China Deploys 5G-A Synaesthesia in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR)

As a non-native English speaker, I had never come across the word synaesthesia (UK)/synesthesia (US). The Cambridge dictionary explains this as a condition in which someone experiences things through their senses in an unusual way, for example by experiencing a colour as a sound, or a number as a position in space. Wikipedia says that it is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.

Earlier this year Light Reading reported that Tibet's $500M 5G network in Tibet has 2.3 million 5G users and penetration rate of 62%. The Diplomat reported that China has already built 11,719 5G base stations in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). Quoting from the publication:

The 5G-A synaesthesia integrated base stations have been described by Huawei as a new revolutionary technology, along with passive IoT and endogenous intelligence, spurred by the 5G-A era.

China has developed the new 5G-A base stations to overcome the longstanding challenges faced by its traditional radars and cameras in terms of detecting and identifying small-sized drones operating within low-altitude airspace. These 5G-A base stations are equipped with comprehensive sensing capabilities that enable identification, real-time positioning, speed detection, and tracking of low-altitude unmanned aerial vehicles, ground vehicles, and other illegally intrusive targets. Following the completion of the first station, the China Mobile Tibet Company announced that its 5G-A base station has detection capabilities surpassing traditional radars. According to the company, the goal of these base stations in Tibet’s border areas is to build low-altitude sensing networks, thereby fostering the development of drone inspection and early warning systems. 

The low-altitude economy refers to various economic activities occurring within the vertical airspace that extends from 1,000 to 4,000 meters above the ground where civil-manned and unmanned aircraft vehicles operate and promote the integrated development of related fields.

The innovation of synaesthesia integrated technology in 5G-A has garnered great attention in China recently. 5G-A synaesthesia integrated technology combines multiple capabilities such as communications, imaging, and computing power, turning a regular communication network into a supercharged “radar,” with high-precision and resolution perception capabilities.

You can also learn more about the solution here. The MIIT press release emphasises that Redcap is available as part of the solution.

il monte Dandan Cordyceps, a quasi 5.000 metri sopra il livello del mare, a Shade Town, Kangding City, Garze Tibetan Prefettura autonoma, provincia del #Sichuan Sulla cima della montagna è "radicata" una stazione base #5G. pic.twitter.com/OAf655UbiA

— Tibet News (@TibetNews11) August 30, 2024

Huawei recently shared a video of them deploying 5G infrastructure in Tibet. The video is embedded below:

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Award Winning Ericsson Radio Dot Provides 5G Coverage on China Subway

It's been over 2 years since we last talked about the Ericsson's 5G Radio Dot. Earlier this year, Radio Dot 4475 scooped a Red Dot Design Award for the product’s high design quality.

In a press release earlier this month, Ericsson announced:

Commuters and travelers on Shenyang’s subway Line 9 can access China Mobile 5G connectivity across all 22 stations on the line, powered by the Ericsson 5G Radio Dot. The 5G network has been operational for several months.

More than 900,000 passengers use the subway system in Shenyang, north east China, every day. The Ericsson 5G Radio Dot deployment on Line 9 is helping China Mobile to meet the increasing data needs from its customers - particularly in high-quality uninterrupted video and streaming traffic - in subway stations as passengers wait for, or change, traveling connections.

The Ericsson 5G Radio Dot System on Line 9 operates on various China Mobile frequencies. It provides a stable downlink of 1Gbps and a maximum transmission rate of up to 1.4Gbps. A 1GB high-definition movie could therefore be downloaded within 10 seconds.

The compact and easily deployable nature of the solution meant that Ericsson was able to install more than 500 5G Radio Dots across the 22 stations in just 20 days - 40 days ahead of schedule.

Ericsson and China Mobile continue to work in partnership on subway 5G connectivity in Shenyang as part of the city’s digitalization ambitions.

.@VodafoneUK marks its first anniversary of launching #5G by showcasing Standalone #5G (SA) at a UK university using the @EricssonNetwork (indoor) 5G Radio Dot System. Early days for SA technology but its part of the 5G journey to deliver even better end-to-end performance. pic.twitter.com/LvWos5n3lb

— Ben Wood (@benwood) July 3, 2020

Back in July, Vodafone was showcasing Standalone 5G. One of the components if this network was the 5G Radio Dot.

