Ericsson Review No. 2, 2008 73 Background Cellular networks are evolving to yield great- er coverage, capacity and more advanced ser- vices, such as mobile broadband. In this chal- lenging environment, maintaining control of OPEX is of paramount importance. Ericsson is irmly committed to simplify- ing the overall network-management pro- cess. Operating expenses are derived from many areas including marketing and sales, customer care, interconnection and roam- ing fees, and site rentals. An especially large chunk of OPEX is directly associated with network management. Indeed, recent reports state that as much as one-fourth of an op- erator’s OPEX can be attributed to network management. 1 There are several ways to lower OPEX. Two speciic examples are equipment en- hancements that allow site co-location and the installation of hardware with low energy-consumption characteristics. In addi- tion, Ericsson is exploring opportunities to simplify the work for operators by enhanc- ing the operations and support system (OSS) to give better observation and visualization techniques. The focus of this article is on the intro- duction of automatic features in the network that effectively eliminate certain manual tasks. Ericsson began working with automat- ed features in earnest in the 1990s. 2-5 Some early examples still in the product portfolio are NCS/NOX and FAS/FOX – these are WCDMA and GSM tools that handle neigh- bor relations and frequency optimization. Smart Simplicity concept Ericsson will continue to simplify network operation for operators, in particular, by working on ways to reduce OPEX. Specii- cally, Ericsson is addressing daily manage- ment tasks and minimizing the number of actions associated with major network ex- pansions. One example of these efforts is the introduction of a plug-and-play radio base station (RBS). This solution reduces the time an operator spends on installing and tuning a new RBS to just a few minutes. In addition, a bouquet of supporting functions makes the radio network run more eficiently and with fewer coniguration errors. The main com- ponents in the Smart Simplicity concept fall into four areas: automation, supervision, vi- sualization, and network extension. Automation consists of automatic and semi-automatic functions that cover self- coniguration, self-optimization and self- healing. Semi-automatic procedures halt to await operator conirmation before execut- ing any changes in the network. These pro- cedures might also propose coniguration changes, each of which must be conirmed by the operator before execution. Self-conig- uration covers the pre-operational state un- til an RBS has been activated and is serving trafic. Major self-coniguration activities are site planning and site installation. Self-opti- mization and self-healing features take over and run continuously when the transceiver is turned on. Neighbor cell relation manage- ment, cell identity management and power tuning are typical self-optimization activi- ties. Some examples of self-healing include remedying disruptive events, such as hard- ware and software failure in the RBS, or lim- iting the impact of a poorly functioning RBS in the network. This article does not focus on the remain- ing areas of Smart Simplicity, namely super- vision, visualization and network extension (Figure 1). These areas relate to the processes of, for example, pointing out capacity prob- lems, producing comprehensive views of radio and transport performance, and of upgrading the network from the time an order is placed until installation takes place. The goal is to make such processes fully automatic. Smart Simplicity architecture Successful development of high-level auto- matic network features is reliant on support from the underlying technology. Automatic features must be an integral part of the sys- tem and not an external extension. Other- wise they can never function optimally. Lo- cal network features can be employed over standardized interfaces to enable support for multiple vendors and multiple technologies. Ericsson is convinced that concepts like its Smart Simplicity concept must operate in a multivendor environment. Operators need equipment from a multitude of technical do- mains with a variety of functionality, from application servers to radio base stations. Also, to manage costs effectively, they must be free to buy products from competitive vendors. Vendors, in turn, want to be free to develop and evolve their products at low cost and with a focus on customer value and in- novation. Finally, network operators must be able to trust or rely on the execution of automatic features. Accordingly, they must be able to Smart Simplicity in radio network management Pål Frenger, Fredrik Gunnarsson, Harald Kallin, Ove Linnell and Johan Moe Greater emphasis in recent years on simpliied network management is in line with other efforts in the wireless industry to streamline operations and reduce costs. Network management encompasses common operator tasks such as planning, dimensioning, deploying, coniguring and optimiz- ing a cellular network. The authors describe the rationale behind this trend and introduce Ericsson’s Smart Simplicity concept, which focuses on means of increas- ing automation in today’s increasingly complex networks in order to reduce operating expenses (OPEX). As an example of new automatic features, they describe an RBS deployment scenario that introduces cost-saving functions. TERMS AND ABBREVIATIONS 3GPP Third Generation Partnership Project CGI Cell global identity FAS/FOX Frequency allocation support/ frequency optimization expert GSM Global system for mobile communication NCS/NOX Neighboring cell support/ neighboring optimization expert NMS Network management system O&M Operation and maintenance OPEX Operating expenses OSS Operations and support system PCI Physical cell identity RAT Radio access technology RBS Radio base station WCDMA Wideband code-division multiple access X2 Interface between base stations in LTE