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Mervyn Kelly, Ciena, comments on 4G rollout

MSPs
“After a long wait the UK has finally welcomed its very first commercial LTE offering, powered by EE. While the big switch-on is a massive step forward for the country, it’s of equal importance that a competitive, world class 4G marketplace is set up as quickly as possible.

Recent research points to a direct link between economic growth and a best in class national broadband offering, with some figures indicating that for every 10 per cent of broadband penetration, a nation’s GDP rises by one per cent. With this in mind, the speed at which 4G/LTE comes to the UK will be paramount in ensuring the UK can continue to compete economically.

Given the sheer volume of mobile subscribers in the UK, it is critical that operators ensure an effective mobile backhaul traffic management system is in place to eliminate bandwidth restrictions and reduce the potential for data bottle necks, enabling operators to quickly scale the backhaul from the sub-100Mb/s speeds associated with 3G networks to the 1Gb/s speeds associated with LTE technology.

Considering the way LTE works, the best approach is through the deployment of a robust and reliable Ethernet-based backhaul network, which can be deployed quickly with guaranteed performance and service assurance to enable the fast refurbishment of existing mobile base stations to provide top class 4G services to UK customers.

This approach not only creates lightning fast speeds for end users, but also allows operators to effectively and proactively monitor, maintain and troubleshoot the underlying network that enables LTE, thus ensuring high standards of service.”