To support the university’s 5G ambitions further, Vodafone has also installed Ericsson’s 5G Radio Dot System in the university’s Disruptive Media Learning Lab and National Transport Design Centre. The indoor technology will deliver fast, high-capacity 5G in key buildings to support its innovative teaching and learning.

Last year, Ericsson and Elisa piloted private networks in Finland at Elisa’s facilities in the first of half of 2019 using a prepackaged Ericsson Private Network solution that included Ericsson Enterprise Core, Router 6000 and Radio Dot System for indoor coverage. 

Again last year, Ericsson and Swisscom deployed the 5G Radio Dots in the Swiss service provider’s live 5G commercial network and simultaneously made the first 5G data call in Europe between two offices over the 5G Radio Dot System during a Joint Mobile Day event in Bern, Switzerland. The call, made on July 1 2019 between Ericsson’s office in central Bern and Swisscom’s office in the nearby town of Liebefeld, was a tech milestone for the Swiss service provider’s 5G network rollout since it became the first in Europe to switch on a commercial 5G network – fully powered by Ericsson – in April 2019.

Related Posts:

• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Ericsson's 5G Radio Dot coming in 2019
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog - Ericsson Radio Dot: Evolution and Technical information 

Huawei's 5G Book RRUs Start Delivering On Their Promises

We have blogged about Huawei's Book RRUs last year here. Now, Huawei and China Telecom Shenzhen (a.k.a. Telecom Shenzhen) have taken the lead in achieving the global ultra-large scale 3D networking that involves macro and pole base stations in China. Hundreds of 5G C-Band (3.4 - 4.2 GHz) Book RRUs were used to help the operator deliver an undifferentiated experience in 5G-covered areas.

Huawei announced in a press release:

Book RRU is an innovative product that is small in size, lightweight, and easy to deploy. This offers an effective approach of addressing challenges associated with insufficient site resources. 5G Book RRUs enable significant improvements in 5G in-depth coverage and user experience in residential areas while increasing network capacity.

In-depth coverage in residential areas, urban villages, upscale communities, and backstreet alleys is a long-standing challenge which has faced operators. Insufficient resources and difficult acquisition lead to difficult and time-consuming site deployment.

Lightweight 5G Book RRUs enable quick 5G deployment in residential areas by using walls, lamp poles, monitoring poles, and electricity poles as sites. This offers a quick solution to achieving quick deployment, helping eliminate coverage holes and offload network traffic.

In December 2019, China Telecom Shenzhen completed the deployment and verification of the first 5G Book RRU. 4T4R 5G Book RRUs were used in the project.

After the recent 5G Book RRU deployment, tests show showed that the downlink speed exceeds 1.2Gbps on commercial mobile devices (Mate30 Pro) when the network spectrum is 100 MHz. With Book RRU deployment, coverage holes 150 to 200 m away from streets are eliminated and indoor in-depth coverage of low-rise buildings standing 50 m to 100 m above the ground is achieved.

This places the operator in a unique position to meet the capacity requirements in value hotspots in Shenzhen, such as school campuses, office buildings, business districts, and scenic parks. Book RRUs supplement macro base stations with in-depth coverage and hotspot capacity absorption. This improves user experience and releases suppressed traffic while also increasing ROI.

Shenzhen Telecom is the pioneer of digital construction. Under the overall construction plan of the new infrastructure construction China Telecom Shenzhen will continue to collaborate with Huawei to complete quick 3D networking based on 5G standalone (SA) technologies through combined deployment of macro, pole, and indoor products, enabling optimal user experience while securing 5G leadership.

Picture Source: Susan Welsh de Grimaldo

Last year, Huawei gave a tour to analysts in Zurich, Switzerland to show their kit on Sunrise's network. This tweet from analyst Kester Mann, shows two examples of Book RRU deployments for Sunrise network in 3.7 GHz spectrum with local coverage up to 200 metres and speeds recorded above 700 Mbps with 9 milliseconds of latency.

