BT/EE’s Growing Dependence on Small Cells to Boost Network Performance

EE, the consumer division of BT Group, stands as one of the UK’s largest subscription businesses, serving 25 million customers. Backed by the UK’s fastest mobile network, EE claims to deliver superfast connections in more locations than any other mobile network operator in the country.

Back in March 2022, EE announced that it has successfully deployed 200 new small cells across its UK network to boost capacity in high demand areas, allowing customers to benefit from download speeds up to 300Mbps. The press release noted:

EE has successfully deployed 200 new small cells across its UK network to boost capacity in high demand areas, allowing customers to benefit from download speeds up to 300Mbps. Small cells are mobile radio cells that help to provide better coverage for customers at street level, where it’s often impractical to build larger sites. Located on a variety of existing street assets, including BT’s iconic red telephone boxes, the units offer discreet boosters for coverage and are part of EE’s investment to maintain the UK’s best network.

Working in partnership with Nokia, EE uses advanced network analytics to identify areas where small cells will deliver a boost to network performance. A 4G small cell solution is then deployed which uses multiple spectrum bands to give a better experience. EE’s licenced 1800MHz and 2600Mhz spectrum bands are coupled with unlicenced 5GHz spectrum, to deliver standout speeds in densely congested areas. Working with local authorities, EE is making use of existing street assets to minimise their impact, including lamp posts, CCTV columns and BT phone boxes.

As well as Leeds, London and Manchester, EE and Nokia have also brought these new small cells online in parts of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham and Scarborough. Hundreds more small cell deployments are planned in the next 18 months, as EE uses the technology to bring additional network capacity to more locations, including some summer hotspots. EE’s commitment to providing the highest possible quality of experience will also see its use of small cells extend to its 5G network, with trials expected to begin soon. Nokia’s AirScale portfolio can also be seamlessly upgraded to 5G.

Then a BT press release in June 2023 highlighted that EE now had 611 small cell sites carrying 20TB of data traffic every day – the equivalent of streaming 8,000 hours of HD video or 280,000 hours of music – demonstrating the substantial value they offer to customers in high demand areas, as well as the importance of EE’s strategy to build prior to the arrival of any congestion whenever possible.

The most recent announcement from Aug 2024 highlighted that EE has now deployed over 1000 small cells across the UK, marking 400 new deployments over the last 12 months including its first 5G sites, recently installed in Croydon, London. The press release said: 

EE’s first 5G small cells are also now live as part of a trial taking place in the London Borough of Croydon. Seven sites, including four along Croydon’s London Road – a busy thoroughfare lined with businesses, shops and homes – are now supporting the local community, seeing over 3TB of traffic each day.

EE uses advanced network analytics to identify specific locations which would benefit from the performance boost enabled by a small cell. It then works with partners Nokia and Ericsson to deploy the solution itself, reducing congestion and enabling customers to benefit from speeds of up to 300Mbps for 4G cells, and 600Mbps for 5G. EE is unique within Europe in combining licenced 1800MHz and 2600Mhz spectrum with unlicensed 5GHz spectrum in its 4G small cells, which helps to deliver excellent capacity and speeds. The new 5G cells in Croydon are configured with licensed 1800MHz spectrum for 4G and 3.5GHz for 5G.

In addition to the above announcements, Freshwave, a connectivity infrastructure-as-a-service provider, announced that they have deployed neutral host solution in the City of London and EE are the first MNO to go live on this infrastructure. Their press release said:

A first-of-its-kind outdoor small cell project in the City of London has been such a success that it has now moved beyond the trial phase. Twenty-five new sites for mobile network operator (MNO) EE are now live on Freshwave’s infrastructure, adding capacity and enhancing the 4G and 5G network experience for EE mobile users in one of the world’s preeminent financial districts. Dozens of additional new sites for EE are also currently being built and will enhance mobile connectivity to the UK’s best network(1) in even more of the Square Mile when they are brought live in the future.

Freshwave, a connectivity infrastructure-as-a-service provider, built new mobile infrastructure for the project and EE was the first MNO to go live in December 2022. Across all of the sites involved in the initial pilot, EE is seeing up to 7.5TB of data downloaded per week. 

Freshwave’s bespoke solution enables the network to accommodate all four MNOs on 4G and 5G from day one with no adjustments needed to the infrastructure – making it a UK first. The solution features specially designed wideband antennas, cabinets and columns and extensive dark fibre to each cabinet.

As a neutral host, Freshwave operates the network deploying shareable infrastructure, reducing equipment duplication and creating a more cost-effective solution. This approach also minimises street clutter and the associated disruption during street works. Shareable infrastructure also reduces the environmental impact, while still assuring the mobile connectivity people expect when out and about.

The 25 new live sites are strategically located throughout the Square Mile, including notable landmarks such as outside St Paul’s Cathedral, Cannon Street and the Bank of England on Threadneedle Street.

Outdoor small cells are installed at street level which make them ideal for adding capacity to mobile networks. In busy urban areas, where large numbers of people use their mobiles simultaneously, demand on the macro network can be substantial. Outdoor small cells help alleviate some of this demand themselves, relieving the macro network and ensuring a better experience for users. 

