Small Cells Powering Infrastructure Innovation Across the Middle East

The Small Cells World Summit (SCWS) – Saudi Arabia 2024, held in Riyadh as part of the Connected World conference, showcased how small cell infrastructure is driving digital transformation across the Middle East. With the region pursuing ambitious smart city, industrial, and connectivity projects, the event highlighted the critical role of small cells in delivering scalable, energy-efficient, and future-ready networks.

Giga-Projects Fuelling Small Cell Growth

Across the Middle East, giga-projects are redefining the telecom landscape. From Saudi Arabia’s NEOM and Red Sea Project to UAE’s smart city initiatives, these mega-initiatives are driving advanced small cell deployments and private networks. The region’s focus on newly built cities and large-scale residential and leisure complexes is creating opportunities for pervasive indoor and outdoor connectivity powered by small cells.

Neutral Hosts and Venue Connectivity on the Rise

While the neutral host model is still in its early stages in the region, the summit revealed growing interest in shared infrastructure. With major events like the 2034 FIFA World Cup on the horizon, stadium connectivity was a key topic. The need for densified outdoor and venue networks to enhance visitor experiences is driving investment in small cells and Open RAN solutions.

Energy-Efficient and Sustainable Networks

The Middle East is making significant strides in sustainable telecom infrastructure. The Red Sea Global project in Saudi Arabia unveiled the world’s first carbon-neutral 5G network, powered by a 1.3GWh lithium microgrid. Meanwhile, hybrid solar-powered telecom towers are gaining momentum across the region, helping to reduce reliance on diesel-powered off-grid towers and promote green connectivity.

Data Centres and Edge Expansion

The summit also highlighted the growing role of data centres and edge infrastructure in the region’s digital strategy. With low-latency connectivity (as low as 30ms) and a rising demand for cloud and hyperscale services, the Middle East is becoming increasingly attractive to global and regional players. The combination of renewable energy and hyperscale data centres is expected to drive energy-efficient, resilient connectivity.

Conclusion

SCWS Saudi Arabia 2024 demonstrated that small cell infrastructure is at the heart of the Middle East’s digital transformation. From giga-projects and neutral hosts to green networks and edge expansion, small cells are enabling the region’s ambitious connectivity, sustainability, and smart city goals.

You can download the presentations from SCF's SCWS Saudi Arabia site here.

Small Cells World Summit Open RAN Webinar

Small Cell Forum hosted an open industry Small Cells World Summit webinar, on December 9, 2020, on the topic of Small Cell Open RAN. It included panelists from companies across the global Small Cell eco-system - Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., Radisys, Reliance Jio and Picocom. The panel shared insight into SCF’s FAPI and Option 6 open interfaces and their applications within 3GPP and O-RAN frameworks.

The video of the webinar as follows:

Agenda and speakers:

1. Julius Robson, Chief Strategy Officer, SCF - Small Cell Open RAN specifications:  5G FAPI and Option 6 
2. Andrei Radulescu, Senior Staff Engineer, Qualcomm - FAPI: MAC/PHY interface for Small and Macro Cells
3. Ganesh Shenbagaraman, Head of Integrated Products and Ecosystems, Radisys  - Network FAPI deployment scenarios and O-RAN alignment
4. Ravi Sinha, Director, TechDev and Solutions (4G, 5G & MEC Solutions), Reliance Jio - Building the small cell  ecosystem around FAPI components and Option6 interfaces
5. Vicky Messer, Director Product Management, Picocom - nFAPI test support
6. Summary, next steps and Q&A

Related Posts:

• The 3G4G Blog: SCF Releases 5G Functional API to Enable Open Small Cells Ecosystem
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: 5G Small Cells Definition
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Edge Computing and the Future of Small Cell Networks
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: NTT Docomo's 5G Network is based on 'Open RAN' Principles
• The 3G4G Blog: A quick tutorial on Open RAN, vRAN & White Box RAN
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Precision Planning for 5G Era Networks with Small Cells 

Small Cells Have a Bright Future

We have been hearing about the promise of small cells for a very long time but looks like it may be about to become true. Quite a few analysts have mentioned about how small cells have an important role to play in both 5G and Private Networks. 

A new report from Dell'Oro Group, announced last week, said:

Preliminary estimates suggest the small cell radio access network (RAN) market (excluding residential small cells) approached 1 to 1.5 M units in the first half of 2020, comprising a double-digit share of the overall RAN market. Aggregate small cell growth is tracking slightly below expectations, partly due to logistical challenges associated with the pandemic. At the same time, small cell RAN revenues improved more than 20% Q/Q in the second quarter, adding confidence the bulk of these transitory challenges are now in the past and are unlikely to impact the long-term demand for small cells.

The global growth outlook for small cells remains favorable, underpinning projections the technology will play an increasingly important role supporting the overall RAN network as operators and enterprises navigate new technologies, spectrum bands, and use cases. Cumulative global small cell RAN investments remain on track to approach $25 B over the next five years, advancing at a substantially faster pace than the macro RAN market. Helping to explain this output acceleration is broad-based acceleration across both the indoor and outdoor domains.

It should be mentioned that Small Cell definitions vary significantly from country to country and analyst to analyst. 

Back in May, a report by Rethink Research had suggested that privately rolled-out enterprise networks will drive the small cell market to 26 million units by 2026. 

