How to review LTE release features in 10 minutes ?

 

Do you know what is the reward of good work ??

Let me guess. The reward of good work is……

(Drum roll please…..)

Reward of good work is more work !!!

Companies hire you for good work.

Yes, if you disagree with me, then I suspect your plan is to become a politician, where you can tell the whole world in bullet points and speeches what you plan to do in your job rather than doing your job everyday.

As a highly skilled technical professional, you are hired to propose and find out solutions to your clients’ problems.

If you are doing your job consistently well, exceeding the expectations of your bosses and managers.

I bet, your boss already puts you in the forefront of all technical meetings.

With you keeping a consistency of delivering smart work, it is guaranteed that you are going to get called in important meetings with clients and key decision makers.

If it has not happened yet, continue doing what you are doing and speak at least two times to provide your opinion on the issue at hand.

Having said that.

How many time has it happened that you walked into a meeting or jumped onto a conference call or screen sharing at work

After sitting in for the first 10 minutes you realized.

 

 

“What the hell is this presenter talking about ? “

“Am I the only one who does not know about this ? “

” I think I need to read more about this feature , only then I will understand it completely. For the time being, I can just try to understand , what he/she is trying to explain “

 

 

It’s not something new happening to you alone. A lot of what of us go through the same and in fact, this is the norm of normal meetings at work and waste of your time.

 

 

Let’s get specific here.

If the meeting was technical in nature about LTE features. The presenter goes ahead and talks about one feature first, shares the results. Then move on to another feature of LTE which they are testing in the field right now. Then he/she share the deep dive results.

While you are trying to comprehend the previous slide. Presenter jumps onto the next slide and starts firing up all the information on you.

 

” I am trying to get my head around this new information. Am I the only one who doesn’t know this ? ” You ask.

 

You look around in the room and find out , that everyone else is nodding their heads to the presenter’s terms and explanations as he/she skips through another bunch of slides like a Pro.

Upon completion of the meeting, you ask a few colleagues, what was he/she talking about the XYZ point.

You realize that even your colleagues who seemed pretty active and nodding their heads with a poker face on. Even they don’t have a complete picture of the whole story, what was presented just now.

Hahaha..I love it …..  and still you will get invite to a number of pointless meetings today. !

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Technical jobs are not all about knowing the tools to play with and do the analysis.  No doubt, knowledge of tools is important to perform your day to day job. However, if you want to move up in your career , having a good vision of what’s happening in the industry and be able to predict where the technology will be in a couple of years is also important.

If you don’t believe me , take a look at the guys above you. I am not talking about the guy who is managing you or someone who is your technical lead.

The guys who are at the management level, even in technology leadership. The ones who have authority even on your immediate supervisors. They don’t play with tools or technology every day, as much as you do. Instead, they talk about concepts in breadth.

You can be master of your domain and yes you can also have a breadth of knowledge in other areas of your domain. That’s a typical “T” model career path

 

Let’s go back to the presentation scenario discussed above. If the presentation is about LTE features, which needs to be deployed.

Let’s get honest here.

It is kind of hard to keep up with all the features at any given time.

Don’t worry , you are not the only one.

 

How new features are Decided ?

Every other day there are new features being tested in the R&D centers grad. labs.

Few of these features are based on old features to address , for example, 0.5% improvement in the spectral efficiency or 10% reduction in costs or energy etc. or whatever the case maybe.

 

Let’s dig a little deeper here.

Looking at the picture above , as you can see 3GPP is very flat and plain straight forward standard body. NO !!

Take a look at 3GPP alone. As you can see,  its not just one stand-alone body. The product coordination group itself is divided into a number of sections. It’s a combination of different standard bodies such as

• ARIB?
• CCSA?
• ETSI?
• ATIS?
• TTA?
• TTC?

These standard bodies are divided into groups. These groups come together to form various action committees to work on tasks.

Based on the complexity of the organizational structural. I will do a post on 3GPP organizational structure some other time.

The point at hand is, even if the structure is organized in such a way. It’s not very easy to keep track of all the updates and new features coming along.

The bigger question to ask is. Do you need to be aware of all the features ??

Question: Come on Azar, I don’t have to worry about all the 3GPP because I work in a specific field of the Access network. I need not worry about it.

Answer: Yes, you don’t need to worry about it. But think about it in this way. Every day there is an opportunity where you can sit with your clients or in front of your boss. It will be interesting to see what do they talk about . If they are referencing about some upcoming features or present technical issues ,on which you have no clue. If you don’t know about the breadth of knowledge in a specific field. You lose another opportunity to share your knowledge/ insight with your peers and clients. On the other hand, if you knew. That one sitting alone, could have been the defining pivotal moment in your career.

As information and communication technology professional , having information on our finger- tips plus a conceptual understanding of what is going around us technically increases our market value.

Every day we can choose to be a mediocre professional or we can learn to be a go-to source.

 

LTE Deployment to Date

LTE deployment started in 2008 and it’s already almost end of 2016. There are still new releases coming up while industry pundits are already getting ready for 5G.

The question is . Have we gotten ready about 4G LTE features or do we have an overview of various LTE features which were introduced in different release.

Let’s be honest, who wants to read about LTE features in dry boring fashion.

In order to make your experience for LTE features more interesting and engaging. Even if you have not even considered understanding various release features. Not a problem. It’s not too late. As I am going to present you few illustrative charts about different releases. You can use these charts as:

• Talking points with your friends on Friday night at a party
• Share with your friends or colleagues in order to do them a favor
• Get ready when you are to enter or learn about the next release features
• Or keep them fun and engaging

(Who is going to take action on all of the above bullet points ? :))

 

In case if you want to get a personal copy of these charts. Email me and I will send it over to you.

 

LTE Release 8

 

 

LTE Release 9

 

 

LTE Release 10

 

 

LTE Release 11:

 

 

LTE Release 12:

 

 

 

 

 

The above charts can be good appetizer for you to get an overview of different features in various releases. Once you ready to learn more, we can dive deeper on specific features.

Interested in getting more information like this. Give me your autograph below.

 

 

What was your ONE key takeaway from this article? . Write it below. I would like to read your comments.