I anticipate many more announcements like these in the future, as the industry increasingly relies on higher frequencies to relieve capacity constraints in densely populated urban areas. 

Related Posts: 

• Operator Watch Blog: EE Combines More 4G and 5G Spectrum for Even Higher Data Rates
• Connectivity Technology Blog: 5G Demystified; the What, When and Where by Prof. Andy Sutton, BT
• Operator Watch Blog: BT UK's Journey to Automation
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Small Cells in BT Phone Boxes
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Meshing for BYOC (Bring Your Own Coverage) 

Synchronization for 5G - Requirements, Solutions & Architecture

Couple of months back, Oscilloquartz, an ADVA company, announced that BT is leveraging its high-capacity, future-proof Oscilloquartz synchronization technology to bring 4G coverage to previously underserved areas and begin the rollout of 5G services across the UK. Prior to this deployment, BT’s timing network was based purely on frequency synchronization. With the new solution, it can now distribute stable and accurate phase and time-of-day information, enabling BT to dramatically improve the use of its spectrum. The new synchronization network is built on the OSA 5430 and OSA 5440 and integrated with ADVA’s network management solution. The technology provides the sub-microsecond accuracy required for next-generation mobile applications together with hardware redundancy for unbeatable resilience.

At the Small Cell World Summit held earlier this month, Gil Biran's presentation outlined the key synchronization requirements and solutions for mobile networks in the era of 5G. Check out the slide deck embedded below to discover how longest holdover and highest precision can be achieved with the "industry's most comprehensive timing technology portfolio".

Synchronization for 5G: the requirements and the solutions from ADVA

This video of OSA 5430, the first high-capacity grandmaster clock available on the market to support PTP, NTP and SyncE over multiple 10Gbit/s Ethernet interfaces is also worth a watch. It's also the first device of its kind to provide redundancy and protection.

Small Cells in BT Phone Boxes

Picture Source: Andy Sutton

In a news announcement yesterday, Vodafone said that they are planning to install 4G and 5G equipment to the underside of thousands of manhole covers across Britain to boost connection speeds in the busiest urban areas and meet the public’s insatiable demand for mobile data.

According to the report, Vodafone, which has hundreds of thousands of Cable & Wireless-branded manholes as part of its network, has developed the subterranean plan alongside Swedish telecoms equipment group Ericsson. The system is known internally as The Vault.

Attaching antenna equipment to the base of a manhole cover can boost the signal across a 200-metre radius, according to Vodafone, and could be critical in supporting future “smart city” technologies such as connected traffic lights. Installation does not require planning permission, which speeds up network build.

Vodafone and Ericsson have developed two types of system. One attaches equipment to the base of existing Victorian-era cast iron manhole covers. Another is a bespoke reinforced unit the size of a water butt that is sunk into the ground underneath a purpose-built cover.

We have blogged about Small cells infrastructure underground and in manhole covers. The following posts are related to that:

• Small Cells & Wi-Fi in the pavements & roads
• Underground Small Cells
• NTT Docomo's Underground LTE Small Cells with possibility to deploy 5G in future

Phone boxes, which are connected to the power supply, are a useful tool to boost demand on high streets and in rural areas. Vodafone has signed a deal with BT’s wholesale division to install 4G antennas in phone boxes, and has kitted out one on Edinburgh’s Princes Street to improve coverage in time for the Hogmanay celebrations on New Year’s Eve.

The picture on the top from Andy Sutton is from Small Cells World Summit back in may. He says, "New life for old kiosks, KX100+ accommodating a 4G LTE small cell for enhancing mobile area capacity density"

ThinkSmallCell has a nice picture of the top of the KX100+ phone booth. In it's report on the Small Cells World Summit 2018, David Chambers says the following:

BT had the largest demo with a full size telephone box equipped with a small cell hidden in the roof space. Although only one Nokia small cell was fitted, the unit could accommodate several from different network operators. Each site is backhaul with either 100Mbps or 1Gbps managed Ethernet and transmits above head height using an omnidirectional antenna. It would seem we will shortly be making phone calls from telephone boxes again, just without realising it.

It would be interesting to see some more of these old phone boxes converted into small cell towers.

See also:

• Vodafone News: Vodafone lifts lid on manhole covers to improve mobile coverage

Here is a tweet containing picture of Ericsson's vault radio system for anyone interested:

If I can briefly be a bit naughty, here's a diagram from E/// of the vault radio system. pic.twitter.com/1FMgwtofRM

— lightspeed (@lightspeed2398) December 11, 2018

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.

Verizon's got Balls and Small Cells

Matsing Balls are a first in an NFL Stadium at U.S. Bank Stadium - Source: Verizon

Love the fact that the mobile network operators have become quite open in talking about their infrastructure, data consumption statistics and their future plans. Last week I talked about Sprint's small cell deployments for Super Bowl, this week some info from Verizon.

Verizon has talked in detail in their blog about how its coping with the huge demand in data that has been increasing every year. Here is an extract from a few Verizon blogs.

The permanent new network enhancements will boost performance in U.S. Bank Stadium and areas of anticipated high demand, including Super Bowl LIVE, Super Bowl Experience, popular tourist attractions, airports, hotels, venues and other special event locations throughout the Twin Cities area. 

