FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MIAMI, Florida, and BROCKENHURST, England, March 12 2013- Leading mobile operators are shifting their infrastructure planning towards software to become more agile, according to the latest research report by Maravedis-Rethink from its leading Mobile Operator Strategy Analysis (MOSA) service formerly known as 4Gcounts.

"Carriers need to invest in intelligence, from core to backhaul to the network edge, not just in hardware capacity, in order to deliver quality services", said Caroline Gabriel, research director for Maravedis-Rethink. SK Telecom emerges as the leader in agile networks, which will evolve towards full software defined networks in the future.  It is also pioneering content delivery at the cell site.

Carriers attempt to play over-the-top providers at their own game. Five operators have set up completely separate digital brands and business units, and at least 20 more will follow this year. Telefonica Digital emerges as the best positioned to succeed. In the MOSA Matrix, each carrier is evaluated against a set of key technology and business trends identified by Maravedis-Rethink as critical for commercial LTE success.

When it comes to the most innovative vendors, in small cell RAN, Ubiquisys emerges as the product innovator with its Edge Cloud, and Alcatel-Lucent as best placed in the market thanks to lightRadio. "The two main changes in how the new LTE RAN will be designed are the use of small cells and of distributed macrocells. Meanwhile, Ericsson has trailed in the small cell trend, but its market impact is unrivalled in LTE macrocells" added Caroline Gabriel.

Key highlights of the report:

• Alcatel-Lucent and Samsung are best placed to build market share in public access metrocells
• The most likely LTE-A features to be activated in the next 18 months are carrier aggregation, enhanced SON.
• Backhaul remains the number one perceived challenge for small cells and there is increasing focus on specific metrocell solutions eg 60GHz.
• LTE RAN capex forecasts are up slightly to $21.9bn in 2017, with metrocells accounting for 23% of the total despite a low unit cost. 

MOSA (Mobile Operator Strategy Analysis) tracks the top 100 4G operators to produce a series of in-depth operator infrastructure and strategy profiles as well as quarterly reports.

MARAVEDIS-RETHINK is a leading analyst firm focusing on wireless infrastructure technologies, regulation and markets.  www.maravedis-bwa.com  

For more information, contact:

Adlane Fellah,

Customer Engagement

Maravedis-Rethink

afellah@maravedis-bwa.com 

Tel: +1 (305) 865 1006