Deploying New Radio Access Technology

Buzz:  Another new radio access technology has arrived being made commercially available to network operators.

When is the right or appropriate time to embrace these new technologies?  The operator has just finished rolling out its 3rd Generation (3G) cellular mobile network to stay abreast of the competition.  It took the operator 2 years to finish the project deploying this commercial 5 year-old technolgy; and yet another one year-old technology has arrived promising better speeds, improved performance, reduced capital, operating and maintenace costs, higher yield on investments in a shorter time catering to the same subscriber/customer base size with more advanced features and capable of incorporating top-of-the-line value-added services, in addition to easier future expansion with less expense, more value for expenditures with less use of resources relative to the newly deployed network.

Normally, operators want to get the most out of their investments fast, especially when the expenditure is fresh from the financial investors.  Extract this and that, and more of them, with the new network; and if not enough do some hardware/software upgrades at the core and RAN to attain improved rates and performance, that are expected with the 3G technology.  Further network upgrade/s shall be able to show significant improvement to the network performance until the network saturation point is attained; this means the full potential of the 3G technology has reached its limits.

Shall the operator start deploying the new technology at this point?  Without hesitation, certainly!
But wait, has the operator done a feasibility study (testing the new technology locally, frequency spectrum available with valid licenses ready, financial/expertise/knowledge/ resources, equipment readily available from which suitable vendor, integration with the existing 3G network, among other critical considerations)?  Is the operator going to keep the existing network/s for N years, and deploy the new technology at a later stage when proven what is expected from/with it?  Will the operator wait for the competition to deploy the new technology first and follow at a later stage?

So when is the right/proper strategic time to go with the Wave?  Is it at the point when the wave is going up, at the top of the wave, or at the tail of the wave?  Of course, no one wants to "surf" under the Wave.  Only good experienced Surfers know the best times to "surf", go on with the Wave, conquer the Wave, and end up Winners.

I love to say this but I am not a Surfer and I don't have the Board to conquer the Wave; I can just either watch and/or play with the Wave.

VB