Verizon’s network enhancements for you include: 

• 24 new permanent cell sites 
• 230+ permanent small cell sites 
• Doubling of network capacity on Nicollet Mall with a new small cell/design solution inside new bus shelters
• LTE Advanced features added to the 4G LTE network for greater capacity and faster peak data speeds
• 48 percent more antennas added to Verizon’s Distributed Antenna System (DAS) at the Stadium in 2017
• A new neutral host DAS system at Mall of America® boosting Verizon’s network capacity by 900 percent
• A new neutral host DAS system at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport adding new 4G LTE coverage in tunnels, boosting Verizon’s network capacity throughout the airport by more than 1,000 percent 

Handrail antennas in U.S. Bank Stadium - Source: Verizon

DAS: Verizon built a neutral host state-of-the-art network system when the new tech-advanced U.S. Bank stadium opened in 2016 for the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority and added 48 percent more antennas in 2017 with innovative design solutions exclusively for your connectivity, including drink rail, handrail and under the seat antennas. 

The stadium DAS system Verizon built is one of the largest in the U.S. and Verizon customers will be connected by more than 1,200 antennas distributed over more than 100 coverage zones. A similar outdoor stadium DAS provides coverage at the east entrance, light rail station and west plaza area. In the first indoor use at an NFL stadium, two Matsing Ball antennas (that appear like giant white disco balls) are installed 330 feet above the field on the ridge beam. They provide coverage by dividing the field into sectors, like slices of a pie, for Super Bowl photographers and staff, and for you at popular concerts with floor seating. 

One of Verizon’s small cells outside U.S. Bank stadium enhances wireless data capacity. - Source Verizon

Small Cells: Small cells are designed to blend into the urban landscape, literally “hiding in plain sight” on street lights, traffic signals or utility poles, and provide 4G LTE coverage for a radius of approximately 1,000 feet.  Small cells bring the fiber connections and network “densification” needed to enable Smart Cities technology (like managing traffic flow) and the next generation network, 5G. As part of our Smart Communities work with the city of Minneapolis, we’ve also installed security cameras on street lights with our small cells in the downtown area to help the city ensure the best experience possible for fans and citizens.

On the side, Verizon also deployed a network for Public Safety officials and it tested the limits of 5G.

So what did the statistics look like? Here it is from another blog post:

Game day facts 

• Verizon’s network was used by 57% of the attendees in the stadium at this year’s Super Bowl, up from 45% the previous year.
• Verizon fans benefitted from the highest average download speeds at U.S. Bank Stadium according to third-party testing by P3 of all four national carriers during the game. 
• On Super Bowl game day, Verizon fans used 18.8 TB of data in and around the stadium, the equivalent of a single user binge watching HD video for 435 straight days.
• The data usage by Verizon fans was 70.9% more than the 11 TB used at Super Bowl 51 – the same as watching HD video for 256 days in a row. At Super Bowl 50, Verizon customers used 7 TB of data – roughly 1/3 of Sunday’s big game.
• Top wireless uses by Verizon customers were led, in this order, by web browsing, streaming video and using social media and sports apps.  
• The top three favorite social media apps of Verizon customers were Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram, with Snapchat moving from third at last year’s Super Bowl to first most used.

The biggest spikes of wireless data usage occurred during:

• The halftime show driven by social media video sharing. 
• The next biggest usage spikes occurred when the Patriots fumbled the ball late in the fourth quarter, and;
• At the game kickoff, with fans streaming video and web browsing.

Our Network team of 150 engineers, 3X the size of an NFL team roster, staffed Verizon’s network Command Center 24x7 to ensure a reliable network experience for fans, first responders and public safety teams.

So the headline figure was 'Verizon fans used 18.8 TB of data in and around the stadium'.

To put this in perspective, here is a tweet from EE CEO, Marc Allera:

Tottenham's 2-0 win against Man Utd in January currently holds the record for the most shared #PremierLeague game on the @EE network @wembleystadium – fans used nearly 1 terabyte of data (988GB) ⚽📲👍

Will the #NorthLondonDerby exceed that figure on Saturday? #TOTARS pic.twitter.com/2Y9qx46XFZ

— Marc Allera (@MarcAllera) February 8, 2018

So you can see how much data was consumed in the Super Bowl match.

Localytics has some more info on the data consumption pattern, apps, etc. during the Super Bowl here.

Looking forward to finding some similar info from T-Mobile and AT&T.

Top 5 posts for 2017

Here are the top 5 posts (in descending order of popularity) for 2017:

1. Flying Small Cells are here...
2. Telefonica's LTE Nano Small Cell
3. Small Cells are growing in India
4. Ericsson Radio Dot: Evolution and Technical information
5. Antennas for Small Cells and C-RAN (note, it was posted in 2016)

Related posts:

• The 3G4G Blog: Top 10 posts for 2017 and some other 3G4G info
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Top 5 posts for 2016
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Top 5 posts for 2015
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Top 5 posts for 2014

CW Seminar on DAS vs Small Cells

I mentioned about the CW seminar in my earlier post here. The event is over so here are a few takeaways from the seminar.

