Telefónica's LTE Nano Takes to the Skies

From Telefonica's Press release today (translated from Spanish to English via Google translate):

Telefónica has today presented in a real environment the applications in rescue and supervision of the miniaturization of a 4G mobile network with a portable backpack of less than 3kg. which provides voice and data coverage to a group of people in a specific area. 

This innovation project, called LTE Nano and announced at the 2017 Mobile World Congress , is one of the world's smallest deployments of a 4G standalone network as it runs on hardware weighing just 40 grams. It is also a significant step in the advances that the market is making in the development of portable network products very useful in rescue, emergency, retail, logistics, hospitals or offices, among many others. 

Specifically, Telefónica has carried out demonstrations in Real of the application of portable networks 4G in rescue and supervision of critical infrastructures in Buitrago de Lozoya. In both, a LTE Nano backpack has been used that has allowed to deploy in a matter of minutes a network of 4G communications to which a dron has been connected with capacity to transmit video through LTE and several smartphones and tablets with transmission of voice and data. 

In the case of rescue work, the 4G portable backpack has provided coverage of voice and data communications to a rescue group. A dron with an HD camcorder has streamed what was seen during the flight and has transmitted it to the devices of the operations in real time by the 4G provided by the backpack. In this way, for example, the location of a missing person is facilitated and accelerated in places that are not accessible. 

The same service can be provided in the supervision of infrastructures that are difficult to access, both in communications and in any other industrial field, involving tasks of a certain complexity and risk and time consuming. In this case, the use of a 4G dron has been shown for the monitoring of the old satellite communications monitoring antennas of Telefónica in Buitrago de Lozoya which, with its 30 meters in diameter and placed more than 40 meters high on a infrastructure of several hundred tons, pose a challenge of supervision because of its complexity and risk when an operator has to perform this task manually. 

The LTE Nano solution has been developed in collaboration with the British company Quortus, which is the technology provider that provides the 4G virtual network software solution capable of operating in such small scale equipment. 

On the other hand, the scenarios of using a dron transmitting video through 4G have been developed in collaboration with Accenture Digital , one of the first companies to collaborate with Telefónica in the development of innovative services that operate on 4G portable networks.

Here is a video released alongside with the text above. I wish it had a bit more detail.



See Also:

• Drones, More Drones & Droneway
• Telefonica's LTE Nano Small Cell
• Small Cells at Mobile World Congress 2017 (#MWC17)

Telefonica's LTE Nano Small Cell

The popularity of drones and balloons have made it possible to try and come up with innovative solutions for providing connectivity, surveillance and many other use cases. I have talked in detail about the UK operator EE's attempt to use Airmasts (which are now called E.M.M.A. - Emergency Mobile Mast Aid) and connect rural Scotland using Drones and Helikites.

#MWC17 was full of drones. Some useful pics attached. HT @SF_Clayton @AirkDrones @e_pdpes @DroneAllianceEU pic.twitter.com/YHkyFIoys7

— 3G4G (@3g4gUK) March 15, 2017

In my Small Cells at MWC report, I talked about how there were many operators, vendors, etc. showing different things they were doing with drones and recently in my posts talked about Verizon's 'flying cell-site' and AT&T's 'Flying COWs'.

I only looked briefly at Telefonica's announcement about the LTE Nano.

From the press release:

This innovation, an evolution of the former project “LTE in a Box” presented at the MWC2015 that brought all the benefits of private critical LTE communications to the corporate world, will allow to bring the same advantages to new scenarios where small scale, low consumption and portability are paramount.  LTE Nano runs on a 40 grams SBC (Single Board Computer), on a Quad Core Cortex™-A53 processor and 2GB of RAM.

For the LTE Nano Project, Telefónica has integrated several components, one of the most essential being the EdgeCentrix virtual Enhanced Packet Core (vEPC) solution from Quortus, one of the most efficient and scalable software implementations of a mobile network functionality, able to run the essential elements of both 4G and 3G networks, including voice and data communications, with minimum HW requirements.

The most eye catching use of LTE Nano is for the rescue teams. An autonomous and portable LTE solution in a backpack, providing critical LTE communications in isolated places with no pre-existing coverage and difficult Access.

A drone with an LTE enabled camera transmitting video.

In addition, LTE Nano could be used to access retail intranets, though apps could do this job much better I think and

private LTE communications for small offices. Here I remain to be convinced that this scenario will not be superseded by WiFi calling, etc.

All these scenarios include the well-known Quality of Service provided by LTE networks in licensed spectrum which guarantee the absence of interferences and the security of communications, typical characteristics of regulated environments.

