Showing posts with label Infrastructure RRUs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Infrastructure RRUs. Show all posts

Wednesday, 22 November 2023

Huawei's RuralLink Solution Proposes to 'Connect the Unconnected'

It's been five years since we first wrote about Huawei's rural network solution. RuralStar was all rage back in 2018 and then the updated RuralStar 3.0 in 2020. Since then, Huawei has been working on updated architecture of RuralLink.

At MWC 2023, RuralLink won GSMA's 'Best Mobile Innovation for Emerging Markets' GLOMO Award. The press release at the RuralLink launch at the Global Mobile Broadband Forum 2022 (MBBF2022) provided some insights into the solution. The following is from the press release: 

Huawei's RuralLink solution uses unique innovative technologies to solve the difficulties associated with communications. In the areas where fiber is difficult and costly to deploy, thanks to unique microwave fronthaul capabilities, RuralLink uses microwave to replace optical fibers to extend RRUs far away, which reduces network construction costs. By co-using BBU with existing macro site, RuralLink does not require a BBU to be deployed, which helps reduce site power consumption. By allowing a site to operate with just four to five solar panels, RuralLink is also easily adaptable to the areas that lack stable mains supplies. The solution features a simplified design that enables all devices to be mounted on to a pole, and its site deployment does not require fencing or concrete construction. As such, site construction is so easy in fact that it be completed in just three days. RuralLink supports 2G to 5G services, laying the foundation for network experience upgrade.

RuralLink has already been deployed by China Unicom Inner Mongolia in rural areas. This operator has seen significant improvement in the proportion of areas with good coverage and notable increase in area traffic and average user-perceived speeds. While fulfilling the communication needs of the local people, the RuralLink site deployment also lays a solid foundation for the development of local e-commerce, tourism, and smart agriculture.

A recent press release highlighted that RuralLink is being used to boost rural network coverage and promote digital inclusion in Brazil.

Huawei supported Brazil’s leading telecommunications operator, to successfully complete the commercial use of the RuralLink solution. This solution utilizes a “1 RRU + 1 antenna” to form three LTE sectors, simplifying site deployment with the aim of improving wireless network coverage in rural areas and providing broader internet access.

RuralLink utilizes innovative three-sector shaping technology, requiring only one antenna and one RRU to form three sectors. Compared to traditional three-sector macro site solutions, this solution reduces 60% of devices on the tower, 50% of power consumption, and 50% of supporting devices, resulting in a 60% cost saving from end to end. Additionally, the simplified architecture enables faster TTM (time to market) and allows one person to complete site deployment and activation in one day, achieving good signal coverage within a range of 3.5 km.

The following video explains the RuralLink solution and deployment scenario:

I am looking forward to seeing an updated solution at MWC 2024.

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Friday, 27 May 2022

London Underground Mobile Network Infrastructure

Earlier we made a tutorial on Infrastructure required for bringing connectivity to underground rail network. So it was good to see Nick Hudson, Director of Global Partners & Programmes at BAI Communications share some pictures of Mobile Network Infrastructure on London Underground network on his LinkedIn post.


Back in June 2021, BAI Communications (BAI) was awarded a 20-year concession by Transport for London (TfL) to deliver high-speed mobile connectivity across the capital in the most advanced and largest infrastructure project of its type in the world. The press release said:

BAI’s partnership with TfL will establish a long-awaited backbone of connectivity with a city-wide integrated communications network delivering multi-carrier cellular, Wi-Fi, and fibre connectivity services. The 4G-enabled and 5G-ready communications network that BAI will build and operate as a neutral host for fixed and mobile operators will fast-track London’s evolution as a smart city. BAI will also help to create a safer, smarter London by building and operating critical communications infrastructure that will support police, fire, and ambulance services.

The first phase of the project will see the rollout of modern multi-carrier infrastructure. This will allow fixed and mobile operators to immediately provide continuous 4G coverage to their customers across the London Underground stations and tunnels. The new wireless infrastructure will also be 5G ready. Work on the project will begin immediately, with all stations and tunnels due to have mobile coverage in four years.

Additionally, a new high-capacity fibre network running throughout the London Underground will enable fibre service providers to provide full fibre connectivity to premises across the city. The network will connect to buildings and street assets housing small cells to leverage the power of 5G and the IoT, and deliver improvements in areas like traffic congestion, public safety, and city planning.

Through this concession, BAI will help the transport authority support London’s post-covid recovery as travel resumes, delivering seamless 5G ready connectivity that will enable people to move around the city more efficiently, safely, and securely. More specifically, this project will enable TfL to reduce overcrowding and manage station flow, while improving safety with real-time information and reliable ‘from anywhere’ communications.

