User experience takes front seat in HSPA+ and EDGE deployments

CAMPBELL, USA: Infonetics Research released excerpts from its IP RAN and 3GPP Strategies and Vendor Leadership: Global Service Provider Survey, which analyzes how and why mobile operators plan to get as much out of their existing 3GPP network assets as possible through evolutionary steps, vs. jumping straight to LTE

"Clearly, operators' focus is shifting from the network and technology aspects of EDGE to new services and customer experience enhancement. Over 80 percent of the service providers participating in our IP RAN/3GPP survey ranked ‘enabling new services' and ‘enhancing user experience' as the top reasons for running EDGE in their networks, and nearly as many named ‘better seamless services and user experience' as a top driver for deploying HSPA+," notes Stéphane Téral, principal analyst for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics at Infonetics Research. "These reasons were ranked at the bottom last year."

IP RAN and 3GPP survey highlights

* Evolved EDGE is losing momentum: a majority of operators surveyed won't upgrade because they prefer HSPA+ or LTE instead.

* IP RAN is getting serious traction and is on track to achieve significant penetration by 2015.

* When selecting a RAN supplier, survey respondents unanimously rated price-to-performance ratio the #1 criterion.

* Operator respondents ranked Ericsson, Huawei, and Nokia Siemens Networks as the top three RAN equipment suppliers.