CCS MultiPoint-to-MultiPoint (MPtMP) mesh wins Small Cell Forum Award

Picture Source: Lightspeed via Twitter

CCS recently won Small Cell Forum award for "Excellence in Commercial Deployment (Urban) category" for  Ultra-Fast, Next-Generation Backhaul Network in London’s Square Mile.

Absolutely delighted to have just been named Winner of the Excellence in Commercial Deployment (Urban) award at @SmallCell_Forum Small Cell Awards! #SCFAwards18 #SCWSWorld pic.twitter.com/jgCDJQesRd

— CCS (@CCS_multipoint) May 22, 2018

David Chambers, ThinkSmallCell wrote an in-depth article on this topic last year (here) but since then lot more small cells and new WiFi points have come up. The picture on the top shows the CCS Metnet backhauling a Wi-Fi hotspot and a Nokia Flexizone small cell from O2. Only recently has CCS declared that the City of London project is up and running. As pointed out in the article:

• CCS frames Metnet as the “world’s only self-organising 5G microwave backhaul”. Operating in the licensed 28GHz band, Metnet nodes are said to be unobtrusive and easy to install, with a wide field of view to minimise the need for radio unit installation.
• The CCS launch declaration also indicated that Nokia Flexi Zone small cells are being used for 4G connectivity, which is then carried over Metnet. This appears to be the first time Nokia has been referenced in connection with the City contract, with previously identified partners including Cisco Systems as a provider of access points for the Wi-Fi network, and Virgin Media for delivering core fibre links.

While the London deployment is in 28GHz band, the solution is also available in other bands as follows:

A more detailed datasheet is available here.

Finally, here is a nice video of the London Square Mile Deployment

Meshing for BYOC (Bring Your Own Coverage)

Back in November, a Senior Designer from EE did a presentation on LTE-powered Emergency Services Network (ESN). There were some interesting slides in that. One is as shown in the picture above while the other is in the tweet below.

Vehicle mounted Small Cells will play a big role in Public Safety LTE networks. Here is our old post looking at @Parallel_tw in-vehicle small cells for #PSLTE - https://t.co/LMUR337CVJ #SmallCells #ESN pic.twitter.com/kXKRvNFeit

— 3G4G (@3g4gUK) January 31, 2018

Interestingly this is something I have also looked in an earlier post here.

Meshing functionality has been tried a few times before, it does not work in every case. One of the successful cases is the use of mesh links in backhaul.

Parallel Wireless just put out a small video on Bring Your Own Coverage (BYOC - though BYOC can mean a lot of different things) as follows:

I have also blogged about Parallel Wireless Rural solution that uses mesh links too here.

Related Post (added 23 March 2019)

• Update on UK's Emergency Services Network (ESN) from BAPCO 2019

*Full Disclosure: I work for Parallel Wireless as a Senior Director in Strategic Marketing. 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.

Connecting the remote Alaskan Villages

A very nice article from the recent IEEE Spectrum Magazine here.

The $300 million telecom project will boost speeds or provide service to many areas of Alaska for the first time. TERRA was completed in October after six years of construction when engineers installed its final microwave repeater. The network uses a combination of repeater data links and fiber optics to form a giant, 5,000 kilometer ring around southwest Alaska — a sparsely populated region with few paved roads and wilderness areas larger than West Virginia.

Quoting from the magazine:

With TERRA, Kotzebue residents now pay $59.99 per month for an Internet plan with download speeds of 3 Mb/s, which is not even fast enough to stream a high-definition movie. To be able to do that, they would need to pay at least $149.99 per month for 6 Mb/s. Compare that with New York City, where residents pay an average of $55 per month for 25 Mb/s.

So was it worth $300 million to bring slightly better Internet to approximately 45,000 people in 84 rural villages spread out over an area roughly the size of Germany? For GCI, it was a strategic move. The project was completed as more customers began to watch more content online. Large clients such as hospitals and schools in rural communities also needed better access to the outside world. Partly thanks to TERRA, the company welcomed $12 million in new revenue for Internet service in the first three quarters of 2017, while losing $8 million from its cable-TV division.

Here is a video on how its done and the challenges:



Complete article here.

If you like to learn more about different backhaul types, see our short video tutorial here.

Virtua Small Cell Lamppost for IoT & Telematics

Virtua are showing off their rural solar small cell that fits nicely on the lamppost. The lamppost can be taken down to deploy the small cell and can be hoisted back up. Their website says:

The objective was to engineer a more cost effective rural small cell solution that would support applications such as Telematics & IOT.

The solution benefits from a hinged levered pole solution for ease of installation and maintenance. One of the applications uses GSM/Mesh repeater with a bespoke antenna and bracket design keeping the installation simple. This GSM/Mesh repeater radio technology negates the need for immediate backhaul and accelerates the solution into live operation.

A solar powered solution means that the active radio equipment is contained in the bespoke solar housing that sits at the top of the pole. The housing benefits from a lower wind resistant design and slides centrally down the levered pole for ease of install, no external power is required thus no electrical certification is necessary.  Installation is quick and simple with no external cables other than the antenna RF cables at the top of the pole making the speed to deploy cost effective keeping the customer ahead of the competition.

I can see some power issues with 3G/4G small cells, as they are more power hungry. Also, there may be issue in countries that has small winter days and very little sunshine. Nevertheless, its interesting concept.

Interesting video of their installation:

Rural Coverage Small Cells Solution - Installation from Virtua on Vimeo.

Connecting a rural Welsh village using 'Mesh Potato'

Came across this BBC program from 2016, 'The Big Fix by Simon Reeve'. There is interesting bit in it about connecting a rural village in Wales by mesh (mash) potato. You can find more about the device here and here.

The program is embedded below. If you are in a hurry, skip to 10 minutes and then skip to 34:50 min mark.

A write-up of this project is also available here.

Backhauling problems driving up deployment costs?

Going through iDate Digiworld Yearbook 2016, I came across this section on small cells. What caught my attention was the last sentence stating that in Europe, small cells deployments are "being hampered by installation and backhauling problems which are driving up deployment costs".

While this is generally true, there are ways around it when it comes to coverage rather than capacity. When small cells are being used for capacity, there needs to be a high throughput backhaul. Where capacity is the main reason, its generally time and cost which is of essence.

I have talked about how in-band backhaul (IBBH) could be used in case of providing rural coverage and emergency / temporary communications.

I get asked about IBBH many a times. A simple way to explain would be to use the diagram above. If the operator has enough spectrum, the macro layer (frequency f1) can provide backhaul to a small cell that transmits on another frequency (f2). This way there is no interference between macro cells and small cells. In case of in-band backhaul, the small cell would be transmitting at the same frequency (f1). Here, managing interference between macro cell and small cells is the biggest challenge.

Even though I have shown mesh links in the pictures above, its not a must. It just provides flexibility of expanding the coverage further in case the macro connectivity cannot reach other sites.

IBBH is not just a cheap option for backhauling, it also allows very quick deployments. I have seen sites go up within a few hours based on this option. While not perfect, it is a good compromise for extending the coverage.


Related posts and links:

• Small Cells: Best solution for rural coverage?
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Flying Small Cells are here...
• Discrete levels of inband and out of band small cell backhaul - ThinkSmallCell

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!

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: Digital inclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean - Feb 2016

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.

Rural & Remote: 2 case studies

Some good case studies posted by the Small Cell Forum about Rural & Remote small cells. The first one is from Softbank, Japan as follows:

The second is a presentation by Parallel Wireless

as follows: