t produces some stunning innovations, this could potentially challenge and turn the plans made by the operator upside down. For example, not many could have anticipated that the Android operating system would revolutionize the market for UEs in the way it has. Also, it brought a paradigm shift where users are ready to pay money for over the top (OTT) applications that are not necessarily basic services that work as a backbone. The longer a plan takes to roll out, the more chances that some disruptive innovation or application can change the market for better or for worse. In such an environment, operators are advised to target routes to better profitability in the following ways: Provide differentiated service and pricing models Partner more with OTT application providers Improve network efficiency significantly A Survey of LTE Deployments Around the World Having seen the challenges that exist for LTE deployments, let's assess the ways network operators around the world have gone about their deployments. Central to this analysis is a categorization of deployment strategies into single radio access network (RAN) VS. network overlay. In single RAN strategy, the network gets upgraded to support multimode, multistandard base stations that can help the operator deploy future proof technologies together. The following characteristics apply to the single RAN: Base stations deployed have multistandard capabilities, including 2G, 3G, along with LTE. In some cases the radio also has multimode support to work in TDD or FDD mode. There are reduced operational costs for managing the whole network. There are reduced site costs as converged nodes are deployed in the network. Overall upgrade of the networks may take time and also prove to be costly with the possibility of service disruption to existing subscribers. For LTE network overlay strategy, the LTE networks are deployed and operated side by side with the existing 2G or 3G network, without doing an upgrade. The following characteristics apply to the LTE network overlay: N