5G network tour with Huawei in Zurich. Two examples of Book RRU deployments for Sunrise network in 3.7 GHz spectrum. Local coverage up to 200 metres. Speeds recorded above 700 Mbps with 9 milliseconds of latency. #HWMBBF #5GGearUp #WirelessIntelligence pic.twitter.com/J7m2paA9ez

— Kester Mann (@kestermann) October 14, 2019

Walking tour of #5G sites #Zurich Sunrise 5G Blade AAU helps to get permitted as one antenna unit, and 5G Book RRU ( lamppost with fiber backhaul) @Huawei gear addressing install, maintenance and permitting pain points to improve rollout and cost structure pic.twitter.com/O9lrSFQO7Z

— Susan Welsh de Grimaldo (@SWdeG) October 14, 2019

With operators have to provide dense coverage to meet the 5G expectations, we won't be surprised to see more products like these in the near future.

Related Posts:

• Huawei SkySite: Drone with 5G base station & '5G Book' RRU

Small Cells growing fast, just not in Europe

Small Cell Forum held a workshop in Beijing, China last month to gain an understanding of China’s perspective on densification on the path to 5G. Complete report is available here. From the report:

APAC leads the world in network densification, as is clear from recent market data and forecasts out to 2025. New deployments in South East Asia alone are set to be greater than the sum total of those in the rest of the world until 2025. APAC can be characterized as experiencing two phases of growth, with a small plateau from 2019-2021 as 5GNR small cells are being commercialized. Our survey of MNOs reveals that densification in APAC is primarily capacity driven, to ensure data services maintain their quality of experience as mobile traffic volumes continue to grow. CMRI (China Mobile Research Institute) predicted its data traffic would grow 8x from 2016-2020 and 119x from 2016-2030. Ericsson predicted 8x global growth from 2016-2022, and others cited Cisco VNI’s 7x global growth 2016-2021, dominated by APAC.

A summary presentation from the event is embedded at the end.

As per Mobile World Live's report from Small Cells World Summit last month in London:

Kicking off the event, David Orloff, chair of the Small Cell Forum said: “Small cells are integral for 5G, and the reality is that there are capacity needs, there are latency needs, and both of these aspects can be driven through integration with small cells.”

He observed: “Europe is lagging. We need a new mindset, we need to look at different ways on this – in the 5G era we do have densification needs in the entire global industry, and we need to work [out] solutions to ensure the framework is there and the foundations are there. We need to think differently.”

Speaking about the global rollout of small cell technology, he continued: “We see global synergies and global barriers, but we also see regional barriers that are delaying densification. A good example in the US is cell siting; in India there is a cost target that has to be met; in China there’s mindsets around operations; and in Europe there is a question around the business case and whether it is profitable to do densification.”

“Asia is cranking, North America is doing well, really preparing that framework and foundation and starting to deploy cells that are NR capable, so that we have a structure in place so that we can turn on 5G, working on mmWave. Europe is pretty far down.”

Notwithstanding this lag, Small Cell Forum forecasts an increase in the number of non-resident small cells deployed in Europe from 52,000 in 2017 to 310,000 in 2022. But mobile operator deployments are not the only game in town: enterprises are an important driving force due to quality of service and IoT requirements, and technologies including MulteFire and CBRS are easing the way for new players.


According to Crown Castle, in a report in Fierce Wireless:

The small cell market continues to expand, and Crown Castle’s Mike Kavanagh pointed to two big factors as evidence: Small cell buildouts are starting to happen in smaller, tier 2 markets, and some small cell locations are now serving more than one carrier.

Small cells are “a big part of every big carrier’s build,” he said. “It’s a good time to be in the space.”

In the early days of small cells half a dozen years ago, Kavanagh said that a major installation would cover 50 nodes in a city. Today that number is reaching 2,000—and in some dense markets it can grow to 7,000. “You’re utilizing small cells as a much bigger element of the network build,” he said. “You’ve got to have that tower layer. And you’ve got to have small cells.”

He said in some deployments Crown Castle is seeing 2 to 4 small cells per mile, and in some dense, urban areas that number grows to 7 to 12 per mile. Kavanagh, the company’s SVP of sales and its chief commercial officer, said that Verizon kicked off the push toward small cells, but today all of the nation’s largest wireless operators are embarking on major small cell deployments.

