Self-Organizing Networks are commonly divided into three subareas:

Self-configuration strives towards the 'plug-and-play' paradigm in the way that new base stations shall automatically be configured and integrated into the network. This means both connectivity establishment, and download of configuration parameters and software.

The base station parameters can be regularly adjusted, based on both base station and mobile station observations. One of the first SON features establishes neighbor relations automatically (ANR), while others optimize random access parameters or mobility robustness in terms of handover oscillations.

When some nodes in the network becomes inoperative, self-healing mechanisms aims at reducing the impacts from the failure, for example by adjusting parameters and algorithms in adjacent cells so that other nodes can support the users that were supported by the failing node.