To date, numerous OnGo networks have been deployed to address a wide range of use cases, including enterprise private LTE networks on CBRS. These deployments include a variety of sectors, covering education, healthcare, manufacturing, transportation and more. As organizations across these industries continue to innovate within this new exciting sector of the wireless market, it’s important to keep in mind certain factors — such as the requirements, planning, design and installation strategies — that determine a successful, high performing network built to address business-critical use cases.
Here are the necessary steps for deploying a OnGo-enabled private LTE network in the CBRS band:
- Step 1: Gathering Requirements
The first step in any successful deployment requires a detailed understanding of the organization’s needs as well as the problems and challenges that it wishes to solve with an OnGo private LTE network. Organizations should begin by identifying the most critical use cases. Next, a designated networking team — or an OnGo service provider — can design a system to meet its specific needs. For example, in commercial buildings, facilities might require several smart devices to monitor the building, specifically various support systems within the building that control its features (e.g. security, HVAC, and lighting).
- Step 2: Survey & Planning
An organization should then estimate traffic needs within its network and determine the level of bandwidth required to support operations. OnGo is ideally suited for when organizations either have: a lot of devices to control, operations that demand consistent performance, mission-critical reliance on mobility, multiple access points that are difficult to place, or a complex radio environment. For smart buildings, staff members require access to data while working throughout the building. Which devices is the customer looking to support? What are their bandwidth requirements? Do they need to be mobile within the venue or static? How many devices are expected? Will coverage be needed outside the venue, e.g. in the parking lot? - Step 3: Design
Designing a private LTE network is where an organization’s requirement gathering, survey and planning begins to come to life. This is where an organization must determine — or inquire for an integrated solution providers’ help to determine — where CBSDs are going, how they need to be configured and the core network configuration. At this stage, organizations should also select their vendors, or solution provider, of choice. A comprehensive list of vendors from all different parts of the OnGo ecosystem can be found in the OnGo Alliance directory – here. Continuing with our example of a smart building network deployment, most of the smart devices will be inside the building, with a few around the exterior perimeter of the building. - Step 4: Installation
The installation stage is exactly what you’d think — implementing the design created based on the findings from steps 1 and 2. At this point, the organization and its selected vendor(s) put the new private LTE network to the test, installing and configuring both CBSDs and network core. In a smart building, this would include installing any necessary hardware and ensuring consistent connectivity throughout the building to help support functions such as security cameras, communication devices, smart thermometers, lighting sensors and more. - Step 5: Operation
Once installed, an organization can begin measuring the progress and value of its newly deployed private LTE network through key performance indicators (KPIs) such as uptime, dropped calls, energy usage, etc. To enhance KPI monitoring, organizations can also set-up alarms and alerts to automatically notify management of any problems as well as set-up automated actions to take place if an issue should occur. Most importantly, since the organization itself has control of its own network and spectrum, it can troubleshoot and make adjustments to the network as needed.
OnGo is an opportunity for an organization to deploy its own high performing, secure private network with reduced complexity and costs. When deploying any new system, assessing both costs and benefits is an essential requirement. While the details differ with each system, once you have deployed a private LTE network to address a particular use case, the incremental cost to support additional use cases is much lower.
Go here to download our detailed deployment guide, or watch our recent deployment webinar to learn about other use cases and get more details on how to deploy a private LTE network.