And a big driver of revenues for Crown Castle is the growing trend toward multitenant small cells, which Crown Castle calls “leasing up.” Essentially, Crown Castle typically builds a small cell for one carrier’s equipment, but increasingly the company is adding equipment for a second carrier to that location, thus deriving more revenues per small cell site. Such site sharing is typical in the macro tower business.


Finally, here is summary of presentation from SCF looking at APAC in detail with regards to drivers and barriers for densification.

Small Cell Forum China Workshop: Densification Path to 5G from 3G4G

LIGHT-Net: China Unicom's mobile service booster

Another presentation from the Small Cells Word Summit 2016. China Unicom refers to LIGHT-Net. The definition of LIGHT-Net can be seen above but based on the translation of the press release here, LIGHT-Net stands for LTE Technology Innovation and Network Evolution Solutions. Continuing from the press release:

Experts said, LIGHT-Net will have five characteristics: First, the asset-light (the Low-cost) , the software-defined (SDN) to achieve a flexible network, reducing CAPEX and OPEX ; followed by intelligence (the Intelligent) , will enable the network automatic planning, optimization and automatic interference avoidance; third is green (green) , to achieve low power consumption, low radiation, low noise; fourth is efficient (High-efficiency) , improve resource scheduling capabilities and spectrum utilization efficiency; the fifth is close (Tight) , to achieve macro-micro coordination and heterogeneous integration.
...
Overall, LIGHT-Net research program can be divided into three steps. The first stage, based on the interference coordination LIGHT-Net microsite deployment: the introduction of micro-station deployment, absorbing macro hotspot network data traffic; the introduction of interference coordination technology to solve interference problems caused by increased cell. The second phase, enhanced collaboration processing, macro and micro interoperability: Promoting co-processing technology macro and micro cells, pico cells between the cell edge coverage to enhance performance and user access experience. The third stage, an access integration, multi-stream merge: the ideal backhaul carrier aggregation, non-ideal backhaul dual link technology between macro and micro HSAP / LTE -system multi-stream merger.

I think the small cells maybe Huawei's lampsite as I had mentioned earlier.

Anyway, the presentation is embedded below. As usual, if you have more details, please add as comments below.

Case Study: Deploying small cell backhaul in China

Came across this old presentation (embedded below) by CCS (Cambridge Communication Systems Limited) of small cell backhaul deployment in China. Having looked at their website they do have regular updates for different deployment. Here is one with China Mobile and here is another one from China Telecom. Interested readers can also read their regular updates here.

Here is their presentation from Small Cells World Summit (Backhaul Summit) from last year:

Case study of WLAN and Small Cells by China Unicom

China is a huge and most populated country. Many people do not realise that the number of mobiles in China is more than combined USA and Europe. There are challenges that come along with this huge subscriber base. That is why its not enough to have just cellular connectivity. Small cells and WiFi has a big role to play. A news article last year boldly stated that 'Wi-Fi to be new battleground in China's internet sector'.

According to this article by ThinkSmallCell last year, China Unicom is the second largest operator in China with 251 million subscribers and $21 Billion in revenues. They have only 40MHz available for 4G cellular as compared to 130MHz for the leader China Mobile.

This presentation from Small Cells World Summit 2014 is a good case study of how China Unicom is working on deploying Wi-Fi hotspots and Small cells to meet their customers needs. The complete presentation is below and available from Slideshare.

Progress on WLAN and Small Cellin China Unicom from Zahid Ghadialy

China Mobile's Nanocell

China Mobile prefers to call its Small Cell, Nanocell. I found an interesting summary on this topic from Rupert Baines in the OSP Magazine, some of this information is copied below.

Nanocell is defined by the China Mobile Research Institute (CMRI) as follows: “An integrated Small cell supporting GSM / TD-SCDMA / TD-LTE standards and WLAN (WiFi) solutions. With the key feature of supporting both wireless network and WLAN (WiFi) services, it can be deployed in enterprise, home and high capacity hotspot locations. It also uses standard broadband connection as a low-cost network backhaul, hence reducing deployment and maintenance cost while providing advanced and reliable security features.”