BAI was awarded the concession after a competitive tender process. The company has proven experience deploying mission critical communications networks in highly dense urban environments, including the underground rail networks in New York, Toronto, and Hong Kong. This project supports BAI’s strategic intent to sustainably accelerate growth globally. This is achieved through our work deploying outdoor neutral host infrastructure and developing 5G-driven offerings that introduce and scale connectivity solutions for emerging services and fresh revenue opportunities. Ultimately, our work supports our customers by delivering better connectivity and enhanced customer experiences. BAI’s ambitious plans include expanding its wireless infrastructure business across the public transport sector and growing its private network services portfolio.

Last month, BAI announced that they have completed the first milestone of its rollout of high-speed mobile coverage across the London Underground as it launches a permanent 4G service on the eastern section of the Jubilee Line. The press release said:

Customers of Three and EE are the first to be confirmed to have permanent access to 4G and 5G-ready communications between Westminster and Canning Town. The connectivity has been available as part of a pilot service since March 2020. This follows agreements made last year by both mobile operators to join BAI’s network, making them the first to cement their commitment to providing coverage to London Underground passengers.

Whilst on this section of the Jubilee Line, customers will continue to be able to check the latest travel information, keep on top of their emails, catch up on social media, live stream videos wherever they are on the Underground.

Cities all over the world are improving connectivity for subways and metros. With London already a centre of mobile connectivity, it's surprising that getting coverage in the Tube took so long.

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Friday, 6 May 2022

Comba Telecom Helps Bring Open RAN to New Markets

Comba Telecom is a global leading wireless solutions provider with their own R&D facilities, manufacturing base, and sales and service teams. The company offers a comprehensive suite of products and services including wireless access, wireless enhancement, antenna and subsystems and wireless transmission to its global customers. Comba's core product portfolio includes antennas and subsystems and network products (DAS, Small Cells, Repeater, RRU, etc.), offering turnkey solutions for indoor and outdoor 2G/3G/4G/Wifi/5G to their global customers.

Last year, Comba announced the launch of the industry's first Open RAN multi-RAT, multi-band Remote Radio Unit (“RRU”) that supports 1800MHz and 2100MHz, promoting widespread adoption of emerging open standards in the globe. The announcement says:

The RRU is designed to minimize the total cost of ownership (“TCO”) for operators and neutral hosts in macro deployments through fast and easy deployment, energy savings, improved coverage and throughput, smaller footprint and easy maintenance. Engineered for efficient high power (320W) operation, the multi-RAT multi-band 4T4R RRU minimizes the environmental footprint and reduces the energy spend for the operator. 

As a first in the Open RAN industry the GSM/UMTS/LTE/5G NR multi-mode operation makes it ideal for simple upgrades of legacy sites without compromises. The 4T4R radio supports two LTE/5G NR carriers per band and Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (“DSS”). This enables operators to serve arising 5G traffic demand without additional spectrum or removing LTE service.

Comba has a long-standing collaboration with major industry partners and alliances and has participated in the initial Open RAN trials and lab projects in different regions. With all in-house expertise in interoperability and optimizing radio designs for market specific criteria, Comba enables mobile operators to accelerate time to market, and mitigate the overall technology risk when adopting to Open RAN strategy in their next generation of RAN. 

A recent video looks at these Open RAN Multi-band RRUs

While most Open RAN RUs are focused on 4G & 5G, Comba's radios work on 2G & 3G as well. This has allowed them to bring Open RAN solutions to many different parts of the world that may not be ready for 5G yet. Some of these include announcements with their software partner Parallel Wireless in Latin America and Indonesia. Another recent standalone announcement included one with Turkcell in Turkey.

Telefonica also listed them as one of the partners in a presentation at MWC

Telecom Infra Project's TIP Exchange features quite a few radios from Comba which you can see here.

If you are interested in learning more, what the Comba keynote and Panel Discussion on Maturity of Open RAN Adoption at MWC22 Open RAN Summit below:

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Sunday, 13 March 2022

Benetel shows their Open RAN RU Progress

Benetel, headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, has a 20 year history with over 6 million Benetel designed radios deployed around the world. We caught up with them at Mobile World Congress 2022 to find out what they have been up to. 

