Related posts:
Showing posts with label Business Case. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Business Case. Show all posts
Thursday, 25 August 2016
Small Cells vs Macro Cells Densification
Related posts:
Tuesday, 2 August 2016
Small Cells: Best solution for rural coverage?
I drive around the UK a great deal. While I rely mostly on my phone to call and message/text, I also use it to check tweets, Facebook, emails and most important of all as a Satnav (I'm a big fan of Waze). I often end up in scenarios where I have no coverage so a wrong turn results in my Satnav route failure. This can mean I have to drive around for miles before I can get back on route.
In most countries (including UK) when an operator mentions its coverage, its means population based coverage. The problem is that one may have reasonable coverage in a big town/cities but not on small roads and villages but the operator would have still met their coverage obligation. However this will be changing, at least in UK, with the announcement by EE that they will do a 95% geographic coverage. Kudos to them!
This map I came across recently shows the rural challenges in Europe for providing connectivity. Whilst not that detailed, I can definitely say from a UK point of view, there are many places outside big towns and cities that have coverage gaps.
As can be seen above, a similar problem is present in Africa and Carribean and Latin America (CALA). In these regions, in addition to the coverage gap, affordability and lack of relevant content are also major issues.
To put it simply in most countries, there is that last 10% of the population for whom coverage is not deemed feasible for the operator. The problem is that the investment would generally outweigh the revenues. The installation (site, backhaul, etc.) and the maintenance cost would almost always outweigh the profits.
This is one of the challenges that Parallel Wireless* is trying to solve.
What if you can make the deployment very simple and reduce the installation cost and have minimal maintenance cost?
The operator would be far more willing to give it a try. There was an announcement between Parallel Wireless and Telefonica I+D for exactly this reason recently. The small communities wherein these small cells are deployed also have a vital role to play. Not only could they help by making sites available, they can have directly report any issues that would arise. An example of this can be seen in the picture above, demonstrating a small cell deployment in a community center.
An important thing to bear in mind is the support for different types of backhaul for small cells. While cellular/LTE backhaul can allow quick deployment, additional type of backhaul can become available much quicker than anticipated. The small cell deployment should be flexible enough to be able to handle this new change.
A real life example of the above statement can be seen in the picture from a recent site survey.
Finally, I would like to embed this video that explains the Parallel Wireless Rural Solution very well.
Please feel free to add your suggestions in the comments below.
*Full Disclosure: I work for Parallel Wireless as a Solutions Architect. This blog is maintained in my personal capacity and expresses my own views, not the views of my employer or anyone else. Anyone who knows me well would know this.
In most countries (including UK) when an operator mentions its coverage, its means population based coverage. The problem is that one may have reasonable coverage in a big town/cities but not on small roads and villages but the operator would have still met their coverage obligation. However this will be changing, at least in UK, with the announcement by EE that they will do a 95% geographic coverage. Kudos to them!
Picture Source: Point-Topic
This map I came across recently shows the rural challenges in Europe for providing connectivity. Whilst not that detailed, I can definitely say from a UK point of view, there are many places outside big towns and cities that have coverage gaps.
Picture Source: GSMA: Consumer barriers to mobile internet adoption in Africa - July 2016
As can be seen above, a similar problem is present in Africa and Carribean and Latin America (CALA). In these regions, in addition to the coverage gap, affordability and lack of relevant content are also major issues.
To put it simply in most countries, there is that last 10% of the population for whom coverage is not deemed feasible for the operator. The problem is that the investment would generally outweigh the revenues. The installation (site, backhaul, etc.) and the maintenance cost would almost always outweigh the profits.
This is one of the challenges that Parallel Wireless* is trying to solve.
What if you can make the deployment very simple and reduce the installation cost and have minimal maintenance cost?
The operator would be far more willing to give it a try. There was an announcement between Parallel Wireless and Telefonica I+D for exactly this reason recently. The small communities wherein these small cells are deployed also have a vital role to play. Not only could they help by making sites available, they can have directly report any issues that would arise. An example of this can be seen in the picture above, demonstrating a small cell deployment in a community center.
An important thing to bear in mind is the support for different types of backhaul for small cells. While cellular/LTE backhaul can allow quick deployment, additional type of backhaul can become available much quicker than anticipated. The small cell deployment should be flexible enough to be able to handle this new change.
A real life example of the above statement can be seen in the picture from a recent site survey.
Finally, I would like to embed this video that explains the Parallel Wireless Rural Solution very well.
Please feel free to add your suggestions in the comments below.
*Full Disclosure: I work for Parallel Wireless as a Solutions Architect. This blog is maintained in my personal capacity and expresses my own views, not the views of my employer or anyone else. Anyone who knows me well would know this.
Monday, 10 November 2014
Small Cells and/or WiFi - The confusion continues...