Nanocells, provide mobile coverage to a limited area as well as integrating carrier grade WLAN access points. They are often used to add network capacity in areas with very dense data usage. In some respects they are the next iteration in small-cell evolution.

Although in theory a nanocell could have a range as large as 2km, in most situations it will be less than that: perhaps 100m-500m. As such, a nanocell allows for deployment in locations that are expected to handle more phone usage than usual, for example during a sporting event or concert.

In September 2012, in a pioneering program to develop China’s mobile infrastructure, Mindspeed, the manufacturer of semiconductors for small cell base stations, signed a memorandum of understanding with China Mobile Research Institute (CMRI) in Beijing to contribute to the rapid build-out of China Mobile’s heterogeneous network (HetNet).

A HetNet is constructed with layers of small and large cells including nanocells. These cells will be able to self-organize seamlessly providing a higher quality and consistent connection to the network for users. The aim of this collaboration is to accelerate the field trial of TD-LTE small cell systems across the China Mobile Communications Corporation’s (CMCC’s) network in China.

As noted, CMRI’s definition of nanocell could be described as “small cell 2.0”. There are various architectural enhancements, but 2 in particular are worth describing.

CMRI Enhancement #1 is the integration with Wi-Fi. Some people naively view small cells and Wi-Fi as competitors. But a more sensible approach is to combine them, to take advantage of economies (single power supply, shared backhaul, cheaper provision and OpEx) and to use synergies in the  bearers (for example, handing off traffic between the 2, taking advantage of the extra capacity
of Wi-Fi with the longer range and better QoS from cellular). The Small Cell Forum has been working on this, and it is a key part of CMRI’s nanocell.

CMRI Enhancement #2 is multi-mode. One aspect of a nanocell, which is important to most carriers, is supporting several cellular standards in one node. Much of the cost is per element (siting, installation, OAMP, power, backhaul) so it makes obvious sense to combine them to share those costs and make the best use of the spectrum.

China Mobile is unusual in its cellular technologies. In common with most of the world it has GSM as 2G, but for 3G it uses TD-SCDMA (standardized by 3GPP and a variant on the commoner WCDMA). For 4G, it uses LTE but the TDD flavor (TD-LTE). This is not yet widespread, although estimates are that between 20%-40% of all LTE will ultimately use it. The CMRI nanocell must support these technologies.

Things have progressed well and in the recent Small Cells World Summit 2013, CMRI showed their enterprise deployments that are being tested.

A presentation from the WiFi global congress is embedded below and gives more detailed idea about the Nanocell.

Introduction of Nanocell - China Mobile from Zahid Ghadialy

'China Mobile' and 'Ericsson' deploy GSM Picocell/Metrocell in Nanning, the capital of China's Guangxi region

While the whole world has been focussing on HSPA+ and LTE small cells, a recent press release from Ericsson told us about GSM based 'City Site' deployed in Nanning. From the press release:

Currently, China’s urban construction is in full swing, and its mobile network coverage is rising. In the increasingly crowded urban environment, however, ensuring the quality of mobile-network coverage has become a problem.

In order to meet this challenge, Ericsson has launched the City Site integrated solution, and successfully applied it to China Mobile’s GSM network in Nanning, Guangxi. The City Site, which has been deployed with the standard RBS6601 base station, has an integrated Omni Antenna, which only covers a small area and is, therefore, easy to deploy. It could also be launched with just access to power and transmission cables.

According to the test of the live network, the City Site has effectively met the capacity and quality needs of network coverage, as well as ensuring excellent user experience.

In addition, the City Site has also been equipped with functions such as electronic advertising, clock and public information inquires with touch-screen technology. Operators now can not only enhance the mobile coverage but also launch more value-added services via the City site.

The City Site has fewer limitations for site selection compared with standard radio base station, as it can be deployed in crowded areas, and is suitable for a variety of places, such as railway stations, business districts, schools, parks, squares, and main avenues. While enriching the base station building approaches, it provides users with an excellent and satisfactory network experience. Ericsson will continue to cooperate with China Mobile to apply the City Site more extensively through further research.