We first heard of Benetel when they announced the launch of its flagship BNTL-RAN550 High-Performance 5G O-RAN radio unit (O-RU) back in 2020. Their MWC 2022 press release provides details on their latest RAN650 RU :

This is intended to bring 5G capacity to private, campus and industrial networks, as well as rural networks and public hotspots. A 4T4R antenna arrangement is featured with up to 5W of output power being delivered per antenna port (equating to 20W in total). The 7.2x functional split employed will help minimize the costs associated with fronthaul network implementations, while support for 100MHz of instantaneous bandwidth will allow maximum coverage to be attained.

Benetel’s new RAN650 RU can be deployed in either a Cat A or Cat B based configuration (using selected distributed units), thereby providing flexibility to address radio access network architectures. Key to its elevated performance and versatility is the cutting-edge semiconductor technology that has been designed into it. Each RU incorporates an Intel Arria 10 FPGA along with an Analog Devices’ ADRV9029 4T4R transceiver with integrated Digital Pre-Distortion (DPD). The initial version of the RAN650 covers the n77u (3.7GHz to 4.2GHz) frequency range. An n78 variant (3.3GHz to 3.8GHz) will be made available in the second quarter of 2022.

The RAN650 RU runs off a 48V supply. It has a maximum power consumption of 110W. The robust IP65-rated enclosure use means that even the most challenging of outdoor conditions can be coped with. An operational temperature range spanning from -33°C to +45°C is supported.

The RAN650 complements Benetel’s existing OpenRAN portfolio, including the RAN550 indoor 5G RU that the company announced back in late 2020. Active network trials are already being conducted on the Benetel RAN650 by several pilot customers.

TMN reported last year that, Benetel said it has integrated its Radio Unit (RU) with Radisys’ 5G NR Open RAN CU-DU software and has also licensed Radisys’ LTE software for its eNodeB radio platforms. The official announcement comes after Benetel told TMN last month that it was working with both Radisys and Altran on DU-CU integration.

If you are interested in learning more about Benetel then watch Olli Andersson, Benetel's senior VP for the Americas, discussing the O-RAN architecture's climb into market relevance here.

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Friday, 24 December 2021

Nokia back in 5G Game and Vying for Open RAN & 6G Success

Nokia announced their 5G progress at Global Analyst Forum 2021. In a blog post, Tommi Uitto, President of Mobile Networks at Nokia wrote:

“We bet on the right horse choosing Nokia” a customer shared his feedback in a recent meeting after my update on Nokia’s 5G portfolio. We’ve received similar recognition from other customers too: “Congratulations on the catch-up in 5G,” “We of course monitor our customers’ experience and in Nokia-supplied networks it has been excellent,” “Nokia is back in 5G.”

The new 5G portfolio we’ve launched this year continues our promise to deliver and further improve the performance of our networks:

  • We’ve launched our new AirScale radios, including the industry’s lightest high-power, 400MHz 32TRX Massive MIMO. These radios contribute to our 50 percent reduction in power consumption of Massive MIMO radios from 2019 to 2023.
  • Our AirScale baseband is the industry benchmark for flexibility and capacity. It also comes with significantly improved energy efficiency, reducing the baseband power consumption by up to 75 percent. This also contributes to our commitment to halve base station power consumption by 2023.
  • We’re on track to power our full portfolio with latest ReefShark System-on-Chips by the end of 2022.
  • And this year, we brought together our software to a common development trunk, meaning updates to software from 2G to 5G in a single release, bringing our customers the speed and quality they need.

Where we are now is the result of hard, focused execution on our strategic priority to build 5G technology leadership and improve our portfolio competitiveness over the past three years. Coupled with industry-leading SON and network management, as well as digitalized services boosting the speed and quality of deployments, we have a good racehorse now.

Here is a short video from Tommi:

One of the other interesting area that he covered was on Open RAN, or O-RAN as Nokia prefers to use  it. Quoting from the blog post:

Preparing for the future opportunities starts now. Undoubtedly, one key focus area continues to be Open RAN. Nokia is the leading contributor in the O-RAN Alliance and our new AirScale portfolio is already O-RAN ready, supporting our efforts to develop cloud-based, open approaches to building networks. This is all happening in tight cooperation with our customers like NTT Docomo, or Deutsche Telecom with whom we just announced opening a new open lab "i14y" to accelerate network disaggregation and Open RAN. There are many steps to build the O-RAN ecosystem, and we expect this to develop over the coming years but would not expect real commercial deployments before 2023 (perhaps earlier for some trials).

