Airspan Small Cells and Macrocells Portfolio, including 5G

Back in April, a presentation from Airspan showed that they have shipped nearly 500k small cells. Sprint has nearly 300k MagicBoxes while Jio has around 120k small cells.

As you can see above, Airspan has a range of outdoor small cells and as shown below, a wide range of indoor small cells.

Airspan recently announced that it has partnered with Rakuten, the newest MNO in Japan, to bring comprehensive 4G and 5G solutions to the world’s first fully virtualized cloud-native mobile network. The announcement said:

Airspan’s Air5G OpenRange28 mmWave platform in 28GHz will deliver ultra-high capacity to Rakuten Mobile with record time-to-market, enabling unprecedented monetization opportunities. Airspan’s open RAN platforms will provide Rakuten Mobile the flexibility to disrupt the economics of traditional network operators and lay the foundation for transformational 5G architectures. With over half a million systems deployed globally, Airspan brings its proven disruptive economics to the fully virtualized Rakuten Mobile network.

Airspan’s mmWave virtualized Air5G OpenRange28 platform utilizes Qualcomm’s FSM100xx 5G chipset and supports open RAN architectures, seamlessly connecting to Rakuten Mobile’s virtualized BBU to deliver the world’s most advanced open interface virtualized RAN solution.  The OpenRange28 mmWave platform supports multiple functional splits for the widest possible set of deployment options, ensuring Rakuten Mobile customers benefit from the highest level of efficiency and the best user experience in Japan.

Airspan's 5G products can be viewed here.

With so many innovators working with Rakuten, it would be interesting to see their 4G & 5G network rollout. Looking forward to some big announcements at MWC next year.

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Tutorial: An Introduction to Macrocells & Small Cells

I have been meaning to create a video tutorial on Small Cells for a long time. The problem is that its not as easy as most people may think. To explain small cells concepts, its necessary to explain macrocell, C-RAN & DAS. This is what I have attempted to do in this presentation.

The slides are embedded below and can be downloaded from Slideshare. The video is embedded on slideshare presentation but if you prefer, the direct Youtube link is here.

Please note that this video is for guidance only. Many vendors & operators use their own definition which may not agree to mine. In the end, we are all correct 😉

'Inside-out' or 'Outside-in'

Going through my old presentations, I came across this prestigious lecture delivered by Dr. Tim Whitley of BT. The main argument of that lecture was, The future of mobile is fixed and the future of fixed is mobile. During the ending of the presentation there is a discussion on Outside-in v/s Inside-out. Lets look at those slides here:

The Future of Mobile is …Fixed from Zahid Ghadialy

Qualcomm is a big fan on Inside-out as can be seen here. Other small cell manufacturers support the inside-out approach too.

The question is, does inside-out approach matters any more. By next year many operators and devices will support VoWiFi in native client. Which means that even if your coverage is poor or non-existant inside, you will still receive voice calls and text messages. Data will continue over WiFi as normal.

An argument in favour of cellular is better/guaranteed QoS as in VoLTE and maybe new services can be available faster but private WiFi best (or no) effort is not bad generally.

What are your thoughts on this topic?

3GPP Definitions of Small Cells

While the Small Cell Forum defines the different types of Small cells clearly and these Small Cells can be said to contain the complete/partial functionality of the eNodeB, 3GPP definitions of Small Cells can be a bit fuzzy sometimes.

Generally, in the 3GPP documentation, there is a reference to Femtocells and Picocells. Femtocells are Small Cells that are defined as Closed Access (see my old post here) by 3GPP. The open access small cells are referred to as Picocells. Sometimes remote radio heads (RRH's) are also referred to as Small cells, open access type.

Relays, even though not referred to as Small Cells by 3GPP, is also referred to as Small Cells by some people.

Do you know of anything else?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Non-Line-of-Sight Wireless Backhaul for LTE Picocell/Metrocell Deployments

Let’s Get Real! Non-Line-of-Sight Wireless Backhaul for LTE Picocell Deployments from Zahid Ghadialy

Small Cells deployment report

Today, I went through the Informa's report on small cells. Some interesting points from the report as follows:

Microcells and picocells are already widely deployed in market but on a lower scale compared with femtocells. Metrocells are expected to enter the market during 2012 through operator trials or pilots and expand significantly during 2014 and 2015 primarily for 3G networks in developed markets and LTE in the US market.


...

Although volumes are driven by consumer femtocells, vendor revenues are expected to be bigger with operator-deployed and managed small cells; profit margins are expected to increase in proportion to cell size. Metrocells and microcells are expected to be the most profitable small-cell market segment, although contracts may vary.

...

Picocells 

Picocells are small cells that are already established in the market and widely deployed. Picocells usually refer to cells that are deployed in indoor public areas for coverage improvement, including shopping malls, train stations and airports, as well as also enterprise locations. Picocells are widely deployed, although not on the scale of consumer femtocells, due to their larger coverage area and smaller target market. Picocells typically transmit less than 4W, may cater for more than 32 users and are also single-sector. 

Picocells have also traditionally been a less-intelligent version of femtocells and have acted as typical base stations, although vendors are now including femtocell-developed technologies in these larger units in order to adopt several benefits, including auto-configuration, radio environment awareness and remote support.

Microcells 

Microcells can be regarded as small macrocells and are usually deployed in urban areas that are capacity-constrained. There are also many cases where microcells are deployed in rural areas, where the coverage area of a macrocell may not make sense due to concentrated population in a limited area. 

Microcells are also widely deployed and have been in the market for several years. Typical transmit power can be as high as 40W – but not more – and these units are typically three-sector, unless deployed in light poles or building walls when they are typically single-sector. 

Microcells are typically used when an operator is forced into cell splitting – splitting a large macrocell into many smaller microcells in order to increase the overall system capacity. In other words, microcells are typically the only cell present in an urban location and this is an important distinction between microcells and metrocells. 

Metrocells 

Informa Telecoms & Media considers metrocells as a special type of a single-sector microcell which is deployed primarily in capacity-constrained areas. Metrocells are also deployed as an overlay rather than acting as the primary cellular network, meaning that advanced features are necessary, including self-optimizing (SON) features and auto-configuration.

...

* Microcells will continue to be deployed throughout the forecast period, growing from 602,000 units deployed at end-2011 to 2.8 million at end-2016. This growth is primarily driven by additional 3G cells in urban locations and rural coverage expansion in developing areas. 

* Metrocells are expected to enter the market during 2012 with 31,240 cells deployed by the end of the year, increasing to 681,000 by end-2016. 

* Finally, Informa estimates that 194,000 picocells were deployed in the market by end-2011, a number which will increase to 1.1 million by end-2016.

A discussion on this topic with regards to the numbers is available on 3G4G blog here.

The complete paper is embedded as follows:

Small-cell deployments to be dominated by consumer-driven femtocells from Zahid Ghadialy