioning, configuration, integration and management of these parameters are essential for efficient and reliable network operation; however, the associated operations costs are significant. Specialized expertise must be maintained to tune these network parameters, and the existing manual process is time-consuming and potentially error-prone.
In addition, this manual tuning process inherently results in comparatively long delays in updating values in response to the often rapidlychanging network topologies and operating conditions, resulting in sub-optimal network performance. The recent deployment of LTE to address the growing data capacity crunch, has highlighted the need and value of self-organizing capabilities within the network that permit reductions in operational expenses (OPEX), during deployment as well as during continuing operations. Self-optimizing capabilities in the network will lead to higher end user Quality of Experience (QoE) and reduced churn, thus allowing for overall improved network performance. SON improves network performance, but in no way replaces the wireless industry’s important need for more spectrum to meeting the rising mobile data demands from subscribers.
A good white paper the explores the benefits that SON brings to LTE read on