The cells, according to the organisation’s RAN Research service, will be “increasingly diverse in form, ranging from compact versions of macro base stations to almost invisible systems embedded in electronic equipment.”

Sixty-eight per cent of these will be deployed in the enterprise and industrial space, enabled by emerging shared spectrum in the mid- and millimetre wave bands. Government, transport, healthcare, and hospitality will “lead the way” in terms of early adoption.

Again, back in May, Mobile Experts provided a new detailed report where they predicted that Small Cell equipment market will reach $5.5 Billion in 2025. Their press release stated:

Mobile Experts published a report today that provides comprehensive analysis of trends in Small Cell development, including 3G, 4G, and 5G.

The report covers indoor and outdoor units in integrated, RRH, and distributed DRS. Residential, enterprise, and carrier segments are broken down in detail, and provide a forecast of 5G and Open RAN small cells deployed in sub-6GHz bands.

Mobile Experts reports that the enterprise segment will be a bright spot for Small Cells. Private LTE and Private 5G networks are on the rise, with new spectrum released recently in the USA, Germany, Japan, UK, and many other key countries considering a similar measure. While growth may be lackluster for a time due to COVID-19, growing interest in private LTE/5G wireless networking for industrial automation and other enterprise applications that require reliable, low-latency wireless links remains strong.

This report offers a comprehensive overall view of Small Cells, including information about technology and architectural evolution, spectrum trends, business model trends, and deployment by small cell customers. This report illustrates the market share positions for each type of small cell, highlighting the large tier-one vendors and also some surprising new emerging stars.

Going back to January, Kagan, a research group within S&P Global Market Intelligence, predicted that Small cell technology will be fundamental in mobile network coverage expansion over the next five years, as both wireless operators and enterprises leverage a combination of indoor and outdoor solutions to deliver 5G services as broadly as possible. Their announcement said:

While dense urban/metro and adjacent suburbs will be the primary focus, operators such as T-Mobile US Inc. that are asserting "nationwide" 5G coverage are also targeting rural areas for small cell deployments. According to new research from Kagan, global small cell shipments are expected to grow from 2.9 million units in 2019 to 3.7 million units by 2021, and 4.2 million units by 2024.

Total combined indoor and outdoor small cell revenue is expected to grow from $1.9 billion in 2019 to more than $2.2 billion for both 2021 and 2022, then decline slightly to just above $2 billion for 2023 and 2024. Following an established progression, we expect small cell revenues to decline even as unit shipments increase, as operators in all regions continue to expand their 5G network and service footprints and ASPs decline. The Asia Pacific market, led by aggressive 5G buildouts in China, South Korea and Japan, is seeing the highest volumes of small cell deployment. North America, driven by U.S. operators Verizon Wireless (VAW) LLC, AT&T Inc. and T-Mobile (which is using 600 MHz low-band spectrum for broader coverage per cell), is also a hotbed of small cell investment and network expansion efforts. Meanwhile, operators in Western Europe and India are likewise increasing their attention and capital spending on small cell densification. Operators in other regions, in addition to highlighting their 5G plans, are also implementing 4G LTE network enhancements, especially in markets such as Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, or EMEA, and Latin America and Caribbean, or CALA, where current 4G coverage and capacity deficiencies must be remedied.

Despite the hype surrounding 5G, to be clear, 3G and 4G LTE deployments are expected to be strong through the next five years, and remain the dominant technology in terms of volume shipments until early 2022, when cumulative 5G small cell units will finally overtake 3G/4G LTE. Why? The fact remains that the ongoing small cell investment and deployment focus by operators worldwide, especially in the largest countries – China and India – is for 3G and 4G LTE network enhancement. And while outdoor coverage expansion is fundamental, indoor small cell network densification is also a top priority for all wireless operators, especially where outdoor coverage is already relatively saturated from a subscriber-per-cell standpoint.

Nevertheless, 5G technology is being deployed in earnest by operators in all global regions, although CALA — the smallest wireless and small cell market by far — will continue to lag significantly behind other regions. The initial 5G deployments, for example, in North America, have been with new radio, or NR frequencies, i.e., the 450 MHz to 6 GHz range, and the millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum range, from 24 GHz to 52 GHz. The NR 5G small cells deployed by operators such as Verizon and AT&T in the U.S. include both standalone, or SA, and non-standalone, or NSA platforms, the latter leveraging existing 4G architectures and infrastructure to support both 5G services.

As small cell densification by wireless operators moves forward, integrated small cell platforms supporting both 5G and 4G radios will overtake the combined 5G NR NSA/SA small cell shipments in 2021, after a projected dead heat in 2020. The cost of integrated 5G/4G platforms may remain an impediment to the speed of investment for operators, but as volumes ramp up, prices will be driven down accordingly. Nevertheless, operator imperatives for 5G densification will spur accelerated growth of the integrated 5G/4G radios, with an inflection point in 2021 which continues with robust growth of this technology through 2024, as illustrated in the graph below.