And of course, no discussion is complete nowadays without mentioning 6G:

Network efficiency and optimization utilizing 4G/5G slicing, AI/ML and continuously improving energy efficiency are also key focus areas as we continue to enhance our offering, on the runway to 5G Advanced and ultimately 6G towards the end of the decade. Although it’s early stages on the 6G journey, we envision it to bring massively more capacity, adaptive AI interfaces and deep learning techniques. But when the time of 6G comes, we should not assume we’ll get to start from a “clean slate”. Our customers will want to ensure a seamless evolution of architectures, chipsets, software and 5G/6G platforms. It’s going to be an exciting evolution from 5G to 6G.

The slides from the Analyst Forum is available here.

Matthew Baker, Head of Radio Physical Layer and Co-existence Standardisation at Nokia recently spoke about Nokia's vision of 5G-Advanced. Here is his talk:

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Friday, 17 December 2021

Demos from Ericsson's Radio Tech Day 2021

Ericsson's Radio Tech Day is a cyclical meeting intended for the telecommunications industry and technical staff of operators in Poland. Engineers share projects, describe best practices and learn from each other's experience. During the conference, the latest solutions in the field of radio and core technology, both in the field of software and hardware, as well as the achievements of start-ups cooperating with the company, are presented.

The following video is from the recent event held last month:

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Friday, 10 September 2021

Ericsson's Street Solutions

Ericsson’s announced that their Street portfolio offers operators and other service providers an opportunity to seamlessly bring connectivity to where it is needed. Part of the Ericsson Radio System, the street solutions are an integrated part of the network, with feature parity and end-to-end performance. 


In a recent press release they announced:

5G deployments are accelerating across the country at a faster rate than expected. According to Ericsson’s annual mobility report, by the end of 2021, 25 percent of the global population will have 5G coverage. In North America, more than 360 million 5G subscriptions are anticipated in the region by 2026, accounting for 84 percent of mobile subscriptions.

However, connectivity can suffer in dense urban environments, and as 5G comes to U.S. cities, urban rollouts are grappling with challenges like how to deploy non-intrusive sites, how best to utilize all frequency layers, and how to streamline site permitting and installation. Many sites need to expand 5G capacity, and hotspots and streets need strengthened capacity in both low, mid and high-band to build a complete 5G network as traffic grows.

Powered by Ericsson Silicon, these new solutions are:

  • Street Radio 4402: Designed to turn a streetlight into a low- or mid-band 5G site in 15 minutes, these compact radios are an industry-unique collaboration with Ubicquia, boosting 4G and 5G experience with zero footprint;
  • AIR 4435: The world’s smallest 4T4R street antenna-integrated radio is designed for minimum footprint and easy installations, adding excellent mid-band capacity to macro coverage gaps;
  • Street Macro 6705: A complete mmWave base station with integrated RAN Compute is an industry-leading end-to-end solution with low visual impact.

Ericsson Street Solutions also include transport solutions for any 5G street site, with wired and wireless backhaul and fronthaul solutions. And zero footprint power systems for street and hotspot sites are 100 percent carry to site, with low maintenance and operations costs.

A brochure with all the necessary details is available here.

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Friday, 19 March 2021

KMW's C-band 64TRx 640W 25kg Massive MIMO


There is a Massive MIMO weight wars taking place. Last month, Ericsson announced that it had a 64T64R Massive MIMO antenna radio unit that weighs just 20kg. Two days later, Huawei announced at MWC Shanghai that its latest equivalent tips the scales at only 19kg. The Mobile Network covered it nicely here and so did Light Reading here.

While Huawei & Ericsson are number 1 and 2 players in the world, at a far smaller scale is KMW (Korea Micro Wave). In conjunction with RCR Wireless, they announced a C-band 64TRx 640W 25kg mMIMO Hardware Ready along with a whitepaper and a video. 

The whitepaper can be downloaded from here and the summary says:

Massive MIMO technology has been deployed for capacity improvement as the 5G NR system. However, in the aspect of coverage expansion, there has been no satisfactory solution so far.

KMW applies the Modular Architecture technology to develop the mMIMO RU (64TRx, 640W, 25kg) with the natural convection cooling system as a solution of 5G coverage expansion.

This Modular Architecture, AFAM (Antenna, Filter and Power Amplifier Module), introduces Radio’s heat source separation that maximizes heat dissipation performance and minimizes the size and weight. And it allows operators to provide the desired smartest service at a lower investment.

Modular RU can also be a standardized platform with easy frequency variation just in time. Moreover, if the market requests O-RAN RU, the product shall be provided on time with the set of HW/SW.

