Metrocells to help Telstra Increase Density for Greater Capacity and Speed

We looked at Telstra's Small Cells some years back. While they were 4G only or 3G/4G back in those days, now small cells are also being talked about for 5G.

On their Q&A page on small cells, Telstra has explained what they mean by them. In fact we also wrote about how Telstra is using small cells to do EME testing here.

In their investor day this earlier this month, Telstra presented their T25 vision and the role of small cells in that. During the last three years, they’ve been talking about the journey of transformation that they have called T22. T22 was a strategy of necessity – a strategy designed to transform every aspect of Telstra. The new T25 strategy is being billed as a strategy for growth, which they have broken down into four pillars:

• Provide an exceptional customer experience you can count on
• Provide leading network and technology solutions that deliver your future
• Create sustained growth and value for our shareholders
• Be the place you want to work

As you can see in the slide above, Pillar 2 of their T25 strategy is focused on leading network and technology solutions that deliver the future. As they describe in their analyst day notes:

There is no doubt we are continuing to see rapid technology adoption and innovation. This is manifesting as a convergence between core telecommunications technology and software-based technology solutions.

What this means is that Telstra not only needs to continue to lead in telecommunications technology with the best networks, but also increasingly lead in the role that software plays in orchestrating and managing the network and integrating applications and services for customer solutions. 

Under T25 we will continue to invest in our network leadership in 5G with 95% population coverage and 80% of all mobile network traffic being on 5G by FY25. We also plan to double the number of metro sites leveraging small cell technologies to further densify and add capacity to the network and we will add at least another 100,000 square kilometres of mobile coverage to our national footprint to support regional and remote customers.

By FY24 we will have extended our 4G coverage to 100% of our network enabling us to continue to lead in composite coverage, speed and performance for 4G and 5G as we close 3G. This will set us up well for the early planning on 6G which will clearly be on the agenda by the end of our T25 program.

We will be a vastly different company because of our network leadership with 95% 5G population coverage, a densified small cell network and expanded regional coverage.

Hopefully, the end users will be the real winners with these network upgrades.

Related Posts: 

• The 3G4G Blog: Macrocells, Small Cells & Hetnets Tutorial
• Operator Watch Blog: Telstra Conducts 50 Tests on 5G mmWave and Small Cells to Measure EME
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Telstra continues Small Cells rollouts as part of Mobile Black Spots Program
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Covering Australian Mobile Not-spots 

Small Cells growing fast, just not in Europe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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