"...by 2026, as many as 30% of the installed base of outdoor small cell networks, and 71% of indoor enterprise systems, are likely to be operated by new entrants to the cellular segment..." -- @SmallCell_Forum https://t.co/lyhe4OVkFk

— Ed Gubbins (@EGubbinsAnalyst) July 9, 2020

Interesting. People tend to think of factory or campus settings for private 4G/5G but 1/4 will be public/municipal deployments according to Small Cells Forum #IoT #IIoT #iotpl

Quarter of private LTE and 5G networks will be managed by smart cities in 2025 https://t.co/AKWhtRE6eM

— Matt Hatton (@MattyHatton) May 14, 2020

Each year, Small Cell Forum (SCF) publishes their own market status report, built around a detailed forecast of deployment of small cell networks in a range of scenarios. The core data source is a survey of about 100 operators & other service providers about their plans for the next six years. The report from this year states:

Our top-line global forecast for deployment and upgrade of small cells shows a healthy compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13% between 2019 and 2026, rising from a rate of 2.7 million in 2019 to 6.3 million by the end of the forecast period. That represents a cumulative total of 38.3 million small cells deployed (Figure 1).

While the highest CAGR (24%) will be seen in the urban environment, this is coming from a lower starting point – in 2019, over 80% of deployments were in indoor enterprise, industrial and campus settings. Enterprise small cells will account for the largest number of deployments throughout the period and by 2026 will account for 68% of the installed base, with a CAGR of 9%. Rural and remote small cells will be increasingly prominent as a result of the ubiquitous coverage requirements of some industrial and IoT applications, for instance in transportation or mining. The CAGR will be 19% in the period and by the end of 2026, 957 thousand rural and remote radio heads will have been installed.

There are still considerable uncertainties in the market, so there s significant variation between best case and worst-case forecasts. Factors which affect this variation include the immaturity of 5G platforms and business models; immaturity in industrial and IoT business models; potential impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and recession; uncertain timescales for operators to adopt key enablers such as AI-enabled automation or cloud-native networks.

All of these factors may have a greater effect (positive or negative) than currently anticipated, with a knock-on impact on the forecast.

Regardless of who we listen to, the future is looking bright for small cells.

Related Posts:

• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: 5G Small Cells Definition
• The 3G4G Blog: Macrocells, Small Cells & Hetnets Tutorial
• 3G4G: Small Cells (Femtocells, Home NodeB, Home eNodeB)

5G Small Cells Definition

In our basic introduction on Small Cells and Macrocells, we discussed that the small cells definition can sometimes be fuzzy. Having said that, it was still easy to define the small cell based on the topology. With 5G, as there are quite a few different splits, you can have Integrated as well as disaggregated small cell. To simplify the confusion around this, Small Cell Forum (SCF) unveiled 5G Small Cell Architecture and Product Definitions.

Document 238.10.01 available here provides the necessary details. The contents of the report include:

• Definition of 5G Small Cells and Small Cell Networks
• 5G Small Cell Deployment Scenarios
• Small Cell Network Architecture and Product Types
• Small Cell Power Considerations
• 5G-Small Cell Product Definitions
• Integrated Small Cell Configurations (Survey Results)
• Radio Unit (RU) for Disaggregated Networks (Survey Results)
• Distributed Unit (DU) for Disaggregated Networks (Survey Results)
• Analysis and Discussion of Configuration Results
• Conclusions 

The article here states:

Why do we need definitions to inform the design of 5G small cells?  Well, in the 5G era, small cells will be deployed in a far wider range of scenarios than in the past, and the form factors and architectures will be extremely varied.

The introduction of virtualized, disaggregated networks means that some small cells will consist of two or three elements, while others will still be all-in-one. Some form factors will be classed as ‘mini-macros’, which can be deployed unobtrusively on street furniture but have performance and power levels close to those of larger base stations. Others will be so tiny they can be embedded into pavements or consumer electronics.

And we shouldn’t be focused on form before function. Are we talking about outdoor or indoor small cells? Are they to service airports or factories?

It is clear, then, that old definitions are now inadequate, and there are real and present dangers of the industry fragmenting between hundreds of different designs that had insufficient common features to achieve any scale.

This is a major piece of work to provide a consensus view and concise definition of the types of 5G small cells and the key characteristics of the different types of commercially viable 5G small cell RAN products over the next five years. It is supported by a major survey of operators, other small cell deployers, and supply chain members.



The official press release says:

As small cell use cases diversify, 5G Small cell architecture and product definitions highlights the need for clear understanding of the requirements for each of the range of options that will be needed. The risk of diversity is fragmentation, so deployers and vendors will benefit from having clear baseline definitions of the technical specifications, power and spectrum choices, and key interfaces, for any given architecture in any given environment. That will enable the industry to innovate within common, agreed design frameworks, supporting diversity while also maintaining scalability and interoperability.

The first such study of its kind, the report provides an informed view of the most important configurations and specifications for companies deploying small cells between now and 2025. It aims to provide a consensus view and concise definition of the types of 5G small cells being rolled out now and in the near future. It also includes definitions of the key characteristics of the different types of commercially viable 5G small cell RAN products that will be available over the next five years, including 3GPP and O-RAN Alliance 5G disaggregated open RAN specifications – work that covers macrocells, but also includes microcells and picocells.

This study also provides a uniquely detailed analysis of the capabilities that small cells will need to support in any combination of architecture and deployment environment. It makes it clear that in the 5G era, no single design or specification can meet every requirement across all the scenarios. Instead, it will be important to optimize small cell designs and specifications for each environment, to encourage adoption and drive new usage, especially in the enterprise, industrial and campus settings where many new use cases for dense cellular connectivity are emerging.

