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Big Leap by Small Cells

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VoicenData Bureau
New Update

Globally, the number of mobile internet users will surpass desktop users within 3 years. With smartphone-enabled 3G, social networking, and video streaming, a storm of data is heading the operators' way in India. As a result, mobile data usage isn't just growing-it's skyrocketing. Mobile broadband operators continue to add subscribers at record rates. Faster radio access technology can help TD-LTE in delivering between 4-10 times of today's capacity, but there is a physical limit on how much further future generations of radio technology can improve capacity using the same spectrum.

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The limited technical improvements that will be available, such as fighting interference and complex upgrades to antennas, may not be practical in all markets especially in a country like India that faces spectrum crunch. What's more, even with these increases, it's only a matter of time before exponential traffic growth begins to outpace technology. Current estimates predict that traffic volumes will shoot up 1,000 times by 2020.



With massive pressure on cost, augmenting the traditional network infrastructure in this way won't be feasible for many operators. Instead, they're increasingly looking for other network topologies and delivery mechanisms to provide more cost-effective ways of easing the load on their existing infrastructure. Therefore operators in India need to explore the possibility of deploying networks of smaller cells to underlay the macro network and effectively increase the density of coverage.



How Small Cells Came to the Picture

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Whether it's a poor user experience at home, or bad network performance in rural areas, a cost-efficient way to address these issues is small cells. Easier and cheaper to deploy than macro cells, small cells are ideal for reaching customers even in hard places. With the constantly increasing demand for mobile data, it is essential that your network is modernized with all the capacity features available, such as 6-sector, active antennas, and LTE rollout. This will satisfy demand for the short term, but in the long term an underlay topology is needed to deliver increased capacity in busy areas using small cells.



According to analyst reports by the end of 2012, the Asia Pacific region is expected to command 44% of the total small cell market. The small cell shipments and revenue for 2016 is projected to be 741,000 shipments and $4.69 bn in revenue. While Japan and Korea have been frontrunners when it comes to small cells, China and India also command a sizeable portion and drive new growth.



Analysts also state that LTE small cells may surpass big 4G base stations suggesting that operators will start deploying small cell equipment as it fills in the pico and microcell layers initially and then speedily transitioning to deploying them as a fundamental part of the network rollout.

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Benefits of Small Cells



Small cells are an ideal complement to your macro network. As a specific, targeted investment, they can deliver immediate benefits at modest cost. With the cell site so much closer to the user, system efficiency is much higher and a better and faster user experience is delivered from a lower powered cost site. Sites can be deployed and redeployed as data demand ebbs and flows in your network, realizing the potential of a liquid network.



An innovative 'zone' architecture and simplified backhaul structure together with integrated Self-Optimizing Network (SON) features help operator to proactively scale their network to add capacity, bringing a 10x improvement subscriber experience, and slash cost per bit. Such a unified approach allows operators to realize the synergies of a multi-layer network without the penalties of increased administration and configuration.

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Poor network coverage at home or at work is a primary reason for customer churn. There is no better way to give subscribers '5 bar coverage' in their homes than their own private base station through a 3G Femto solution comprising of a fully 3GPP-compliant Femto gateway, with a broad portfolio of Femto Access Points (FAPs) for both residential and enterprise deployments.



Operators deploying a solution like this have seen have seen immediate benefits: Increased customer loyalty and lower costs. The business case for Enterprise Femtocell deployments is even stronger, with the opportunity to create new business models through innovative architectures and location awareness.



Partnering with Wi-Fi

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Wi-Fi is set to evolve into an essential element of mobile broadband networks, with functionality that converges with the 3GPP family of technologies to exploit the universal Wi-Fi capability of all modern communication devices. The launch of TD-LTE in India earlier this year may mean that widespread Wi-Fi deployments will not be needed because of the accelerating rollout of 4G networks that offer higher bandwidth and essential quality control mechanisms lacking in Wi-Fi.



However the almost ubiquitous presence of Wi-Fi in smart devices and the lead time needed for a wide variety of commercially available LTE capable handsets to penetrate the market mean that Wi-Fi has a healthy future.



A 3-stage strategy for operators to take advantage of this opportunity is strongly advocated that involves establishing a Wi-Fi presence, either by investing in your own Wi-Fi network or by partnering with a Wi-Fi network operator. In addition, integrating Wi-Fi and cellular networks using a 'smart' wireless local area network (WLAN) connectivity solution allows seamless traffic management between the technologies.

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Upgrading Wi-Fi access points to multi-technology Wi-Fi/3G/LTE capability is an extremely cost-effective way to build 4G capacity and coverage because the installed Wi-Fi sites will be located in high-traffic areas and will already have power, backhaul, and working landlord agreements in place.



Most mobile broadband traffic originates indoors, in corporate offices, airports, railway stations, malls, hospitals, stadiums, and resorts. But heavy traffic in crowded locations, poor coverage, and heavy interference are barriers to good service. Furthermore, the challenging architecture of older buildings and the difficulty in penetrating modern, energy efficient buildings are significant issues. Overcoming such challenges require creating the right strategy to architect the right product, and design, plan, and dimension an in-building solution.



Fewer people draw on the network's resources and performance improves, delivering a better experience for every user. However deploying tens or hundreds of thousands of small cells brings significant new challenges. For eg, the extra control traffic generated in these heterogenous networks could swamp the transport and core networks, there will be substantial interference between the macro and small cell networks, and backhaul bottlenecks must be avoided.

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Heterogenous networks are also far more complex than the traditional macro networks, so some form of self organization will be required to automate many of the usual manual processes involved in controlling and optimizing network operations.



Innovating Small Cells can Scale up Efficiency with Reduced Cost



A notable innovation that has been brought to the small cells market is in the form of a small cell cluster solution for indoor and outdoor 'hot zones'. As a part of this innovation, low-power LTE and Wi-Fi (and optionally HSPA) are combined into a self-configuring unit for indoor and outdoor capacity underlay networks. The individual units are coordinated by a localized controller to form a novel 'zone' architecture that enables operators to deliver capacity upgrades to their existing network without costly reconfiguration.



Due to this innovative architecture, the small cell cluster solution scales much more efficiently than traditional small cell solutions, and delivers capacity at a greatly reduced cost. Deployment is simplified by an integrated backhaul solution with local data offload capability, and many clever operation and maintenance features. Careful planning and optimization of small cells deployment are absolutely critical to ensure rapid return on investment.

Stephane Daeuble

The author is global LTE product

marketing manager, Nokia Siemens Networks

vadmail@cybermedia.co.in

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