Any time new technology is being introduced in a wireless network, RFI or RFP
responses from infrastructure vendors need to be evaluated. LCC can not only help create an RFI or RFP to send to wireless infrastructure vendors, but can also evaluate and compare the responses. For example, vendor responses can be analyzed and compared for the following broad categories:
- Product and features roadmap
- Product and features timing of availability
- Technical information on infrastructure elements (radio network, core network, back-office systems, etc.), such as performance
- Standards conformance
- Interoperability
- Pricing
Of course, each section above has several subsections, and LCC analyzes each in thorough detail. LCC can use a scoring methodology to evaluate each vendor, and can not only provide a final score, but also provide winners in each category, for example, which vendor has earliest availability, which has technically superior features, which has the best performance, which has the best pricing, which has the best plan for interoperability testing with the widest number of other vendors, and which has the likely best interoperability with infrastructure in an existing network (if any).
The results of such an analysis help pick the best vendor(s) to match an operator’s business needs, using an independent process.