LTE Backhaul

Meeting Operator Requirements: How Transport Providers Can Realize the Business Opportunity of LTE Backhaul with SLA Assurance

White Paper Abstract

3GPP’s (3rd Generation Partnership Project) LTE (Long Term Evolution) is widely accepted as the global 4G standard, however, transport providers face substantial challenges in realizing LTE’s business and technological potential. Ensuring accurate timing and synchronization over packet networks; smartly managing traffic and supporting end-to-end SLA assurance in LTE’s flat architecture; providing adequate resiliency for 4G critical applications; and enabling backward compatibility to ensure service continuity for legacy 2G and 3G traffic are a few examples of the critical issues that need addressing, some of which are also common to operators with self-built networks. Nevertheless, backhaul providers need to address additional issues that are related to multi-operator colocation and customized backhaul SLAs.

This paper reviews the implications of LTE’s “intelligence crunch” for backhaul providers and discusses how Carrier Ethernet can be used to smartly overcome migration hurdles.

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