Setting up a Long Term Evolution (LTE) Network for research, experimentation, and evaluation using traditional commercially available-off-the-shelve (COTS) hardware comes at a very high price. The three (3) variants of LTE were discussed and thoroughly reviewed for proper assessment in the Philippines setting. Overview of LTE was discussed in this paper. The technical considerations were the network components and software parameters. COTS-based or traditional radio-based systems are fixed in design and cannot be modified to adapt to new systems. With SDR, the design is flexible and it can be multiband and multimode. The same SDR can be used whether in 3G, 4G, and even 5G. Only the underlying software has to be modified, reconfigured, or upgraded as necessary without changing the radio front end or the SDR. The review and discussion showed the applicability of SDR based LTE as a viable alternative means to set up an LTE Network without being restricted to traditional COTS hardware-based LTE Network.
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