KMW is a professional RU H/W company delivering 5G mMIMO RU to Global Market collaboration through S/W JDM with Global OEM. KMW is ready to cooperate with the global partners and customers.

It would be nice to see some of these massive MIMO units deployed in Open RAN networks later this year. 

Last year Vodafone had announced a bevy or Open RAN radio vendors. Hopefully we will see some more massive MIMO units from others. 

Finally, it should be noted that KMW also goes by the name GigaTera, which is what was earlier known in the US as KMW Inc. Details here.

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Friday, 19 February 2021

Open RAN (O-RAN) RRU (O-RU) and DU (O-DU) Design


We often publish Open RAN related information on this blog. Now, Telefónica has just published a whitepaper providing an overview of the main technology elements that it is developing in collaboration with selected partners in the Open RAN ecosystem. 

It describes the architectural elements, design criteria, technology choices and key chipsets employed to build a complete portfolio of radio units and baseband equipment capable of a full 4G/5G RAN rollout in any market of interest. More details here and the PDF is here.

The following is a selective abstract from the paper:

Sites within Telefónica footprint can be broadly classified into four types, from low/medium capacity 4G to high/dense capacity 4G+5G, as illustrated in Figure 1. Each of those types correspond to a particular arrangement of DUs and RRUs whose design and dimensioning represents a key milestone that must be achieved prior to any further development. Representative frequency bands are just shown for illustration purposes, as well the number of cells that can be typically found in each site type.

3GPP defined a new architectural model in Release 15, where the gNB is logically split into three entities denoted as CU, DU and RRU. The RAN functions that correspond to each of the three entities are determined by the so-called split points. After a thorough analysis of the potential split options, 3GPP decided to focus on just two split points: so-called split 2 and split 7, although, only the former one was finally standardized. The resulting partitioning of network functions is shown in Figure 2.

The CU (Centralized Unit) hosts the RAN functions above split 2; the DU (Distributed Unit) runs those below split 2 and above split 7; and the RRU hosts the functions below split 7 as well as all the RF processing.

The O-RAN Alliance further specified a multi-vendor fronthaul interface between the RRU and DU, by introducing a specific category of split 7 called split 7-2x, whose control, data, management, and synchronization planes are perfectly defined. The midhaul interface between CU and DU is also specified by 3GPP and further upgraded by the O-RAN Alliance to work in multivendor scenarios.

The CU and DU can be co-located with the RRU (Remote Radio Unit) in purely distributed scenarios. However, the real benefit of the split architecture comes from the possibility to centralize the CU, and sometimes also the DU, in suitable data centers where all RAN functions can be fully virtualized and therefore run on suitable servers.

The infrastructure needed to build a DU is nothing else than a server based on Intel Architecture optimized to run those real-time RAN functions located below split 2, and to connect with the RRUs through a fronthaul interface based on O-RAN split 7-2x. It is the real-time nature of the DU which motivates the need to optimize the servers required to run DU workloads.

The DU hardware includes the chassis platform, mother board, peripheral devices, power supply and cooling devices.

When the DU must be physically located inside a cabinet, the chassis platform must meet significant mechanical restrictions like a given DU depth, maximum operating temperature, or full front access, among others. The mother board contains processing unit, memory, the internal I/O interfaces, and external connection ports. The DU design must also contain suitable expansion ports for hardware acceleration. Other hardware functional components include the hardware and system debugging interfaces, and the board management controller, just to name a few. Figure 3 shows a functional diagram of the DU as designed by Supermicro.

In the example shown above, the Central Processing Unit (CPU) is an Intel Xeon SP system that performs the main baseband processing tasks. To make the processing more efficient, an ASIC based acceleration card, like Intel’s ACC100, can be used to assist with the baseband workload processing. The Intel-based network cards (NICs) with Time Sync capabilities can be used for both fronthaul and midhaul interfaces, with suitable clock circuits that provide the unit with the clock signals required by digital processing tasks. PCI-e slots are standard expansion slots for additional peripheral and auxiliary cards. Other essential components not shown in the figure are randomaccess memory (RAM) for temporary storage of data, flash memory for codes and logs, and hard disk devices for persistent storage of data even when the unit is powered-off.

An Open RAN Remote Radio Unit (RRU) is used to convert radio signals sent to and from the antenna into a digital baseband signal, which can be connected to the DU over the O-RAN split 7-2x fronthaul interface.