Some key conclusions are:

• Split 6 and 7.x are the most popular among those currently planning disaggregated small cell deployments, as well as dual-split architectures including Split 2. Split 8 is also known to be popular in China for indoor enterprise deployments.
• Split 7.2 O-RU based solutions are predominantly planned for outdoor campus, urban and private networks, whereas split 6 S-RU based solutions are for indoor enterprise.
• Remote integrated and RU small cell products are limited by power consumption, environmental conditions, maximum output power and volume. gNodeB and RUs generally are passive-cooled, and powered by Ethernet (PoE), fiber (PoF) or powerline.
• 2 and 4-layer MIMO is most popular in smaller deployments although 8-layer MIMO may be required in some larger enterprise campus, urban and private deployments, and potentially longer term.

“In the early days, small cells looked fairly similar, regardless of the environment in which they would be deployed, and were easily distinguishable in size, weight and power output from other mobile equipment. In the 5G era, small cells will be deployed in a far wider range of scenarios, and form factors and architectures will be extremely varied,” said Prabhakar Chitrapu, Chair of Small Cell Forum. “The form factor, power, size, interfaces and specification will vary according to the use case and deployment scenario, and with the introduction of virtualized, disaggregated networks, some small cells will consist of two or three elements, while others will still be all-in-one. It is clear that old definitions are now inadequate, and there are clear and present dangers of the industry fragmenting between hundreds of different designs with insufficient common features to achieve any scale.”

Many of the challenges in the deployment of small cell networks to date have been rooted in regulators and legislators having to certify individual items in an increasingly fragmented market. This report will be valuable for the whole ecosystem: for vendors and components makers looking to prioritize their development efforts on areas of highest demand; for operators and neutral hosts, to help as they make their architecture choices; and for external stakeholders such as regulators and legislators, to expedite site selection, certification and deployment.

"Small cells, or femtocells as they were previously known, have played an increasingly important role in wireless networks since their introduction more than a decade ago. One would have thought that a small cell is well defined; however, it has taken significant effort to work out what a 5G small cell is,” remarked Vicky Messer, Director, Product Management at Picocom. “It has been a great pleasure working with industry colleagues over the past few months on this SCF 5G small cell architecture and product definitions paper. As a result, we now feel we have a definitive answer.”

The baseline small cell product configurations detailed in the report are essential to inform hardware component design and reference architectures, and crucially, are based on an SCF consensus which, in turn, represents inputs from a wide range of operators, vendors, component makers and other stakeholders.

This set of configurations is not prescriptive, and it takes account of work done by other organizations. In this way, the report will help drive the increased ecosystem diversity and lower-cost small cell solutions demanded by the industry and, most importantly, its customers.

Small Cell Forum’s work on common interfaces, at system-on-chip level (FAPI and 5G FAPI) and system level (nFAPI) is the best-established effort to define a common framework within which many designs and many suppliers can innovate and interwork. The survey of operators and other stakeholders, conducted for this report to understand key design requirements, highlighted strong support for these interfaces and SCF’s Split 6 architecture.


Related Links:

• The 3G4G Blog: Macrocells, Small Cells & Hetnets Tutorial
• 3G4G: Small Cells (Femtocells, Home NodeB, Home eNodeB)

Edge Computing and the Future of Small Cell Networks

Small Cell Forum (SCF) recently published report setting out how edge computing will impact the future of small cell networks, with particular focus on private 4G / 5G cellular networks. A survey of service providers for the paper showed that by 2025 almost 75% new indoor small cell deployments will be co-located with edge and/or private EPC. The paper (SCF 234) is available to download here.

The press release on this stated:

Edge Computing and Small Cell Networks identifies core synergies between edge computing (EC) and small cell networks (SCNs) and highlights how those synergies are present across multiple domains – business, technical, deployment, product and vendor ecosystems.

It describes how the benefits of small cells co-located with edge can be applied to commercial and operational advantage in key industry segments, such as automation and Industry 4.0, worksites, mission critical services, enterprises and public safety. The paper looks in detail at the architectures and deployment considerations for edge and small cells in three premises-based use cases:

• Fully private cellular networks (PCNs)
• PCNs that have a roaming relationship with MNO networks
• PCNS integrated with MNO networks

While small cells and edge computing have significant potential to meet enterprise demand and drive new business models for service providers, best practice needs to be agreed and adopted, and technical barriers/gaps addressed to optimize that potential for both enterprises and service providers. Key areas of focus include:

• Edge network recommendations: For edge computing solutions, the ‘edge network’ has to work in concert with the ‘core network’ via open interfaces and APIs to enable true multi-vendor ecosystem. SCF believes that current specifications are incomplete and need enhancements.
• Edge platform services and applications recommendations: Open and consistent APIs across multiple organizations must evolve and align to enable a broad ecosystem of edge platform services and edge applications.
• EC platform solution recommendations: Blueprints/reference-designs/solutions for open-source edge computing platforms are urgently required for rapid growth of the EC ecosystem.
• EC and small cell recommendations: Design/deployment blueprints must be available for core use cases to best leverage small cell/edge synergies to deliver multiple benefits: shared virtualized implementations leading to cost efficiencies; integrated network functions & mutually beneficial analytics (radio environment, RAN characteristics, location etc.) leading to advanced functionalities to the edge computing platforms.
• EC infrastructure recommendations: In determining the COTS hardware for optimal edge computing infrastructure, service providers and enterprises shouldn’t be tempted to reinvent the wheel. There are already robust guidelines for data center & hardware design & implementations from TIA, BICSI and OCP that should be followed.