The good news about CW Small Cells events is that David Chambers (ThinkSmallCell) does a very comprehensive summary. For this one, its available here.

For a limited time (for non-members), the presentations from the speakers is available on CW website here.

I wanted to highlight few takeaways and stats that were quoted during the seminar as follows:

• The 5 challenges of deploying small cells: compelling event, capacity, complexity, coverage, cost
• 90 operators now offer unlimited service with voice, SMS & Data
• Due to European roaming charges having been scrapped, there is 300% growth in European roaming traffic since last year.
• Average consumption is 1.9Gbytes/month forecast to be 15.8Gbytes by 2022. Finish operator Elisa is already running at an average of 18GB/month
• Modern inbuilding systems are 2T2R with many older installation still using SISO.
• 40% of the workforce will be freelancers, temps, independent contractors and solopreneurs by 2020 (Not sure if this is UK or worldwide figure)
• 39% of millenials say they interact more with their smartphones than they do with theur significant others, parents, friends, children or co-workers
• By the end of 2017, around 14000 co-working spaces will be in operation worldwide
• 67% of people around the world use a personal device at work to some degree

I have highlighted Opencell's view on DAS vs Small Cells in the earlier post here. This Tweet below also shows the comparison points

Good comparison between DAS & Small Cells by Graham Payne of @youvegotnetwork at @cambwireless #CWSmallCell pic.twitter.com/wE8MChjPSB

— Parallel Wireless (@Parallel_tw) December 7, 2017

Bob Slorach, from Wireless Infrastructure Group (WIG), drew some clear guidelines about building size, pointing to the needs of buildings between about 50000 to 300000 sq. ft. This represents a huge unmet demand of around 2 Billion sq. ft. in the UK alone.

As can be seen in the picture above, picocells can serve smaller venues while a 5 watt small cell (microcell) with distributed RF can satisfy the 100 - 300K sq. ft. venues. For bigger venues, a higher power unit would be required. It would also justify to have a neutral host solution so the costs could be distributed and coverage is available for everyone.

Adis Omeragic, Special Projects Manager at EE, shared his side of the story. While his slides are still not on the site (they are expected to be available), I have emnedded a tweet below.

Some very clear and concise points made by Adis Omeragic of @EE regarding DAS and Small Cells at @cambwireless #CWSmallCell pic.twitter.com/wNTlmbPNol

— Parallel Wireless (@Parallel_tw) December 7, 2017

Some of the points he made were, while passive DAS may no longer be used, active DAS will be around. Only about 5% of DAS deployments in the UK have all four operators connected as of today.

According to Adis, DAS displacement is slow because of lack of roadmap alignment between macros and small cells. Small cells upgrade path is very limited. DAS allows Carrier Aggregation, Multi-technology and multi-band capability, SON features which are more common in macros, etc.

Due to the new features like 4x4 MIMO and even Massive MIMO, things may start going in favour of small cells.

One final point that was discussed in the panel was whether VoWiFi is good enough so there is no longer a need for residential or enterprise femtocells.

While the panelists agreed that VoWifi is good enough for residential, it may not be good enough for enterprises. I disagree. If the enterprise has designed their WiFi networks properly, this may not be much of an issue.

There is other issue of the lack of devices and operators support for VoWiFi. As EE pointed out, they only support it for post-paid customers, on direct contract with them. So pre-paid, MVNO and partner customers wont benefit. Also, its supported in limited number of devices.

Drones, More Drones & Droneway

I have written about Drones and Balloons in the past, mainly to BT/EE. Take for instance this presentation by Mansoor Hanif at TIP Summit and this one on Flying Small Cells. In addition I have also talked about Telefonica's Nano cell, which is a small cell on a drone; Verizon's 'flying cell-site' and AT&T's flying COW.

This week the US operator Sprint announced that they are trialing their Magic boxes on drones. Here is a video on that:

Back in August, IEEE Spectrum ran an article on how Flying Cell Towers Could Aid Search and Rescue. Base stations carried by drones would form an ad hoc network and connect first responders.

Picture Source: IEEE Spectrum

From the IEEE Spectrum article:

An aerial communications system supported by drones could be deployed much faster and operate with minimal interference. In 2013, we started to think about what such a drone-based communications system for public safety agencies might look like. We knew it would need a shared radio-frequency channel for first responders, drone-portable base stations, a power supply, and a digital database for exchanging information. We would also need controllers that would be easy enough for a licensed drone pilot to operate in a crisis.

Our first major challenge was to find a base station small enough for a drone to support. Drones under 25 kilograms—the limit now imposed by U.S. air-safety regulators—can carry a maximum payload of about 2 kg, so we would need a base station that weighed less, even with its battery.

Finally, my search led me to a startup named Virtual Network Communications. This company, based in Chantilly, Va., sells a product called a GreenCell that seemed suitable. It’s a scalable LTE base station, known as a picocell, which is typically used to extend the reach of an existing network but can also generate its own network. The base station contains an E-UTRAN Node B radio with two antennas and a credit-card-size component called a Micro Evolved Packet Core, which uses LTE technology to form an ad hoc network with nearby radios. Then, that local network connects to a nationwide cellular network.