The presentation on LTE Nano is available here and a video from MWC is below (in Spanish):



Related posts:

• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Flying Small Cells are here...
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Drone cells are becoming a reality
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Small Cells at Mobile World Congress 2017 (#MWC17)
• The 3G4G Blog: Connecting Rural Scotland using Airmasts and Droneways

Small Cells in the Lamp posts

This lamp post does look a bit weird and ugly but it could be the future. 'SmartPoles', developed by Philips in conjunction with Ericsson delivers LED lights and LTE powered mobile broadband. According to the official press release:

With cellular data traffic expected to grow 9 times by 2020, according to the Ericsson Mobility Report, and current telecoms infrastructure struggling to respond to this demand, Philips SmartPoles are enabling seamless mobile wireless 4G/LTE connectivity, with the small cell technology from Ericsson housed in the poles to enable increased data capacity in the telecoms network.  Philips SmartPoles were specifically designed and tested to accept FCC licensed wireless mobile network operator equipment. This enables an alternative deployment methodology for 4G LTE broadband services which will connect each pole through a fiber link to its core network.

Back in February TTP in partnership with IP.Access, Quortus and Freescale demoed another concept of small cell on the lamp post. The case study on Freescale's website says:

TTP’s new eNodeB based on the QorIQ Qonverge® BSC9131 addresses these challenges. It fits into a photocell socket of a standard lamp post, providing the quickest possible installation without any modification to the lighting column or its power supply. The solution incorporates LTE Access Point software from ip.access and has been demonstrated with the Quortus ECX Core evolved packet core. It is targeted at 50 metre cells, supporting up to 32 active users at downlink rates of up to 100 Mbps.

TTP have also made an interesting video on this:

This conceptual lamppost above was conceived as a part of Oakland Innovation Project in 2013. While its good, its not ambitious enough as it talks about just WiFi for connectivity.

On the other hand, V-Pole (Vancouver Pole) concept by Canadian writer and artist Douglas Coupland shows what may be possible in the distant future. It is a wireless data, electrical vehicle charging, neighbourhood bulletin board post that is also an LED lamp post that could eliminate some of that clutter. I think it will still take quite a few years before technology can make this possible. Press release from 2012 available here.

I look forward to the day when street lights and lamp posts can do more than simply provide lighting and be a hub for providing connectivity and much more.

Related posts:

• Small Cells on the Lamp posts and other street furniture
• Huawei's Lampsite

Summary of Small Cell Forum Champions day

Small Cell forum held its champions day in Rome this month. There were some interesting case studies and presentations (details below). I have embedded some presentations and provided links to others. Interested people, feel free to explore further.

The Small Cell Forum has identified six key work items where they will be focusing their energies. These are:

• Small cells in Enterprise
• License Exempt Spectrum
• HetNet & SON
• Virtualization of small cells
• Multi operator support
• The role of small cells in 5G, IOT & M2M

Spidercloud did a presentation on Enterprise small cells. They were also one of the sponsors for a study by analyst firm iGR that showed strong demand among Enterprises for Managed Services based on Small Cells.

Cisco shared a case study from a university campus deployment where existing WI-FI APs were ‘upgraded’ to add a small cell capability.

Quortus demonstrated the range of architectures possible with virtualized small cell core networks including the on site MEC server supporting small cells across an enterprise and mission critical small cells supporting public safety applications. See presentation below:

iBwave showed how deployment within the enterprise had improved, with a case study which reduced indoor small cell planning down to one site visit.

MVNO TalkTalk outlined their plans to add LTE small cells to their home routers enriching customer experience as well increasing traffic offload from the macro network. The residential 4G small cells use a dedicated 3.3MHz carrier frequency already compatible with existing 4G handsets to provide good coverage indoors and in the surrounding streets.

Nokia demonstrated the importance of 3D thinking when planning small cell HetNets in dense urban indoor and outdoor environments due to building and user topography.

Qualcomm described how their SON technology provides zero touch integration for both the small cells and the macros, optimizing handovers in both directions.

Huawei shared their vision for small cell evolution, incorporating emerging technologies which leverage license exempt spectrum. Their demonstration of LAA mobility with Vodafone notching up 600Mbps peak rates clearly showing the potential of a joined-up approach to spectrum.

Airspan trials with SoftBank demonstrated an early nFAPI implementation working in a virtualized small cell / macro HetNet. The small cells filled in coverage gaps, and their densification increased capacity. Centralised CoMP and eICIC were demonstrated over a pre-standard nFAPI which works over commonly available packet based transport with significantly less stringent performance requirements than required with CPRI based C-RAN.

Quortus: Evolving architectures for Small Cells in the Enterprise

Continuing on our theme of Enterprise Small cells, here is slightly old presentation by Quortus from the Small Cell World Summit 2013