Fierce Broadband Wireless also provides additional details on this as follows:

Ericsson's small cell, called City Site, consists of a 13-foot-high panel with a base station and an integrated multidirectional antenna. China Mobile is testing a GSM version of the City Site, but Ericsson says the small cell can also support 3G and LTE. Depending upon the frequency band and coverage and capacity requirements, the City Site can cover anywhere from 50 meters to 200 meters.

So the focus is on Voice/SMS for the time being but depending on the success we may see TD-SCDMA or LTE based City Site's available soon.

Is 2013 the year of Metrocells?

A recent market market report by Informa for the Small Cell Forum has highlighted the following:

• December last year marked the first launch of a dual mode 3G/LTE femtocell by NTT DoCoMo which allows CS fallback and will be used to promote the migration from 3G to LTE. Orange France has also launched consumer femtocells, diversifying its small cell offerings.
• The small-cell market is growing at a rapid pace: The largest deployments have already reached 1 million active cells. Initial metrocell deployments are taking place while all the operators in several markets now offer femtocells.
• Both SKT and KT have launched LTE small cells for public access in South Korea.
• According to Informa Telecoms & Media’s estimates, the small cell market will generate US$22 billion during 2016, 73% of which will be driven by public area small cells.
• The number of small cells deployed overtook the total number of macrocells between October and November 2012 and consumer femtocells overtook macrocells during February 2013.
• The femtocell market now includes several deployments that reach well into hundreds of thousand units, including Vodafone, Softbank and SFR. Sprint’s deployment reached 1 million units as of October 2012 and analysts estimate that AT&T’s deployment has reached similar numbers.
• As of February 2013, there are 46 commercial services and a total of 60 deployment commitments.

According to this report: The Small Cell Forum released these numbers here at the Mobile World Congress. Gordon Mansfield, chairman of the Small Cell Forum, said 2013 is the "year of public access" small cells, noting that by 2016 public access small cells will drive $16.2 billion in revenue despite the fact that they only make up 4 percent of small cells today.  Mansfield also said 98 percent of mobile operators believe small cells are essential; however, of the 46 operators that have deployed small cells, the majority are larger operators.

The Informa report does provide a definition of the type of Small Cells but clearly mentions that these are for guidance only. I have posted my views earlier about what Metrocells are here and here. I much prefer to use the term 'Indoor Metrocells' rather than Picocells as Picocells are associated with legacy networks without an intelligence (SON, etc.) of its own. The same is true in outdoor case as I prefer 'Outdoor Metrocells' rather than Microcells. Having said that Microcells are still available from vendors and are comparatively more expensive but provide capability to cover larger areas and more simultaneous number of users.

The Small Cell Forum has also embarked on a Release plan to help speed up operator deployments. 'Release One' was released in the Mobile World Congress 2013 with focus on Home, the future releases with focus on Enterprise and Metrocells. An Infographic on releases is available here.

Below are some of the announcements regarding Metrocells from the last couple of weeks:

• Russia Is Bringing High-Speed Fiber to All Its Towns and will also provide cellular coverage in those towns using Metrocells. See here and here.
• ALU and China Mobile unveil TD-LTE lightRadio. The TDD lightRadio Metro Radio houses two of ALU's now-famous 'cubes' (highly compact radios which can be installed on lamp posts) integrated with a directional antenna. This enables a level of coverage which would normally require a far larger remote radio unit linked to an external antenna via cable. Details here.
• Node-H supports Broadcom’s Dual-Mode Small Cell SoC Family. Details here.
• Giza Systems and Bluwan Partner to Accelerate Middle East Heterogeneous Network Rollouts. Details here.
• CEVA and Mindspeed Extend Relationship to Address LTE-Advanced Small Cells. Details here.
• Aricent and Mindspeed Raise the Bar — Announce Launch of a High-Performing 20MHz Small Cell Reference Solution. Details here.
• Jin-Magic and Ubiquisys Join Forces to Improve Small Cell Performance. Details here.

David Chambers from ThinkSmallCell has written an excellent report rounding up Small Cells from the MWC which is available here.

Finally, there is one last chance to come to out Metrocell Masterclass in Cambridge on the 21st of March. Details here.