The first step on this journey is business planning; no new technology can or should be implemented overnight. Every operator, when committing to a new investment, must first understand where their greatest demand lies and how that market functions, and how it's possible to reorganize their services and offerings while managing the existing structure. Demand needs to be sufficient to generate a return on investment; if not, it's necessary to consider other courses of action, always using business intelligence to guide service development.
Once the action plan is defined, it is necessary to test the proposed structure before going to market, becoming familiar with the available tools that address the network's expansion and maintenance needs. With the help of the appropriate technologies, this phase is crucial for 5G to be integrated into existing services and meet user demands. An implementation without adequate testing to guarantee service levels can lead to customer loss, additional or unnecessary costs, and hinder operational optimization.
Today, it's known that the main demand operators face is for quality. Therefore, verification processes provide a preliminary overview of the scenario operators will face, preventing what is all too common today: the rush to be the first to launch technology without having the necessary quality to retain customers and gain market share. Novelty should not be prioritized at the expense of quality.
Finally, implementation accompanied by monitoring is key for the 5G network to deliver results that support the high demand for prior investments. Integrating network monitoring into management, maintenance, and business decision-making processes enables reduced maintenance costs, facilitates customer retention, improves service quality, and creates new revenue streams. Within this framework, it's important to monitor the tool's performance and proactively address errors, while also leveraging insights for business development and effective management.
The 2G network was designed for voice, 3G for data, and 4G for high-data-volume applications such as music and video streaming. 5G will unite all bands and clouds into a single device, which is costly and demands more infrastructure and planning than previous technologies, but it also presents an opportunity to generate new revenue. Brazil is known to still lag behind technologically, with only 60 million people having access to the 4G network. However, 5G technology can be an opportunity for operators to review their software and processes so that deployment isn't necessarily immediate, but rather so that the supporting infrastructure is ready to receive it.
Article by Marcelo Bragança, Sales Director of VIAVI Solutions