With these components, our GreenCell can support communications for up to 128 users at a time from a distance of up to about 2 kilometers on any LTE frequency. Better yet, it measures just 12.5 by 12.5 centimeters and weighs only 2 kg with its battery, just light enough to be lifted by a drone.

Once we had found a suitable base station, we still needed to find a suitable drone. Ideally, it would be affordable and be capable of flying for 10 to 12 hours before needing a recharge. Unfortunately, no such drone exists today. Most commercial drones can stay aloft for fewer than 45 minutes.

After some research, I found a company named CyPhy Works, which has developed a drone powered through a 150-meter cord that extends up from a grid or generator. Technically, this drone could stay in the air for as long as it had access to a power supply on the ground. But in a disaster scenario, it would have to be tethered to a van loaded with a generator and fuel. That would limit it to serving the same road-accessible places to which mobile units already travel. Another drawback: The drone’s tether restricts its mobility once it’s in the air. We wanted to be able to reconfigure our network in an instant.

We briefly considered using balloons instead of drones, but we discovered through trial and error that balloons are difficult to reposition and hold in place, especially during high winds.

We decided instead to use the AR200 drone from AirRobot, a company based in Arnsberg, Germany. The AR200 has six rotors that allow it to hover more steadily than the usual four. And because the AirRobot drone is battery powered, it can zoom off to any location.

In summer, Qualcomm unveiled [PDF report] the results of a months-long drone trial program, which found LTE networks today already provide the aerial connectivity necessary to support commercial unmanned aerial vehicle deployments. But the tech giant noted some network optimizations will be necessary to take drone deployments to new heights. As per their blog post:

During the field trial, approximately 1,000 flights were performed to collect datasets that were post processed and analyzed. We also performed simulations to complement field trial results by allowing study of performance tradeoffs when the network is serving many mobile devices and LTE-connected drones simultaneously over a wide area. Simulations also enabled rapid testing of parameter and feature changes that are more difficult to study in a commercial network.

The field trial demonstrated that LTE networks can support safe drone operation in real-world environments. Our findings showed that existing commercial cellular networks can provide coverage to drones at low altitudes up to 400 feet AGL. Our test drones also showed seamless handovers between different base stations during flights. Below is a glimpse of these findings.

According to Mobile World Live,

The head of AT&T’s Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) business development team said the operator is working with regulatory authorities and standards organisations to “unlock” the potential of drones.

Speaking with Mobile World Live, Greg Belaus said many tests of drones on cellular networks so far have been conducted at a height of 400 feet. In the US, Belaus explained that airspace is governed by the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Part 107 rules. Belaus said “a lot of work” on drones right now is focused on what needs to be done to open that area for drone services.

There is an interesting AT&T Flying COW presentation on Youtube for anyone interested, here.

#DronemanGhoshy is creating the world's first "Droneway" like you have Motorways and Railways! pic.twitter.com/4HBMGYrrmk

— Ayan Ghosh (@DronemanGhoshy) September 11, 2017

Finally, looks like "Droneway" may be becoming a reality soon. As one of the partners involved in the project, I may not be at a liberty to say much but this photo of the article below (click to expand) provides an idea 😊

*Full Disclosure: I work for Parallel Wireless as a Senior Director, 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.

Is small-cell thinking changing the face of remote and rural coverage?

Its been a few months since this Cambridge Wireless (CW) seminar on 'Is small-cell thinking changing the face of remote and rural coverage?'. David Chambers (ThinkSmallCell) has written a post summarising the event here but I thought it would be worth bringing this event to people's attention.

The presentations from this event are available here. There was a talk on how Nokia Kuha are being installed on Isle of Lewis in Scotland. I have written about them earlier here.

IP.Access talked about their rural deployment in Peru. To quote thinksmallcell article:

For the most remote areas, ip.access gave an extreme example from Peru where it took two days just to reach the site. Again the financial figures look small but can still be profitable. Where a macrocell might serve 1000-2000 users, a remote small cell might serve 100. In this example, a village with 300 people attracted 91 users with an ARPU of $11 generating $12,000 per annum. 

This was an EU funded research project called TUCAN3G. There are more details about it on the project website.

Real Wireless talked about the whitepaper they did for Small Cell Forum. It makes an interesting reading.

Finally, Ayan Ghosh from BT talked about Airmasts. I have covered this in detail here.

With regards to the IP.Access Peru story where remote users did generate a lot of revenue for the operator, I know the same applies to UK. From my travels looking at rural coverage I have seen that the users in rural community make full use of whatever capacity is made available to them. I posted an interview that I am posting again below.


Related links:

• CW seminar on Remote and Rural Small Cells - ThinkSmallCell
• Business drivers for connecting the unconnected via small cells - Small Cell Forum
• 'Is small-cell thinking changing the face of remote and rural coverage?' - Cambridge Wireless

Small Cells World Summit 2017 Summary

I realised that I never got round to writing a summary post for Small Cells World Summit 2017. In fact I was waiting for summaries for various publications before writing a post but there was much less coverage this year.

Having said that, there were reasonable number of operators and most major vendors present. Small cells have sort of gone mainstream from their niche as many operators are now talking of small cells for 5G (mainly higher frequencies).

