Verizon Wireless uses three different “flavors” of self-organizing network techology, one of which is proprietary
SON, or self-organizing networks, use software to help operators automate network functions and control equipment.
“SON is really required to enable a rapid network densification to address sophistication in the network, intensive network planning, engineering and operation to allow us to efficiently migrate the Verizon LTE network to evolve into a smart network,” said Ed Donofrio, Verizon’s executive director for network support. “There are several different flavors of SON that we use.”
Donofrio said the three types of SON used by Verizon are D-SON, C-SON and V-SON.
D-SON, or distributed SON, is used to automatically control things like load balancing and remote electrical tilt antennas. “We’re automating many of those SON features now in a closed loop environment to automate many of those decisions,” Donofrio said. He said D-SON functions primarily at the edge of the network where the cell sites are located.
C-SON, or centralized SON. This exists in Verizon’s central locations where the network management systems are located. It and is used to control various network elements, including multiple vendor radio nodes. One example is standardization to ensure that all network elements and eNodeBs are configured properly, Donofrio said.
V-SON is “our own proprietary, internal Verizon SON,” Donofrio said. “In building V-SON, we assembled our best and brightest system perf engineers across the country to develop softawre to automate the tasks that an engineer would perform on a daily basis. That makes it more efficient for our use of resources and it frees up those engineers to focus on higher-level work.” Donofrio said much of that higher level work is related to creating more software and preparing for 5G.
For more on this topic, download our latest feature report and watch the accompanying webinar with Verizon’s Ed Donofrio.