‘The benefits of edge computing are well known, but what we have begun to demonstrate with this work is that small cells and edge will be critical for enabling service providers and enterprises to realize new profitable service opportunities,’ said Dr. Prabhakar Chitrapu, Chair of Small Cell Forum. ‘Small cells plus edge will also enable new business models for a broad spectrum of stakeholders, including edge infrastructure, edge network and edge platform as a service, as well as direct edge application services to subscribers, enterprises and service providers.’

Going forward, working in collaboration with other relevant Industry Forums, SCF will lead the development of a set of harmonized and consistent set of application, network & system-level APIs to enable small cell networks to facilitate EC services and applications.

SCF will also spearhead the deployment of design blueprints for core use cases, leveraging small cell/edge synergies and open source environments.

The research was made possible by an extended collaboration of leading MNOs, OEMs and Infrastructure providers, brought together by Small Cell Forum, including; American Tower, AT&T, Crown Castle, Druid, Intel, Nokia and Reliance Jio.

A video by Small Cell Forum provides a bit more background of this new Edge Computing and Small Cell Networks whitepaper:



Edge computing is a hot topic and every time we have posted something, we have got a lot of engagement on the topic.

The 3G4G Blog - Webinar: Where Edge Meets Cloud by Dean Bubley - https://t.co/TjGnwJ5yh0 #5G #3G4G5G pic.twitter.com/eWa4EQsDtP

— 3G4G (@3g4gUK) May 1, 2019

Edge computing investments: who’s doing what and why? - https://t.co/kZMBRxc6J6 - a nice webinar presented by @REALDaliaAdib, @STLPartners #Free5Gtraining #5G #5GNetworks #URLLC #Latency #MEC #MobileEdge #EdgeCompute #STLPartners #TelecomsInfra #IaaS #PaaS #SaaS pic.twitter.com/jZwv3CWpUS

— 5G Training (@5Gtraining) June 5, 2020

Related Posts:

• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: SuperMicro's 5G Pole-Mounted DU Server Solution
• The 3G4G Blog: SCF Releases 5G Functional API to Enable Open Small Cells Ecosystem
• The 3G4G Blog - Webinar: Where Edge Meets Cloud by Dean Bubley
• The 3G4G Blog: Can Augmented & Mixed Reality be the Killer App 5G needs?
• The 3G4G Blog: Augmented / Virtual Reality Requirements for 5G
• The 3G4G Blog: 'Mobile Edge Computing' (MEC) or 'Fog Computing' (fogging) and 5G & IoT
• Connectivity Technology Blog: Base Stations, Backhaul & Energy Innovations to Improve Rural Connectivity

Precision Planning for 5G Era Networks with Small Cells

Small Cell Forum, in partnership with 5G Americas has published a new whitepaper titled 'Precision planning for 5G Era networks with small cells'.

According to the press release:

The whitepaper explores the precision planning process of small cell siting and identifies how employing Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in network design can help to reduce the cost of deployments while optimizing coverage over traditional manual methods. The white paper was created by working teams at the two industry associations and includes project leadership contributions from: AT&T, iBwave, Keima and Nokia. The full whitepaper is available for download here.

The ever-increasing demand for mobile data is driving network densification with the deployment of small cells. Although lower cost than macro towers, the compact, low-power nature of small cells means they also serve a smaller area. This in turn means they need to be located closer to demand hotspots in order to effectively cover the mobile data demands of customers.

Manhattan, New York was one example used in the white paper where AI and algorithmic ML automated design processes were able to provide coverage and dominance while reducing the number of sites required from 185 to just 111. This reduction provided significant savings while additionally creating optimized coverage.

The paper also examines why measurements of network quality, signal strength and quality, traffic patterns, and other topographical considerations are important for maximizing a network operators’ return on capital investment, and demonstrates how including AI and ML models in small cell design and siting efforts can provide optimal coverage and throughput with the most efficient capital investment.

The report details recommended best practices for precision planning including:

• For maximum return on investment, small cells should be placed as close as possible to demand peaks; best practice is within 20-40m.
• Network operators would like equipment that estimates location of usage and quality reports to adopt smarter algorithms such as the machine learning approach demonstrated. Median locate errors less than 20m are expected for small cell planning purposes.
• Machine learning models should be part of any small cell design effort. Different inputs and assumptions will be factors in the resulting models that are generated.

In addition, the aggregation of very large data sets are important to provide algorithms with sufficient test data to inform results. These data sets provide algorithms with information on factors such as power and backhaul availability, signal-to-interference ratio, spectral efficiency, line of sight, traffic estimates, overlapping cell coverage, agreement requirements with site owners, and numerous other considerations.

The paper is available for free download on the 5G Americas website, as well as the Small Cell Forum Release site. Blog posts by 5G Americas and Small Cell Forum are also available, along with presentation slides.

People interested in this topic can also check out the video by Small Cell Forum Chief Strategy Officer (CSO), Julius Robson below.



Related Posts:

• The 3G4G Blog: Keima Automated 4G / 5G HetNet Design
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Small Cell Forum Releases 5G FAPI API Specifications

SK Telecom's In-building 5G NR Repeaters and 'Layer Splitter'

In-building coverage is the new battleground in South Korea. According to this report by Korea Times back in August

SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus, which have been in cutthroat competition to improve the quality of their fifth-generation (5G) network services, are now in a race to boost 5G data speeds inside buildings.