Anyway, here are some links with what I found interesting that you can explore further.

Here are some things ThinkSmallCell reported. Full report here:

SCWS, now in its 9th year, remains a regular feature of the small cell calendar. Now a two day conference, attendance was lower than some years ago but stable with noticeably more system integrators/installers actively participating. There was a little more focus on business enablers rather than technology this year, addressing deployment issues and neutral host opportunities for enterprise, urban and rural sectors.
...
The scope of SCWS is intended to embrace all of Small Cells, DAS and (Public Access) Wi-Fi. We saw one or two more DAS vendors participate but there was relatively little public Wi-Fi content. Perhaps that reflects the limited interest for that in Europe, as we saw at the recent Wireless Broadband Congress. The program included a few keynote speakers from operators (EE, O2, ATT, KDDI, Softbank) and some industry verticals (AEG, which operates the O2 dome and other stadiums; Grange Hotels etc.)       

Many mature small cell products are available today for both 3G and LTE. Form factors continue to shrink, software is becoming further automated and refined. The backhaul conference stream has been dropped with CCS now the most prominent independent small cell backhaul vendor.
...
The event provides an excellent opportunity to meet and reconnect with industry players, both old and new. The emphasis and participation has evolved over the years, but it remains a key focal point to assess the current state of play for the industry.

Here are some things The Mobile Network reported. Full report here:

The day before the Summit started Nokia assembled a few journalists in a meeting room and gave them a portfolio update. Of note in this was the revelation that the company will be shipping tens of thousands, in fact more than 50 thousand, of its Mini Macro cell sites to Sprint. This is on top of another wide scale roll out of the boxes – which are 2x20W sites in a 5 litre box – in China and Japan where the vendor expects to ship another 40,000. There are 3,000 headed to Brazil, as well, to be deployed as an underlay under Ericsson macro cells.
...
One notable aspect of the event was the amount of talk about using small cells in rural, in dense indoor and in other hard to reach areas. Mansoor Hanif spoke of some of the work BT is looking at to enable it to spread coverage to hard to reach areas. There is a real range of work, best summed up in this picture.

Of note is its work with TIP, where it hopes to be able to plug in open base stations as part of its Kuha community-run small cells programme – as per its project on the island of Harris supported by Nokia at the moment. With Lime Microsystems it is delivering a software defined radio base to Open Source, and hopes to attract developers to build applications on top of the Lime SDR platform. Hanif wants to move the cycle for introducing a new feature into a network from months to weeks – but he added that he doesn’t think any operator has the skills to manage that internally – hence the move to Open Source.
...
KDDI’s Fumio Watanabe presented some findings from the operators trials of mobile mmWave systems. The operator’s field trial use 40GHz and 60GHz bands, with a user moving between different bands and being “handed over” between access points. This sort of mobility requires dual interband connectivity and multi-site CoMP to handle the mobility between different sites and bands as a user goes out of line of site of an access point.

It may also require some architecture shifts Watanabe said, including the likes of ICN and MEC.
...
Backhaul provider CCS has a couple of things going on. First, it is involved as the backhaul provider to Telefonica O2’s deployment of outdoor WiFi and cellular small cells in the City of London. Steve Greaves, CEO, said that the company will support 450 small cells and 150 WiFi access points by siting its backhaul nodes at 30 Virgin media fibre points – with each backhaul node supporting 3-5 WiFi access points. The backhaul nodes are providing 1.2Gbps capacities at 24/26/28 GHz bands.

Greaves is also enthused by an upcoming product launch from CCS, as the company enters the 60GHz band with a 10Gbps product. Greaves says that CCS will go beyond products from the likes of Siklu, by modifying the basic WiGig chip that providers currently use, to add tighter carrier grade SynchE 1588, and greater interference control. The product will not be available until early 2018, he added.

Another interesting aspect of the City of London deployment – the concession model between the City of London and Telefonica – means that Telefonica must host other operators’ small cells within the deployment if asked. But these may not be on the same pole as Telefonica’s small cells, given there is a limit of two boxes per pole. From a backhaul perspective – that obviously introduces more complexity – as Telefonica must introduce a V-LAN for each operator, with different QoS.

Virgin Media Business, by the way, has 100,000 cabinets in London alone, and wants to use them to act as potential hosts for small cells, by adding a small pole to the cabinet, said its adviser Paul Coffey. The company is also looking at enabling neutral host model using its street infrastructure. Its wholesale business supplying backhaul to the UK’s operators already runs to £150 million per year, Coffey said.

Related Posts:

• Nokia Kuha: Community-run Small Cells
• Small Cell Forum Awards 2017 Winners
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Flying Small Cells are here...
• Drone cells are becoming a reality 

Rural Small Cells: An end user story

At the end of a recent seminar on small cells (without mentioning any details) someone from the organising team asked me (as they know me well), "we keep on hearing that small cells can make a huge difference but when will it start making that difference?". I am glad to say that I can share one such video that shows how small cells are making huge differences.

I am cross posting this video from Parallel Wireless Blog. This is a story of a couple, who are both retired doctors based in a village near Halifax in England, UK.


