Site planning and network optimization have tended to be regarded as housekeeping rather than transformational processes in the mobile network, but that will change as operators migrate to far denser 4G and 5G networks, which need to respond far more quickly to changing use cases and traffic patterns, and which need to consume far less energy (see next item). Operators talk about deploying over 10 times more sites in dense urban areas as base stations move close to the ground; and rolling out highly distributed and disaggregated networks with huge numbers of radio units, especially indoors and to extend coverage to remote, industrial and transport locations. Then there are Massive MIMO antennas to consider, with the need to adjust beamforming…