21712 - SCTE Broadband Nov2022 COMPLETE v1

59 Vol. 44 No. 4 - November 2022 Issue technical Open RAN, with its multiple vendor approach, requires seamless interoperability. This complexity brings major challenges in the radio frequency (RF) domain. Furthermore, the fundamental shift from the frequency domain to Time Division Duplexing (TDD) causes all manner of synchronisation problems. 5G is much more complex than the previous Gs, but by adopting smarter testing methodologies, you can avoid catastrophic and costly consequences downstream. The benefit of this Giant Leap for 5G is that your network will support new verticals. n Planning n Installation n Maintenance If your colleagues follow these prescribed steps, shown here and in more detail on the chart overleaf – from a Mobile Network Operator (MNO) perspective, this will help you reduce Capex and Opex. If you complete these simple verification steps, you can utilise network elements more efficiently, for example you might not need to install so many macrocells in detriment of compact small cells. Furthermore, getting it right first time, doing ALL the measurements, whilst at site during the installation phase will reduce the number of site revisits, saving more operational costs, improving customer service, and reducing network churn. New technologies; TDD, beamforming, cloud, NSA (DSS) and eventually SA, new frequency bands, multi-standard, Active antennae, massive MIMO, O-RAN (diss-aggregated components) Data management. Access data to make decisions Quality of performance. Real world performance