There are many other similar stories that we have come across, not just in UK but many other countries where rural small cells are making huge differences in communities by not only providing connectivity but also by making quality of life much better.

According to this ITU report, 53% of the world’s population is still offline, with the majority located in Africa and Asia-Pacific. This means there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to #ConnectTheUnconnected

*Full Disclosure: I work for Parallel Wireless as a Senior Director, 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.

Nokia Kuha: Community-run Small Cells

In a recent presentation at Small Cells World Summit, Mansoor Hanif – Director of Converged Networks Research Lab mentioned about Kuha, community run small cells in Isle of Harris. There is very little information on Kuha available online.

The Pitch OPEN website provides the following info: Kuha is the Nokia solution for connecting the unconnected – that means the 30% of the world population living without Mobile Internet. Kuha helps network operators to extend their service to communities that have so far not been connected because of the high cost of base station deployments.

kuha.io has more details on how it works but surprisingly not much mention of Nokia. All it says is "We're a team of 5 entrepreneurs with years of telco experience. We are currently developing the product, studying the market and connecting the world, one internet connection at a time."

Connecting the unconnected - #nokiakuha mobile network by @nokia #IoT https://t.co/FdPxikm0LF pic.twitter.com/CSB3HMEzoJ

— Juhani Polkko 🇫🇮 (@juhani) January 23, 2017

Finally, this tweet above has just a little bit more info on this topic.

Temporary masts for festivals, events, etc.

I really enjoyed watching couple of video's from Peter Clarke of temporary masts that are installed at events like Glastonbury festival and other high profile events.  They are both embedded below:




If you enjoyed, check out more videos like these on his Youtube channel here.

Small Cell Forum Awards 2017 Winners

The Small Cells Forum (SCF) Awards 2017 were recently held as part of Small Cells World Summit. The Small Cell Industry Awards are a recognized badge of excellence and innovation with a panel of impartial judges – comprised of analysts, journalists and industry experts – ensure the independence and quality of the awards. Its one of the few awards that I really respect for its impartiality.

The award nominees can be viewed here and the winners are here. The photographs are available here. I have covered some of the winners as part of this blog so I am listing those posts below.

Parallel Wireless & Gilat Parallel Wireless and Gilat Connecting the Unconnected in the Outback - I wrote this post 'Small Cells to help connect Australian Outback'. There is a very good video, unfortunately cant be embedded on this news item here.

Parallel Wireless Removing Deployment Constraints of Small Cell vRAN and 5G HetNets - I have not directly covered this topic, but will do soon. This post from last year 'HetNets On The Bus' gives an idea on how the HetNet Gateway (HNG) removes deployment constraints and future proof the network. Interested readers can find more detailed info on Parallel Wireless website here.

Vodafone CrowdCell: Using Macro Radio Network to Backhaul Open-Access Small Cells - I have covered this as part of 'Small Cells at Mobile World Congress 2017' and earlier 'Vehicular CrowdCell or Vehicular Small Cell and the 5G plan'

BT & EE EE Air Mast Using Small Cells - This is my favourite as I was personally involved in this activity. I have two posts on this one. The first one is 'Flying Small Cells are here...' and the second one is 'Connecting Rural Scotland using Airmasts and Droneways'. I have to admit that this is a very ambitious project, especially the second one.

*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.

Loon powered emergency networks for flood affected Peru

In the past, when earthquake and floods used to take out mobile connectivity, satellite used to be the only way forward. See here for instance for use of satellite connectivity in Nepal and Japan. I really like the Network in a backpack from Vodafone picture in that post.

Having said that, things have moved on in the last few years. In my earlier post I discussed about Telefonica's network in a box that weighs just 40 grams. This can be deployed in conjunction with a drone or a Helikite and you have a self-contained coverage. EE is taking this further and plans to connect Scotland using Airmasts and Droneways.

In the recent floods in Peru, Telefonica worked with Google Loon team to to re-connect the service and re-establish mobile communications, which are particularly crucial in such dire circumstances. According to their blog:

Telefónica and Project Loon brought basic Internet connectivity across more than 40,000 Km2, providing over 160 GB worth of data –enough to send and receive roughly 30 million WhatsApp messages, or 2 million emails.

The Google Loon team have their own blog posts on this topic here and here.

The picture on the top is a modified picture from Project Loon that explains how the Loon's work. Fundamentally the working is sort of the same, regardless of the technology you use. As I explained in my other post here, when you use Helikites for example and create a mesh network its similar to the Loon's using laser for connectivity between them. All technologies need backhaul to connect to the outside world and access to connect to the end user.


Further reading:

• What it’s like to set up balloon-powered internet during a flood - Project Loon
• Helping out in Peru - Project Loon
• Telefónica and Project Loon provide emergency mobile connectivity to Peru
• Flying Small Cells are here...
• Connecting Rural Scotland using Airmasts and Droneways
• Project Loon - Technology

Flying Small Cells are here...

The UK mobile network operator EE has done a press release on 'Airmast technology for rural mobile coverage and disaster recovery'. The idea of having mobile base stations was first conceived by the previous CEO of EE, Olaf Swantee and then Director of RAN Mansoor Hanif in early 2015.