Its been an interesting last few weeks. Depending on which report you read, you will either come to the conclusion that 'WiFi will be killing off Small Cells' or 'Small Cells will be killing off WiFi'
First there was this report that "You might not need a mobile carrier by 2020". It makes this bold statement: In Europe, many cell phone owners have already ditched their wireless carrier. But Wi-Fi isn't quite widespread or robust enough for most Americans to completely ditch their wireless carrier just yet. In all honesty, I have never come across anyone that has ditched their mobile network operator and now relies entirely on Wi-Fi. I certainly know of people who now don't even bother switching on their WiFi because their cellular coverage is extremely good and have flat pricing.
Joe Madden, a respected analyst of small cells, recently said the following: "Even if we exclude homespot deployments, the number of Wi-Fi access points will reach the level of millions for cable operators and public venues during 2015, outstripping the capacity of new LTE base stations. Several large mobile operators have made a gigantic blunder, by ignoring the opportunity to deploy Wi-Fi or utilize Hotspot 2.0 –so cable operators and other service providers are jumping on the opportunity. Homespots add another dimension, with massive crowdsourcing of capacity. The total Wi-Fi capacity deployed by service providers worldwide could match the 'data tsunami' in terms of raw capacity over the next five years, although of course there are obvious limitations in mobility and QoS."
While you may be thinking Wi-Fi '1' and Small Cells '0' a thing to remember is that WiFi still has some way to go to sort out the security stuff. This article highlights how easy it is spoof a WiFi AP, the one you have trusted in the past and easily access personal Info. I strongly suggest that you read this article. One may argue that some of these issues will be gone with HS2.0 and other new security mechanisms these problems will vanish. One has to remember though that since WiFi uses unlicensed bands, and since the technology has been around for ages, its easy to get cheap equipment and it may not exactly be illegal to have equipment running in this band.
Cellular on the other hand relies on licensed spectrum and has a very strong authentication mechanism which may get around such basic insecurity info (though to some extent this can be hacked, depending on operator policies on the UICC/SIM card).
Dr. Kim Larsen, recently did a presentation where he looked at the economics of Small Cell and WiFi and in what situations both of these make sense. His presentation is embedded below.
Some thoughts from Kim on his presentation on Twitter:
First there was this report that "You might not need a mobile carrier by 2020". It makes this bold statement: In Europe, many cell phone owners have already ditched their wireless carrier. But Wi-Fi isn't quite widespread or robust enough for most Americans to completely ditch their wireless carrier just yet. In all honesty, I have never come across anyone that has ditched their mobile network operator and now relies entirely on Wi-Fi. I certainly know of people who now don't even bother switching on their WiFi because their cellular coverage is extremely good and have flat pricing.
Joe Madden, a respected analyst of small cells, recently said the following: "Even if we exclude homespot deployments, the number of Wi-Fi access points will reach the level of millions for cable operators and public venues during 2015, outstripping the capacity of new LTE base stations. Several large mobile operators have made a gigantic blunder, by ignoring the opportunity to deploy Wi-Fi or utilize Hotspot 2.0 –so cable operators and other service providers are jumping on the opportunity. Homespots add another dimension, with massive crowdsourcing of capacity. The total Wi-Fi capacity deployed by service providers worldwide could match the 'data tsunami' in terms of raw capacity over the next five years, although of course there are obvious limitations in mobility and QoS."
While you may be thinking Wi-Fi '1' and Small Cells '0' a thing to remember is that WiFi still has some way to go to sort out the security stuff. This article highlights how easy it is spoof a WiFi AP, the one you have trusted in the past and easily access personal Info. I strongly suggest that you read this article. One may argue that some of these issues will be gone with HS2.0 and other new security mechanisms these problems will vanish. One has to remember though that since WiFi uses unlicensed bands, and since the technology has been around for ages, its easy to get cheap equipment and it may not exactly be illegal to have equipment running in this band.
Cellular on the other hand relies on licensed spectrum and has a very strong authentication mechanism which may get around such basic insecurity info (though to some extent this can be hacked, depending on operator policies on the UICC/SIM card).
Some thoughts from Kim on his presentation on Twitter:
- Most Smartphone based WiFi traffic happens at Home, believing this traffic is offloaded is rather foolish!
- WiFi...Why & When to care (at least when you are an mobile operator)
- Why do we like WiFi so much & why cellular have so many challenges matching consumer expectations!
- WiFi has the consumer perception of being 1 Fast, 2 Almost Free & 3 Unlimited...Brilliant Branding!
- Mobile Operator WiFi off-loading strategies should consider mitigating potential & substantial cellular revenue loss!
- When WiFi makes the most sense for a Mobile Operator;
- Cellular expansion options have been exhausted!
- you control fixed & mobile sides of the customer experience & value chain!
- Competitive Pressures .. ultimately is likely to be a loss-loss scenario!
Sunday, 2 February 2014
Business case for Enterprise Small Cells
In our recent Cambridge Wireless SIG event where we discussed about Enterprise small cells, Simon Saunders from Real Wireless presented a business case on Enterprise small cells. David Chambers from ThinkSmallCell has also written an excellent summary that is available here.
The presentation from Real wireless is embedded below. A more detailed study from Small cell forum is available on Scf.Io here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)