For illustration, the reference architecture of an Open RAN RRU from Gigatera Communications is shown in Figure 7. It shows the functional high-level diagram of the RRU containing the following components:

  • Synchronization and Fronthaul Transport Functional Block
  • Lower PHY Layer Baseband Processing Functional Block
  • Digital Front End (DFE) Functional Block
  • RF Front End (RFFE) Functional Block

For more details, check out the whitepaper here.

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Thursday, 10 December 2020

ZTE's PAD and iMacro gets 5G Upgrade

ZTE announced the Pad base stations back in 2015. From the press release:

The Pad series base stations use a distributed architecture to provide flexible networking models, meeting multi-point and multi-sector coverage requirements. The Pad baseband unit (BBU) is only one third the size of similar products making it the world's smallest outdoor BBU, and can be installed in a concealed location.

The Pad series also features a newly released remote radio unit (RRU), The Pad RRU is a similar size to a tablet, has built-in antennas, and can be mounted to poles, walls, or other common locations in stations, buildings, and streets, allowing for easy site selection for intensive coverage. With low transmit power and interference, the Pad RRU provides seamless network coverage through macro-micro coordination. Multiple Pad RRUs can be included in a logical cell to reduce handovers and provide better user experience.

Earlier this year, ZTE announced in another press release:

ZTE and the Hangzhou branch of China Telecom have deployed the industry’s first 4G/5G dual-band micro RRU supporting 3.5 GHz frequency band in Hangzhou, China. With the downlink rate reaching 1.1Gbps, it can provide users with excellent 4G/5G network experiences.

Featuring 2.1GHz LTE anchors, the latest 4G/5G dual-band 4T4R products of ZTE’s 5G Pad RRU series can realize the fast NSA network commissioning, guaranteeing the service experience of 4G/5G coverage in a 5G SA network. Moreover, it supports 3G/4G/5G multi-mode, and 200 MHz continuous ultra-large bandwidth on 3.5 GHz frequency band. 

In addition, the 4G/5G dual-band micro RRU is small in size, light in weight,  and quick to deploy, thus effectively solving the challenge of insufficient site resources and realizing fast 5G signal coverage extension. 

The pad RRU is usually installed on smart light poles, which integrate HD camera, environmental monitoring, weather sensor, screen, and new-energy vehicle charging functions. Therefore, smart light poles can monitor the real-time road conditions, such as flood, to avoid potential hazards.  

Moreover, the smart light poles can be used as a site location for 5G micro RRUs to solve the problem of insufficient coverage, and transfer live information of smart light poles in real time.

iMacro base station was launched in 2015 as well. From the press release:

The new iMacro base station, with integrated RFUs (radio frequency unit) and antennas of compactness and high performance, was debuted at the Mobile World Congress Shanghai 2015 conference in Shanghai. iMacro joins other products of the ZTE multi-scenario coverage product family, including the Pad series outdoor base stations and Qcell indoor coverage solutions, helping operators to build high-quality 4G networks.

Due to a large number of pedestrian streets, commercial streets, residential areas, and other densely-populated areas alongside urban streets, it is difficult to build new sites, leading to increasingly prominent problems of urban street coverage. Integrated RF unit and antenna unit, ultra broadband power amplification, together with its small size, light weight, compact design, and even one device is capable of multiple frequency bands, ZTE iMacro base station is what exactly operators desire. Moreover, iMacro base station is featured with flexible and rapid deployment without any site resources, which effectively makes the deployment alongside urban streets easier.

The iMacro base station, which can be pole-mounted or wall-mounted, is suitable for installation on lampposts along urban roads and bus station awnings, and can even be placed on the lamp poles along the roads or building’s façade. In the absence of new site resources, the iMacro base station provides intensive coverage in densely-populated areas, effectively enhancing the quality and capacity of network coverage. In addition, the iMacro base station with a compact and elegant appearance can perfectly blend in with the surrounding environment.

In addition to the technology innovation, ZTE also concerns the friendliness and convenience of network deployment. iMacro can connected to external devices through a single power cable and an optical fiber that is connected to the BBU, and multiple iMacro base stations are connected to one remote BBU, allowing for flexible and rapid network deployment, and significantly reducing deployment costs.

Anyway, here is a recent video on PAD and iMacro that ZTE shared on their YouTube channel

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Thursday, 26 November 2020

NTT Docomo's 5G RAN Infrastructure

We looked at NTT Docomo's 5G Journey and 5G Network Deployment details recently here. In this post we will look at the 5G Infrastructure that Docomo is using in their network. It is detailed in their latest Technical Journal here. In this post we will look at the infrastructure part only.


