A Virginian startup has a new CEO and several fresh patents under its belt as it works on LTE network optimization software for 2014.

Zoran Kehler came on as CEO for Reverb Networks in September after managing Z/K Consulting for nearly a decade. Kehler was previously at Everest Wireless private equity group and president at Aircom International Ltd.

Kehler tells Light Reading that Reverb is expecting to see greater interest from carriers in self-optimizing networking (SON) software during 2014 as they get to grips with the SON features that the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) is baking into the LTE specification.

"We know that by [fall] next year most of the LTE hardware will have most of the use cases for SON and only then will operators start to look beyond that," Kehler tells us.

Reverb started as an intelligent antenna company in 2007. It has parlayed some of that technology into real-time SON software. SON technology performs multiple tasks, such as automatically detecting when a site is down and routing users to the next-best cell, or enabling cells to share bandwidth when network capacity is limited.

Kehler says that managing data flows with 4G SON is a little different from its 3G software. "When you do SON for 3G it's fairly easy to distinguish between packet and voice," he notes. On LTE networks, everything is IP.

Still, as LTE networks and user-bases grow, Kehler is expecting interest in SON to grow. "We're making plans for fairly aggressive growth next year," he says.

The company is also working on a roadmap for SON technology for small cells, tiny basestations that extend the reach of the macrocell network

This will involve taking on more funding and employees. Reverb is backed by Friedli Corp Finance, a leading Swiss venture capital organization.

Kehler is hoping to wrap some operator deals soon too. "We're on track to close a couple of commercial deals by the end of the year," Kehler says.

— Dan Jones, Mobile Editor, Light Reading