LTE Experience at BASE Company

BASE Company is a Belgian company and the subsidiary of KPN group. In the Belgian market, BASE Company is the challenger mobile operator.
BASE Company launched the network in 1999. At that time, we had only a 2G license in 1800 MHz, not 900 MHz. This required us first to roll out our network in 2G 1800 MHz, and this was indirectly a very important factor to speed up our LTE rollout.

Fantastic 2013 for BASE Company
Last year was fantastic for us. In April, we launched dual carrier allowing 3G downlink speeds up to 42 Mbps. In the summer, we improved our uplink performance thanks to enhanced uplink (HSUPA 2ms TTI) from ZTE allowing 3G uplink speeds up to 5.76 Mbps. In October, we launched LTE (DL speeds up to 86 Mbps) and became the second mobile operator in Belgium to launch LTE.  
2013 was a fantastic year indeed, especially in terms of our 3G network performance.
Two different independent benchmarking companies, NetCheck and Commsquare, have performed benchmarking campaigns in Belgium.
NetCheck confirmed that our network remained the best voice network in Belgium. This is measured by the call success rate, which is a compound indicator for call coverage, integrity, continuity, and quality. By the way, NetCheck drove 12,000 kilometers during their benchmarking campaign. That is a lot of mileage in a small country such as Belgium.
The same NetCheck campaign confirmed that our data network performance (measured as session success rate for FTP and HTTP services) is at par with the market leader. 
The Commsquare benchmarking campaign (in the big and medium cities) confirmed our leading position in Belgium in terms of 3G downlink speed (which is now about 7.9 Mbps). We overtook Proximus (the market leader), and we are still far ahead of Mobistar. 
Thanks to our expansion of dual carrier, last year we really leapfrogged in 3G downlink between Q2 and Q4. This was also driven by the technology provided by ZTE.
Commsquare also confirmed that we are the leader in 3G uplink speed.
Thanks to ZTE’s HSUPA technology, we tripled our uplink speed between Q2 and Q4 last year.
We launched 4G only a few months ago (on October, 1st, 2013), one year after the market leader (the first company to provide LTE in Belgium). We still have some work to do in terms of 4G downlink speed optimization. However, in terms of 4G uplink speed, we are already the leader.
We are now collaborating with ZTE, in order to improve the 4G network performance.
So, we are leading in the network, and we also lead in terms of price and service. 
We have always had the best voice quality, and last year we proved that we provide also the best 3G data service.

LTE Experience at BASE
Now, let’s focus on our main topic for today: LTE experience.
Thanks to ZTE’s commitment, we accelerated our LTE program by 9 months. In February 2012, LTE was being deployed very slowly. At that time, LTE target launch date was planned in June 2014.
After a few months (in October 2012), the management decided to accelerate the LTE commercial launch.
We established a LTE program called “Formula One (F1)” program and the new target was to launch LTE commercially in one year; that to say by October 2013.
There were three key factors that enabled us to meet this deadline: the radio “smart” approach, ZTE’s multi-standard cabinets, and re-farming our 1800 MHz spectrum. These three factors made our LTE rollout a success story.
Why did we want to take a “smart” approach for the LTE rollout? We needed it to avoid the request of building permits.
In Belgium, the building permit process is very, very time-consuming. In Brussels, for instance, it takes 450 days to get a building permit. Because we were looking for very extensive LTE 1800 MHz rollout, we just simply took out 2G 1800 MHz cabinets and left our voice on the 2G 900 MHz. We are going to push voice more and more onto the 3G network. We reused the antennas of GSM 1800 MHz for LTE 1800 MHz.
On top of this, we also increased the capacity of our microwave network step by step.
The second point is mostly linked to the multi-standard ZTE cabinets. We have always typically three slots free, and you can use those three free slots for the three LTE radio unit. In the cabinet, we have also a free slot for the LTE baseband. It was very easy to roll out LTE.
Finally, I would say nothing special about the frequency spectrum. Many operators do the same as us. We squeeze more and more out of our 1800 MHz spectrum for 2G. We put more and more capacity and spectrum for the LTE 1800 MHz. Of course if you squeeze too much 1800 MHz baseband, then there could be some potential voice quality issues.

Our Challenges
We have overcome many challenges with the help of ZTE. First, we had to bring forward the LTE commercial launch by nine months. 
We implemented within one year a brand new geo-redundant unicore (2G\3G\4G) ZTE network. We also had to design, test, and implement 21 network interfaces. Because we are in a multivendor environment, we had to conduct more than 3000 tests in a year. We are working with different partners and we have four IN platforms. We had to manage 12 partners, and more than 80% of our ICT engineers have been involved or contributed to this LTE program. New HSS has also been implemented.
We have been now building up to 650 sites with ZTE and other rollout partners.
Finally we had to increase the transmission microwave links capacity previously mentioned.
In October 2013, we opened LTE in 15 cities. Brussels was not covered because at that time there was a very strict 3V/m radiation norms which is one of the strictest norms in the world.
We have a big challenge for this year. We want to have a nation-wide 4G coverage by the end of this year.
From October to January we really made a massive LTE rollout. Now 4G is available in 400 cities and communes.

The Partnership with ZTE
Over a couple of years, we have developed our partnership with ZTE. In 2010, we signed our first contract with ZTE on 3G radio. The year after, we selected ZTE for our PS Core, EPC, LTE, and voicemail. In 2012, we made the decision to keep ZTE as our sole 3G radio equipment supplier. Last year, we launched 3G dual-carrier, enhanced uplink and LTE. We also implemented the voicemail.
The experience that BASE Company has had with ZTE is fruitful. ZTE is now our key strategic partner. Without a doubt, ZTE’s equipment performs very well, and they also have highly skilled engineers. ZTE is very flexible on the technical side and responds very quickly to new requests. They also look for win-win solutions on the commercial side. ZTE takes up ownership in solving issues. They have many young, highly motivated, committed engineers. They do everything they can to meet deadlines. ZTE’s enthusiasm and commitment have overcome the cultural and language differences between our two companies. ZTE is proposing very innovative solutions to us. However, their documentation and communication need improvement. Together, we have a plan to improve in these areas.
In summary, the partnership is really a success story and has been more than satisfactory. We have both continually improved and moved towards greater excellence. We are always looking for more and more business with ZTE, and we go into the future with ZTE as our strong partner.
(This is a speech by Dr. Christian Vyncke, head of Development Access Network, BASE Company, at 2014 LTE & Backhaul Forum at MWC 2014.)