Their move comes amid growing complaints over disappointing 5G network coverage since the next-generation mobile network services were launched in early April.

SK Telecom said Wednesday it has completed the development of the "5GX In-building Solution" that is capable of doubling the speed of 5G data transfer inside buildings and effectively dispersing data traffic to prevent overload on base stations in crowded areas such as shopping malls and subway stations.

The nation's top mobile carrier said the new technology will be applied to its commercial 5G networks after the third quarter of the year.

"We expect 80 percent of data traffic to be from inside buildings in the 5G era," said Park Jong-kwan, who heads 5GX Labs at SK Telecom. "We will continue to give efforts to provide users with seamless, high-quality 5G services inside buildings and in crowded areas."

The company said its new system features "Active Antenna" technology that allows 5G small cells, which refer to small indoor base stations, to be equipped with eight transmission and reception antennas.

This will double the speed of 5G data transfer as existing indoor base stations are capable of operating four transmission and reception antennas.

KT has also been working hard to expand 5G coverage inside buildings.

In May, the nation's largest broadband service provider and second-largest mobile carrier interlocked 5G repeaters with commercial 5G networks in cooperation with small and medium business partners.

Installed inside buildings where radio waves from base stations can hardly reach, the device helps improve the quality of 5G services.

KT is in charge of expanding 5G coverage in 95 large buildings out of 119 nationwide, such as airports and KTX stations, in a joint project by the three mobile carriers.

LG Uplus, the smallest player, also has been active in installing repeaters in small and medium buildings and underground parking lots to expand 5G coverage.

The company is planning to expand the application of beam-forming and multi-user MIMO (multiple-input and multiple-output) technologies to its 5G networks nationwide.

Back in May, SK Telecom won SCF Small Cell Awards 2019 in the category of “Commercial Small Cell Design and Technology” for commercializing the world’s first 5G NR RF repeater. According to the press release:

SK Telecom won this year’s SCF Small Cell Awards for developing and commercializing, for the first time in the world, two different types of 5G NR RF repeaters operating in the 3.5GHz band in 2018. 5G RF repeaters, which amplify 5G radio signals to allow them to travel greater distances, are used to enhance 5G service quality by improving coverage for in-building areas.

SK Telecom’s RF repeater is built with 5G NR standard-based Time Division Duplex (TDD) Synchronization detection technology, which enables a more efficient use of limited frequency resources. In addition, the 5G repeater provides wide bandwidth support and operational optimization features.

Going back to the Small Cells World back in May, SK Telecom presented their solution but the presentation was not shared. Here are some relevant pictures from their presentation:

SK Telecom: will use various inbuilding solutions to complete 5G network. e.g. A 3.5GHz RF repeater to extend home/small building coverage - running remote antennas from the repeater.

— TheMobileNetwork (@TMNmag) May 21, 2019

Source: Phil Kendall

As can be seen in the picture (click to enlarge), depending on the use case and location, the InBuilding solution would change from Small cells to AAU and Repeaters.

Source: Dean Bubley

As you can see in the picture above, the 3.5/28 GHz layer split solution improves capacity of the building by creating multiple layers to improve the capacity. There is a new press release on this topic, which is covered in the post later on.

Source: Dean Bubley

The Speed Repeater above and the RF Repeater below is backhauling on the existing macro, similar to the In-band backhauling (IBBH) I have described earlier or Sprint/Airspan MagicBox.

Source: Dean Bubley

In a recent press release, SK Telecom announced that they have expanded the 'Layer Splitter', a dedicated equipment for 5G inbuildings, to 1,000 buildings, starting with WeWork Seolleung Branch (Gangnam-gu, Seoul). SK Telecom customers will be able to use 5G services twice as fast as existing in-building equipment in major domestic buildings such as shopping malls and department stores.

'Layer Splitter' is the equipment based on '5GX In-building Solution' developed by SK Telecom in the world in August. If existing indoor equipment is equipped with two antennas for data transmission and reception, 'Layer Splitter' is a four-integrated antenna equipment that can process more data simultaneously in the same frequency band.

It also integrates several signal conversion devices * that go through for communications services. The integrated device is half the size of the device as before, and data transfer rates are faster with fewer signal conversion steps. In addition, the integrated device is placed forward in the base station and only the antenna is installed inside the building, enabling quick action in the event of a problem without visiting the building.

※ Previously, it had to go through four-step signal conversion (digital signal → optical signal → base signal (IF) → optical signal → wireless signal (RF)), but 'layer splitter' Combined 'matcher' and 'donor', a device that converts the base signal (IF) into an optical signal

SK Telecom plans to expand in-building coverage centered on 'layer splitters' in buildings with a large number of floating populations such as large shopping malls and department stores. 

Wework, the first construction site, is a shared office where several ICT-related companies collaborate and expect various business models based on Korea's best 5G infrastructure. In particular, SK Telecom and Wework have been working together since last year's strategic partnership, including building 5G infrastructure.

Chang-Kwon Chung, head of infrastructure engineering group at SK Telecom, said, SKT customers can experience differentiated communication quality with the only equipment dedicated to 5G in-building. “In-building will be able to efficiently accommodate in-building traffic that will continue to increase in the 5G era. "We will continue to advance our proprietary solutions."

Hopefully we will learn more about this solution in near future.