With the 4G small cells making it to the market in 2015/16, Mansoor brought in the  Ayan Ghosh (a.k.a. "Droneman") to lead the airmast project. While Parallel Wireless (PW) and Nokia had been actively working with EE, innovative solutions require innovative partners. This led to finding some very innovative solution providers, some of them based in the UK. Allsopp Helikites based for example is based in Salisbury who specialise in balloon deployments. Other partners included Voltserver with their smart digital power, Avanti with the satellite, UVue with their drones, Parallel Wireless with the Mesh 4G radio and Nokia with Smallcells were introduced to each other for collaboratively coming up with a solution.

The Helikite and Drone solutions are designed to provide temporary coverage not only in case of emergency but also in case of floods, power failures, fiber breaks, etc. They can also supplement the existing coverage in case of big festivals like Glastonbury, etc. In fact one of the example given by Marc Allera, CEO of EE was that anyone climbing a mountain where there may be a limited coverage can order 'coverage on demand' in future.

As part of the team to convert these innovative ideas into reality, we (Parallel Wireless) focused on small cell on the helikite with with tethered power, in-band backhaul (IBBH) and mesh link. The picture below will clarify what we have achieved.

In our case, the small cells worked in tandem with the HetNet Gateway (HNG) can self-configure and self-optimize the power, coverage, etc.

A more detailed slide from Mansoor Hanif's presentation at the Facebook TIP Summit can be seen below.

In fact to make this a success, there were many different components. Voltserver providing digital power that allows a thin cable to run along with the tether and power the small cell and other equipment on the Helikite. Having power to the helikite ensures that it can stay up for 2 - 4 weeks before being brought down to refill helium. Without this power source, 2 x 24V battery would last maybe an hour or two.

The Helikite itself by Allsopp helikites which are unique in their own way. A whitepaper by Aerostats All Australia (AAA) provides a nice comparison of different Aerostats and shows that Helikite performs better than other types, mainly in windy scenarios.

In addition to the Parallel Wireless solution, Nokia showed drones with and without the power tether and also satellite based backhaul, powered by Avanti.

From EE's press release:

EE’s breakthroughs in developing innovative aerial solutions have been achieved with the support of the most innovative partners from the mobile industry and beyond: Nokia has provided world class, lightweight, compact and portable Flexi Zone small cell basestation solutions; Parallel Wireless has delivered a unique technology with self-configuring and self-optimising basestation, in-band backhaul capability, and network meshing techniques; Avanti has enabled a fast, reliable satellite backhaul connection; VoltServer has provided touch-safe and flexible Digital Electricity power over data cable/tether; uVue has evolved drone designs to meet the specific requirements of providing mobile coverage; and Allsopp Helikites has provided the ‘Helikite’ solution that makes a stable, high altitude service possible.

The press release also notes that "EE’s tethered and powered mobile ‘air mast’ solutions are currently in patent-pending status."

Here is an interesting video from EE on how air masts will work:




My favourite picture is one posted by Mansoor Hanif on Linkedin after the first demo at BT, Madley.

Related links:

• EE Pioneers Air Mast Technology for Rural Mobile Coverage and Disaster Recovery
• Parallel Wireless and EE – Taking Small Cells to the Skies
• EE demonstrate innovative disaster recovery using small cells
• Some pictures from the EE showcase on Facebook

Related Blog Posts:

• The 3G4G Blog: An Introduction to Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN)
• Connectivity Technology Blog: TIP has launched 'Non-Terrestrial Connectivity Solutions' Group
• The 3G4G Blog: Connectivity on Planes
• The 3G4G Blog: Satellites & Non-terrestrial networks (NTN) in 5G

*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.

Multi-vendor LTE Small Cells SON

Before we proceed further, in case the reader is not aware of Self-Organizing Networks (SON), please refer to my old tutorial here.

BT has recently published a white paper on multi-vendor LTE SON based on tests using LTE small cells provided by Node-H and Qucell. From the news posted on Node-H website:

The white paper focuses on the important issue of interference management between small cells. The paper is the result of a joint effort by British Telecom's Research and Innovation group and the technical teams of Qucell and Node-H. It addresses some of the major challenges of LTE HetNets and expands on the work of the 2016 ETSI Plugfest, which was run under the auspices of the Small Cell Forum. The authors’ conclusion is that interoperability between different vendors' SON implementations is achievable and so operators can look forward to robust, seamless and tailored solutions from multiple vendors.

The white paper shows that it is possible to operate mobile networks in which the individual LTE cells execute different ICIC algorithms. These findings challenge preconceptions about SON that are common in the mobile industry and make the case towards larger multi-vendor deployments of LTE small cells and call for bolder efforts in multi-vendor SON testing.

The ICIC algorithms used during these tests have been developed independently and without exchange of technical details between two separate HeNB vendors. Despite this, it has been shown that both algorithms can gracefully co-exist in the same LTE network. ICIC standardization efforts within 3GPP, along with the Small Cell Forum's Plugfest activities, have been key to this success.

The whitepaper embedded as follows and is available to download from here:

Related posts:

• Interoperability and Plugfests for Multi-vendor HetNet's
• X2: The necessity for Interoperability and Interference management in HetNets