A 4G LTE Evolved packet Core Planning and Deployment in Freetown Sierra Leone

Abstract

Wireless broadband subscribers have tripled in the past two decades in the world. It subsequently adds more burden on the network traffic, thereby pressuring the current 2G / 3G wireless network infrastructural development in Freetown, Sierra Leone. The existing 2G / 3G network infrastructures in Freetown offer limited resources for download and upload speed of 12.54Mbps and 2.59Mbps, respectively, to active subscribers. The exponential increase in the country’s population has adverse effects on the subscriber’s database. Therefore, a considerable task is faced by the country’s telecommunication network infrastructures to devise an improvement and efficient technologies to augment the current system to handle the numerous issues. Three active private mobile network operators (X, Y, & Z) and one Government-owned operator (W) exist in the country. The only operator that runs across the country is operator X, and it has the highest number of subscribers. The country has just rollout it Long Term Evolution (LTE) by the private MNOs. The research is to encourage the Sierra Leone National Telecommunication Commission (NATCOM), a telecommunication regulatory body, to mandate all MNOs in the country to roll out the 4G LTE core network infrastructure in Freetown. ARIMA model is used to analyze the throughputs (kbps) prediction to ascertain 4G LTE rollout using the Python programming language is an effective alternative. Statistical data from operator X for ten years for Freetown municipality from January 2010 - November 2019 was collected. The research concludes that 4G LTE deployment or upgrade was necessary for the Freetown municipality.