Related Posts:

• SK Telecom's 5G Strategy and Services
• 5G+ Strategy of the Republic of Korea 

Small Cell Forum Releases 5G FAPI API Specifications

SCF has announced the release of 5G FAPI: PHY API Specifications. In the press release titled 'Small Cell Forum Publishes Specification to Drive Unified 5G Open RAN', SCF announced:

5G FAPI Release provides common APIs to support interoperability between 5G small cell hardware components and software layers enabling interoperability and preventing fragmentation.

Small Cell Forum (SCF), the telecoms organization making mobile infrastructure solutions available to all, has published the PHY API for 5G to stimulate a competitive ecosystem for vendors of 5G small cell hardware, software and equipment. The PHY API provides an open and interoperable interface between the physical layer and the MAC layer. 3G and LTE versions are already used in most small cells today.

The specification has been developed through a successful collaboration of companies from across the small cell eco-system, including; Intel, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., Airspan Networks and Picocom Technology.

5G FAPI is an initiative within the small cell industry to encourage competition and innovation among suppliers of platform hardware, platform software and application software by providing a common API around which suppliers of each component can compete. By doing this, SCF provides an interchangeability of parts ensuring that the system vendors can take advantage of the latest innovations in silicon and software with minimum barriers to entry, and the least amount of custom re-engineering.

Operators are looking for a radically different cost model for 5G networks, one that relies on interoperability and an open, competitive ecosystem. As networks are disaggregated, a critical interface is the fronthaul between a distributed unit (DU) for radio functions and a centralised unit (CU) for protocol stacks and baseband functions. Open specifications such as SCF’s FAPI will enable operators to mix and match protocol stacks, basebands and radios from different vendors, and realize the benefits of deploying disaggregated, virtualized RAN (vRAN) networks.

The Forum also maintains the widely adopted FAPI specifications for 3G and LTE, as well as networked FAPI (nFAPI) for LTE supporting a MAC/PHY functional split, a key enabler for virtualisation of higher layer base station functions. In 5G this split point was also identified by 3GPP and called split option 6.

The Forum’s motivation for defining nFAPI in LTE was to establish a scalable ecosystem with a converged approach to virtualization across multiple suppliers, and the continued adoption of NFV/SDN make this is even more crucial for 5G. As such, the Forum plans to expand 5G FAPI to operate across split option 6 as 5G nFAPI.

A video of presentation by Clare Somerville, Intel & 5G FAPI lead from Small Cells World is embedded below:


In an interview in The Mobile Network last December, Prabhakar Chitrapu, who chairs SCF’s TECH Group said:

“Split RAN/Small Cell architectures have seven options, as identified by 3GPP. Of these, 3GPP has focused on Option-2 (RLC-PDCP) and ORAN on Option-7.2 (PHY-PHY). Option-6 (PHY-MAC) is not being addressed by any of these organisations. SCF seeks to fill this gap.”

“The PHY-MAC interface is important for the industry because it is an interface that has been highly successful in the 4G world, where it is called FAPI and nFAPI. It is therefore considered very important that we extend these interface specifications for 5G, as 5G-FAPI and 5G-nFAPI."

“FAPI helps Equipment Vendors to mix PHY & MAC Software from different suppliers via this open FAPI interface. So, FAPI is an 'internal' interface.”

“5G-nFAPI (network FAPI) is a 'network' interface and is between a Distributed Unit and Centralised Unit  of a Split RAN/Small Cell network solution. An open specification of this interface (nFAPI) will help network architects by allowing them to mix distributed and central units from different vendors.”

ShareTechNote also provides some details about FAPI and nFAPI as described by Small Cell Forim here.

Related Documents from SCF:

• SCF082.09.05: nFAPI and FAPI specifications
• 5G PHY API and Networked PHY API
• What is FAPI all about?

Turkcell's Small Cell Strategy

Turkcell is one of the industry’s leaders in extending the traditional MNO model into new services, illustrated how the business case is strengthened by diversity, with small cell roadmaps which span multiple spectrum bands, form factors, vendors and deployment environments.

During Small Cells World Summit, Turkcell presented their Small cell strategy and case study.

@Turkcell has 3 separate use cases for small cells

VIP/business complaints & retention
General in building / enterprise
Outdoor capacity & coverage enhancement #SmallCellsWorld pic.twitter.com/g8CgsxyfB1

— Dean Bubley (@disruptivedean) May 21, 2019

As the tweet above says, they have 3 separate use cases for small cells:

• VIP/business complaints & retention
• General in building / enterprise
• Outdoor capacity & coverage enhancement

@Turkcell Ali Burak Gocer explaining @AirspanNetworks @nokia @nokianetworks @Huawei femto/small cells kit - working seamlessly with macro network - has radically increased data throughput both indoors & outdoors. Choice is good! @SmallCell_Forum @SmallCells2019 #SmallCellsWorld pic.twitter.com/b8oSD7398l

— Peter Clemons (@PeterClemons11) May 21, 2019

Their strategy is to work with multiple vendors for different use cases. The strategy has clearly paid off as different small cells are working seamlessly with the macrocells indoors and outdoors.

Indoor Femtocell Trials with Airspan and Nokia has significantly improved user experience and throughput indoors.

