Mobile Device Manager Helps Service Provider Roll Out LTE Fast

As users embrace smartphones and tablet computers, the need for mobile data is growing exponentially. LTE (News - Alert) is at the forefront of the trend, as it delivers 10 times the speed and three to five times lower latency than 3G.

As a recent case study of a tier 1 service provider in North America highlighted the service provider for competitive reasons realized it needed to get its LTE network off the ground and fast and do so by providing a compelling user experience. It looked to Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert) to make it happen given the aggressive goal of having one million subscribers/devices up and running with LTE by the end of the first year.

Delivering a seamless LTE experience means effectively managing and provisioning mobile devices from a range of manufacturers and with a range of configurations. While feature phones generally require a single firmware update each year, smartphones typically require from three to four firmware updates alone in the first year of operation.

Alcatel-Lucent helped the provider its Motive customer experience support solution to meet this challenge. Motive is a comprehensive device management tool that enables operators to automate and remotely manage key customer touchpoints from activation through ongoing customer support, according to the case study.

What makes the solution unique is its reliance on what the company calls “primatives.” Basically, Motive abstracts the business logic from the particular device commands that carry out the business logic.

An example is locking a smartphone. The actual device commands are abstracted from the Motive solution so users don’t have to know the OS and/or protocols required.

“The primitive approach helps operators keep abreast of changes in OEM device functionality by allowing the device commands to be updated independently of the business logic,” noted the case study. “Although there are many competitive MDM products, primitives are unique to Alcatel-Lucent.”

To help operators avoid getting overwhelmed with testing the range of new devices and software versions constantly coming on the market, Alcatel-Lucent has created a formal interoperability program that independently tests mobile devices from a variety of manufacturers. This program validates OEM device commands and identifies (or exposes) what functions Motive’s MDM can enable on those devices within the operator’s marketing portfolio, according to the case study.

For the operator’s quick rollout, Alcatel-Lucent provisioned Access Point (News - Alert) Names (APN), which helped the operator quality of service (QoS), set billing and manage data traffic. The company also provided the Motive Service Management Platform (SMP) to integrate MDM functionality into the operator’s business/operations support systems framework.

To speed up the rollout, Alcatel-Lucent also was tapped to host both the Motive MDM and Motive SMP in its Austin hosting facility, delivering 99.999 percent reliability while speeding up implementation. A second geo redundant site was located in Dallas to act as a mirror to maintain maximum system availability.

 “Within the first year, it was clear that this operator was well on its way to delivering a superior customer experience, with over 7 million LTE devices activated on the network,” noted the study. “Currently, the operator is rapidly approaching 25 million LTE devices.”