4G Self-Organizing/Optimization Networks (SON)

Last week I found the 4G Self-Organizing/Optimization Networks (SON) group on LinkedIn. I was browsing through some of the discussions. Lots of interesting information posted here but one document in particular did catch my eye: The Benefits of SON in LTE from 3G Americas December 2009.

The idea of self-organising networks is great - in principle, but when you start asking what self-organising capability do you mean exactly then this is where it starts getting a bit more tricky. That's when you need to start getting into the business logic. In an ideal world, you might like it to mean fully automated with no manual intervention required, but when you are coming from an environment where most configuration processes involve some element, if not all, of manual intervention then you need to start defining exactly which processes can be automated.

That's where the above article gets interesting. It introduces the technology and market drivers for SON and the reasons for automation. Then it describes the key LTE Release 8 and Release 9 SON features as defined by 3GPP including how they can be supported and what the benefits are. These include:

• Base Station Self-Configuration
• Automatic Neighbour Relations
• Tracking Area Planning
• PCI Planning
• Load Balancing
• Mobility Robustness / Handover Optimisation