The 5G network configuration is shown in Figure 4. With a view to 5G service development, NTT DOCOMO developed a Central Unit (CU) that consolidates the Base Band (BB) signal processing section supporting 5G, extended existing BB processing equipment known as high-density Base station Digital processing Equipment (BDE), and developed a 5G Radio Unit (RU) having signal transmit / receive functions. Furthermore, to have a single CU accommodate many RUs, NTT DOCOMO developed a 5G version of the FrontHaul Multiplexer (FHM) deployed in LTE. Each of these three types of equipment is described below.

1) CU
(a) Development concept: With the aim of achieving a smooth rollout of 5G services, NTT DOCOMO developed a CU that enables area construction without having to replace existing equipment while minimizing the construction period and facility investment. This was accomplished by making maximum use of the existing high-density BDE that performs BB signal processing, replacing some of the cards of the high-density BDE, and upgrading the software to support 5G.

(b) CU basic specifications: An external view of this CU is shown in Photo 1. This equipment has the features described below (Table 3). As described above, this equipment enables 5G-supporting functions by replacing some of the cards of the existing high-density BDE. In addition, future software upgrades will load both software supporting conventional 3G/LTE/LTE-Advanced and software supporting 5G. This will enable the construction of a network supporting three generations of mobile communications from 3G to 5G with a single CU.

The existing LTE-Advanced system employs advanced Centralized RAN (C-RAN) architecture proposed by NTT DOCOMO. This architecture is also supported in 5G with the connection between CU and RUs made via the fronthaul. Standardization of this fronthaul was promoted at the Open RAN (O-RAN) Alliance jointly established in February 2018 by five operators including NTT DOCOMO.  Since the launch of 5G services, the fronthaul in the NTT DOCOMO network was made to conform to these O-RAN fronthaul specifications that enable interoperability between different vendors, and any CU and RU that conform to these specifications can be interconnected regardless of vendor. The specifications for inter-connecting base-station equipment also con-form to these O-RAN specifications, which means that a multi-vendor connection can be made between a CU supporting 5G and a high-density BDE supporting LTE-Advanced. This enables NTT DOCOMO to deploy a CU regardless of the vendor of the existing high-density BDE and to quickly and flexibly roll out service areas where needed while making best use of existing assets. In addition, six or more fronthaul connections can be made per CU and the destination RU of each fronthaul connection can be se-lected. Since 5G supports wideband trans-mission beyond that of LTE-Advanced, the fronthaul transmission rate has been extend-ed from the existing peak rate of 9.8 Gbps to a peak rate of 25 Gbps while achieving a CU/RU optical distance equivalent to that of the existing high-density BDE.

2) RU
(a) Development concept: To facilitate flexible area construction right from the launch of 5G services, NTT DOCOMO developed the low-power Small Radio Unit (SRU) as the RU for small cells and developed, in particular, separate SRUs for each of the 3.7 GHz, 4.5 GHz, and 28 GHz frequency bands provided at the launch of the 5G pre-commercial service in September 2019. Furthermore, with an eye to early expansion of the 5G service area, NTT DOCOMO developed the Regular power Radio Unit (RRU) as the RU for macrocells to enable the efficient creation of service areas in suburbs and elsewhere.

A key 5G function is beamforming that aims to reduce interference with other cells and thereby improve the user’s quality of experience. To support this function, NTT DOCOMO developed a unit that integrates the antenna and 5G radio section (antenna-integrated RU). It also developed a unit that separates the antenna and 5G radio section (antenna-separated RU) to enable an RU to be placed alongside existing 3G/LTE/LTE-Advanced Radio Equipment (RE) and facilitate flexible installation even for locations with limited space or other constraints.

(b) SRU basic specifications: As described above, NTT DOCOMO developed the SRU to enable flexible construction of 5G service areas. It developed, in particular, antenna-integrated SRUs to support each of the 3.7 GHz, 4.5 GHz, and 28 GHz frequency bands provided at the launch of the 5G pre-commercial service and antenna-separated SRUs to support each of the 3.7 GHz and 4.5 GHz frequency bands (Photo 2). These two types of SRUs have the following features (Table 4).

The antenna-integrated RU is equipped with an antenna panel to implement the beamforming function. In the 3.7 GHz and 4.5 GHz bands, specifications call for a maximum of 8 beams, and in the 28 GHz band, for a maximum of 64 beams. An area may be formed with the number of transmit/receive beams tailored to the TDD Config used by NTT DOCOMO. In addition, the number of transmit/receive branches is 4 for the 3.7 GHz and 4.5 GHz bands and 2 for the 28 GHz band, and MIMO transmission/reception can be performed with a maximum of 4 layers for the former bands and a maximum of 2 layers for the latter band.

