Smartfren Leads 4G Development in Indonesia

On August 19, 2015, Indonesian mobile operator Smartfren held a press conference in Jakarta to announce the commercial launch of 4G LTE-A in 22 cities across Indonesia. This announcement marked the arrival of Indonesia's first nationwide official 4G LTE-A network. ZTE provided Smartfren with a complete range of end-to-end 4G LTE-A solutions including EUTRAN (TDD and FDD), EPC, IPBB, VAS, and BOSS software and hardware as well as cloud radio, TDD+FDD CA, eMBMS, VoLTE, and eHRPD solutions.

As Indonesia's largest CDMA operator and the fourth largest mobile operator, Smartfren officially started operations in 2002 and became the world's first commercial EV-DO Rev. B CDMA operator in 2011. By the end of the second quarter of 2015, Smartfren had 11.9 million users. Smartfren was assigned 850 MHz and 1.9 GHz CDMA spectrums. The license for 1.9 GHz CDMA spectrum will expire at the end of 2016, and the 850 MHz spectrum will also be phased out as the LTE network is commercialized and users are migrated.

Smartfren started deploying TDD and FDD networks in 22 major cities across Indonesia at the beginning of 2015. More than 4,000 TDD sites have been deployed. ZTE was responsible for constructing networks in the country's east. The networks built by ZTE on Bali and in other regions were commercialized in June, two months earlier than the commercial launch of the national network. Smartfren is determined to become the largest LTE operator in Indonesia, and it plans to build LTE-A networks with seamless coverage throughout the country.

In the CDMA era, ZTE was chosen as Smartfren's major equipment supplier who played an important role in helping Smartfren break into the mobile communication market from scratch and quickly grow into the largest CDMA operator in Indonesia. ZTE secured an 81% share of Smartfren's CDMA RAN equipment, which was deployed in Indonesia's core areas. "Smartfren just launched the widest LTE-A service in Indonesia. We leverage both TDD and FDD to get best of both technologies: high capacity and throughput on TDD at 2300 MHz and large coverage with FDD at 850 MHz. With this combination, we offer the best broadband experience. We have chosen ZTE for this deployment due to our long time relationship and their leadership with TDD networks," said Smartfren CTO Christian Daigneault.

LTE networks are widely deployed around the world, so Smartfren has encountered great difficulties in developing and evolving its CDMA network. The main problems are:
●   As the entire CDMA industry chain declines, there is no technical evolution. The style and costs of CDMA terminals have also suffered a sharp decline in comparison with other terminals.
●   The Indonesian government will take back the 1.9 GHz CDMA spectrum licence assigned to Smartfren at the end of 2016. The 850 MHz spectrum will also be phased out as the LTE network is commercialized and users are migrated.
●   The competition in Indonesia's wireless market intensifies, and users are more demanding on bandwidth. This presents a huge challenge to 3G CDMA EV-DO Rev. B network.

Facing these difficulties, Smartfren has not stopped moving forward. By drawing upon its strengths, Smartfren finally obtained a license to use the TDD 2.3 GHz and FDD 850 MHz spectrums to develop LTE-A networks and expand its user base. ZTE has also supplied a complete range of LTE-A solutions for Smartfren to address its future development issues. The solutions include:
●   TDD/FDD dual-mode. A TDD/FDD dual-mode network can be implemented through a single master control board and a shared shelf. This helps Smartfren minimize both capex and opex.
●   TDD-FDD CA. As the demand for downlink traffic grows, user experience has become a major concern for operators. TDD-FDD carrier aggregation (CA) can fully use existing spectrums to meet user needs. ZTE's TDD/FDD BBU sharing solution helps Smartfren quickly implement TDD+FDD CA and capture more market share.
●   Cloud radio. Base stations are more densely deployed in an LTE network than in a 2G or 3G network. The co-channel networking of TD-LTE also results in more interference. Therefore, LTE networks urgently need an effective way to remove interference, especially interference at cell edge. Cloud radio was specifically developed to address these problems. It provides collaborative anti-interference and improves network throughput. This helps operators reduce inter-eNB interference, improve user experience at cell edge, and reduce the uncertainty around investing heavily in backhaul networks.
●    eHRPD. On the route to 4G, protecting the original investment in 3G networks is a major concern of operators. eHRPD is introduced for smooth evolution from CDMA to LTE.
●    VoLTE. Smartfren has pressed for VoLTE because the Indonesian government will take back all CDMA spectrums by the end of 2016. Through reasonable terminal policies and the use of VoLTE, Smartfren can quickly migrate users to LTE-A network. In the long run, this will create value for Smartfren in two ways. One is to increase radio spectrum efficiency and reduce network costs. For voice services, an LTE network has far higher spectrum efficiency than traditional networks. The other is to enhance user experience, because VoLTE provides better voice quality and faster call connection speed than traditional 2G or 3G CS voice services.
●    eMBMS. As Smartfren enters the LTE era, video services will have more development opportunities. Multimedia broadcast multi-service (MBMS) can help operators expand new services more conveniently because of its timeliness and low cost. In August 2015, eMBMS debugging of the Smartfren LTE project was completed and the service was successfully demonstrated to top leaders of Smartfren. ZTE was highly recognized by Smartfren for its excellent service quality.

The official launch of LTE-A services enabled Smartfren to become Indonesia's first multinetwork operator operating both an LTE TDD+FDD hybrid network and a CDMA network. Since the third quarter of 2015, Smartfren has rolled out 4G LTE-A services nationwide. This demonstrates that Smartfren has made strides towards becoming the largest mobile operator in Indonesia.

With ZTE's powerful universal subscriber profile platform (USPP), policy and charging rules function (PCRF), and online charging system (OCS), the core NEs of both CDMA and LTE networks are highly integrated to provide a unified user database and policy control and charging policies, allowing the LTE network to be deployed rapidly. This enables maintenance and operation of 3G and 4G networks in the future and lowers operational costs. Smartfren can take advantage of the sophisticated OCS to launch flexible tariff packages in the market and attract upscale users with an urgent need for mobile broadband services.