WiMAX-to-LTE radio access migration: Network operator issue Yota de Nicaragua

This paper presents the technical study of the Radio Access Network (RAN) migration from WiMAX to LTE for the Internet Service Provider (ISP) Yota de Nicaragua. For our analysis, we conducted a case study in the city of Masaya, Nicaragua using predictive tool Atoll™, where we describe and simulate two scenarios. The first scenario represents the current WiMAX (IEEE 802.16e) network deployed on the city. These simulations where compared with field measurement results obtained through OptiS WX software. The second scenario shows the LTE (Release 8) network designed for the migration. Our results demonstrate that LTE implementation has the same coverage area than the current deployed WiMAX network and provide at least 50% improvement on throughput for the downlink. Finally, we conclude that a future LTE (Release 8) implementation will provide a better performance and quality of service (QoS) for the actual customers, compared with the current WiMAX network.