@Turkcell improving speed and capacity of network using small cells. #SmallCellsWorld #telecom #spectrum #5G @SmallCell_Forum #telecoms #telecomunicaciones #5GNR pic.twitter.com/KK3LaNfM6q

— Roberto Kompany (@RobertoKompany) May 21, 2019

Various deployments with Huawei Micro has been done to improve coverage and capacity outdoors, for voice and data.


Related Posts:

• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Turkcell Marks a 'First in the World in 5G' with Domestic Drone Technology
• Operator Watch Blog: Turkcell Group in 5 slides

'SCF Awards' 2018 Winners

I realised that even though I wrote a post on SCF winners, I never published it. Better late than never.

Small Cell Forum Awards have been around for 10 years and are highly respected for their impartiality and independence. I was at the awards back in May, representing Parallel Wireless (as I am the marketing representative based in Europe). It was fun catching up with colleagues and old contacts and also good to see first hand all the companies competing for these prestigious awards.

Small Cell Forum has a dedicated page that has all the award winners and the picture gallery (scroll down on the linked page)

Below are the names of all the winners. Some of them are linked if I wrote a post about them.

• Excellence in Commercial Deployment (Residential): Sprint/Airspan for Magic Box LTE Relay
• Excellence in Commercial Deployment (Urban): CCS for City of London small cell backhaul network
• Excellence in Commercial Deployment (Enterprise): Nokia for Flexi-Zone shopping mall and public building deployment
• Excellent in commercial Deployment (Rural, Remote, Temporary): Parallel Wireless for Ice Wireless in Northern Canada
• HetNet Software and Services – Management and Automatio: AirHop for HetNet Performance Insight with eSON
• Deployment of New Architectures Enabling the Dense HetNet: Huawei for Small BTS solution with LTE backhaul
• Commercial Small Cell Design and Technology (Network and XHaul): HPE/Softbank for Dedicated PCRF for Small Cells
• Outstanding Innovation in Small Cell Technology or Architecture: Accelleran for Architecture-agnostic small cell RAN-vRAN solutions
• Outstanding Innovation in Small Cell Business Case: OpenCell for Multi-operator in-building coverage using Small Cells
• Social Impact: Parallel Wireless/Telefonica for Connecting LATAM’s unconnected
• Judges Choice: ITRI for deep innovation helping to advance small cells as a platform
• Chairman’s Award: Mirela Doicu, Nokia
• Individual Contribution: Ravi Sinha, Reliance Jio

Related Posts:

• Small Cells growing fast, just not in Europe
• Report on 'Femtocell Applications Live' at Femtocells World Summit

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

Internet para todos: Telefonica and Parallel Wireless on a mission to connect 100 Million Unconnected

According to GSMA Intelligence report, 'The Mobile Economy Latin America and the Caribbean 2017':

Latin America has seen rapid growth in the number of mobile internet subscribers over recent years, with a total of nearly 350 million, registering growth of almost 10% since the start of 2016. Of these subscribers, more than two thirds connect to the internet via mobile broadband (3G or 4G) networks. As the importance of digital access and engagement increases, so this figure will continue to grow strongly, to reach about 420 million by 2020.

Despite the growth to date, only slightly more than half of the population currently ha0ve a mobile internet subscription, well below the developed market average of two thirds – though some lowerincome groups may connect using Wi-Fi only.

As a result, around 300 million people are digitally excluded and unable to enjoy the socioeconomic benefits that mobile internet can bring. By 2020, nearly two thirds of the population will be connected, still well behind the developed market average but in line with the global average. However, nearly 250 million people across the region will still be digitally excluded. There remain significant barriers to adoption, particularly for underserved population groups (rural, women, low income and youth).

Mobile internet penetration also varies significantly across the region. Chile had the highest penetration as at the end of 2016, with Argentina only slightly behind. In contrast, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Haiti have mobile internet penetration rates of one third or less (Cuba has among the lowest levels of mobile internet penetration globally, at 3% of the population). 

At MWC 2018, Telefónica announced “Internet para todos”, a collaborative project to connect the unconnected in Latin America. The Initiative is aimed at connecting the more than 100 million people in Latin America with no internet access. Telefónica also expanded its collaboration with Facebook on key technological and commercial innovations and collaboration with multiple stakeholders: rural operators, technology firms and regulators.

For those who are wondering what “Internet para todos” means, it means “Internet for all. Here is a good video on the initiative.



You can read all about it here. One of the vendors mentioned in this press release is Parallel Wireless (*). Their announcement on this is available here.

Embedded below is an indepth presentation on this topic by Patrick Lopez, VP, networks innovation at Telefónica.

Telefonica internet para todos from Patrick Lopez

And here is the video of above for anyone interested:


In the recent Small Cell Forum awards, 'Internet Para Todos' won the Social Impact award – Promoting Small Cells for Social/Economic/Environmental Development.

And the winner is...? ¡#InternetParaTodos!

Ganador del premio al impacto social del @SmallCell_Forum 🏆🏆

Nos sentimos orgullosos #SomosTelefónica pic.twitter.com/9dEo0ehBAh

— Telefónica (@Telefonica) May 25, 2018

ICYMI: Parallel Wireless & @Telefonica work to provide #Internetparatodos has won @SmallCell_Forum Social Impact award! (@Telefinnovation)https://t.co/PMqrZjgjBQ

— Parallel Wireless (@Parallel_tw) May 24, 2018

Hopefully we will see many more similar initiatives from other operators and TIP to connect the unconnected.

*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.