The antenna-separated SRU is configured with only the radio as in conventional RE to save space and facilitate installation. With this type of SRU, the antenna may be installed at a different location. Moreover, compared to the antenna-integrated SRU operating in the same frequency band, the antenna-separated SRU reduces equipment volume to 6.5â„“ or less. The antenna-separated SRU does not support the beamforming function, but features four transmit/receive branches the same as the antenna-integrated SRU for the same frequency band.

(c) RRU basic specifications: The RRU was developed in conjunction with the 5G service rollout as high-power equipment compared with the SRU with a view to early expansion of the 5G service area (Photo 3). This type of equipment has the following features (Table 5).


Compared with existing Remote Radio Equipment (RRE) for macrocells, the volume of RRU equipment tends to be larger to support 5G broadband, but in view of the latest electronic device trends, NTT DOCOMO took the lead in developing and deploying an antenna-separated RRU that could save space and reduce weight. Maximum transmission power is 36.3 W/100 MHz/branch taking the radius of a macrocell area into account. The RRU features four transmit/receive branches and achieves the same number of MIMO transmission/reception layers as the antenna-separated SRU.
NTT DOCOMO also plans to deploy an antenna-integrated RRU at a later date. The plan here is to construct 5G service areas in a flexible manner making best use of each of these models while taking installation location and other factors into account.

3) 5G FHM
The 5G FHM is equipment having a multiplexing function for splitting and combining a maximum of 12 radio signals on the fronthaul. It was developed in conjunction with the 5G service rollout the same as RRU (Photo 4).
If no 5G FHM is being used, each RU is accommodated as one cell, but when using a 5G FHM, a maximum of 12 RUs can be accommodated as one cell in a CU. At the launch of 5G services, this meant that more RUs could be accommodated in a single CU when forming a service area in a location having low required radio capacity (Figure 5). Additionally, since all RUs transmit and receive radio signals of the same cell, the 5G FHM can inhibit inter-RU interference and the occurrence of Hand-Over (HO) control between RUs as in the conventional FHM. Furthermore, the 5G FHM supports all of the 5G frequency bands, that is, the 3.7 GHz, 4.5 GHz, and 28 GHz bands, which means that service areas can be constructed in a flexible manner applying each of these frequency bands as needed.

All the fronthaul and other interfaces that Docomo used in their network was based on O-RAN alliance specifications. In a future post, we will look at some of the details.

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Monday, 4 May 2020

Samsung's 5G NR Integrated Radio for mmWave spectrum

At MWC LA last year, Samsung Electronics announced its new 5G New Radio (NR) Access Unit (AU) supporting 28GHz spectrum. This new AU brought together a radio, antenna and digital unit into one compact box, making it according to them, the industry’s first 3GPP compliant integrated radio for mmWave spectrum.


According to Samsung, by integrating these RU-DU technologies with 1,024 antenna elements for mmWave spectrum into one compact box, the new AU can be more easily installed on streetlight poles and building walls, providing operators a faster, simplified way to build out 5G networks.

The AU is also able to deliver an capacity of 10Gbps throughput, enabling operators to deliver higher 5G NR speeds to more users. Additionally, improved cost-efficiency is achieved by eliminating the need for ‘fronthaul’ fiber connections, thanks to the AU’s integration of the digital unit.

This video explains it nicely.



In addition, Samsung recently also announced that it has achieved the industry’s fastest 5G speeds in a lab demonstration that combined 800MHz of mmWave spectrum with MU-MIMO (Multi-User, Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output) technology, running on their AU.


According to their press release:

Using two test mobile devices, the demonstration achieved approximately 4.3Gbps speeds on each, reaching an industry peak speed of 8.5Gbps across both devices. In order to achieve the speed, two key technologies were used: carrier aggregation and MU-MIMO.

 This demonstration highlights the key difference of 5G – its use of mmWave spectrum. The wide bandwidth from mmWave spectrum enables mobile operators to provide multi-gigabit speeds that lower band spectrums are unable to match. With multi-gigabit speeds, users can experience transformational 5G mobile services. Mobile operators will be able to deliver new and rich services such as 8K video streaming, AR remote learning and holistic VR teleconferencing as well as new use cases that are yet to be imagined.


Finally, this Tweet by Samsung Network shows how the AU uses an ultra-quiet convection cooling design that lowers operating costs and environmental noise.

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Monday, 27 April 2020

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.




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.

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