Rural & Remote: 2 case studies

Some good case studies posted by the Small Cell Forum about Rural & Remote small cells. The first one is from Softbank, Japan as follows:

The second is a presentation by Parallel Wireless

as follows:

Interference cancellation in high density small cells deployment

I looked at some 3GPP Release-12 small cells enhancements in an earlier blog post here. David Chambers, ThinkSmallCell has also published a post on 3GPP small cells enhancements in Release-12 and Release-13 which is available here.

In a recent NTT Docomo technical journal, there is an article that focuses on Interference suppression and cancellation techniques that have been introduced as part of 3GPP Release-12. These techniques can be used in conjunction with high density small cells Hetnet deployment. The article is embedded below.

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.

The role of Wi-Fi in evolving mobile ecosystem

Came across this old presentation from the Cambridge Wireless FWIC 2015 by Plum consulting. I have written many posts on these topics but this is going to be a hot area for discussion for the coming months and year(s). In fact you might be seeing more on these topics in the next few months on this blog.

Here is the presentation from Plum embedded below.

You can read more about the Cambridge Wireless Future of Wireless international conference in a blog post by ThinkSmallCell here.

Case Study: Deploying small cell backhaul in China

Came across this old presentation (embedded below) by CCS (Cambridge Communication Systems Limited) of small cell backhaul deployment in China. Having looked at their website they do have regular updates for different deployment. Here is one with China Mobile and here is another one from China Telecom. Interested readers can also read their regular updates here.

Here is their presentation from Small Cells World Summit (Backhaul Summit) from last year:

Small Cells on the Train - A 2 hop solution

An Ericsson blog post some time back talked about the 2 hop solution for trains. Thinking about it, I quite like the idea. The post talks about 3 main challenges on high speed trains:

There are mainly three reasons communication services on high-speed trains is challenging:

First, large penetration loss via the shield of the train. This penetration loss is expected to be 20 to 30 dB.

Second, large numbers of handovers in very short time. This is due to hundreds or thousands of users needing handover from one site to another concurrently/sequentially. This phenomenon affects system stability and eats up capacity.

Third, high power consumption of user equipment (UE). This is because UE-s on the train need higher power to overcome the large penetration loss in uplink as well.

A common currently adopted solution for high speed trains is to densify the network along the railway to combat the large penetration loss. However, this will make the second issue more severe, as handover frequency is increased due to smaller site- to-site distance. Another way is to increase the transmission power of the base stations, which helps to solve the large penetration loss as well. However this cannot solve the third issue. And neither of these solutions are cost-effective.

Another solution I have discussed before is the Mobile Relay Node which was designed with avoiding multiple handovers when the vehicle moves between different macro cells. Not sure about its status in the standardisation process right now.

Anyway, coming back to the Ericsson post on Small cells on the train, while the Macro cells provide the TD-LTE backhaul outside, Radio Over Fiber (ROF) is used inside the tunnels to provide the same coverage.

Within the train Small cells (I guess multiple small cells will be needed in practical deployments, one for each carriage) can provide good coverage to the users and avoid the need for handovers.

Embedded is the video from Ericsson Taiwan that provides more details about this trial

Disguising Small Cells in Rural areas

We all want good mobile coverage but we do not want the cell towers in our backyard. The main reason being that somehow this can affect our health and maybe cause cancer. There is absolutely no link between cellphone radiation and cancer as I have discussed in an earlier post here. With more studies having been done, any possible links between cellphone tower and existence of cancer seems to diminish. On the WHO list, exposure to radio emissions is now category 2b (possible carcinogens), along with coffee, talcum powder and many other substances to which we all expose ourselves.

As a result, the mobile operators have started disguising cell phone towers. A cellphone tower inside the bell tower, rear right, is seen over the Resurrection Lutheran Church in Ankeny, Iowa. In rural areas disguising also doesn't affect the scenery.



The cactus cell tower in Arizona is another great example of coverage by stealth.

Small cells on the other hand is a whole new ball game. We are so used to seeing WiFi routers that people will probably not bat an eyelid with the small cell above by Vodafone in Cranborne.

Another disguise is the bird box cell booster, also by Vodafone. It picks up the mobile signal from the nearest network mast, and boosts it to provide better coverage in the surrounding area. This would definitely fit with the surrounding but getting power can sometimes be tricky.

Do you know of any disguised small cells, please let us know.

Wi-Fi: Future Roadmap and LTE

At the WBA Wi-Fi Global Congress, Intel provided a good summary of the way things are progressing in the WiFi world, including the standards updates that are going on. Luckily I found a video by the same author in from an IEEE conference which is also embedded below.

Wi-Fi is becoming important and a useful rule of thumb is that the spectrum in 5GHz is roughly around 10 times that of 2.4GHz and the spectrum is 60GHz is roughly around 10 times that of 5GHz. (not all spectrum is available everywhere so just use this as a rough guide).


As I mentioned in a presentation I gave this week, there are three different approaches being proposed at the radio level; LTE-U, LAA and LWA. I wrote a post on LWA not long back on the 3G4G blog here.



Dave Wright from Ruckus Wireless has kindly shared a recent presentation on different proposals for LTE operation in unlicensed spectrum. The timeline above shows how quickly things are moving. Here is a the presentation

It would be important from Wi-Fi vendors point of view that LTE-WiFI Link Aggregation is standardised as part of Release-13 as there would be an option which would be agreeable to everyone.

Couple of Satellite Backhaul Presentations

After publishing the emergency communication options last week, I was made aware of couple of recent presentations on Satellite backhaul options. The first one is from Richard Deasington of iDirect at MWC 2015:

The other one is from Vince Onuigbo of Hughes. As can be seen above, the biggest issue with Satellites is the latency which is 600ms for the geostationary satellites. Anyway, here is their presentation:

Emergency communication options in times of disaster

The Nepal disaster is another reminder that we need to be prepared in case of natural (or man-made) disasters and in times of emergencies.

ITU said that it has deployed emergency telecommunication equipment in Nepal following the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit the country on 25 April 2015. The emergency equipment includes 35 satellite mobile phones and 10 satellite Broadband Global Area Network terminals along with solar panels and laptops to support relief coordination efforts.

Satellite phones have been getting better with higher speeds. Thuraya Telecom has some interesting videos on Youtube, here is one that shows how to get good these phones have become:


Satellites can also be used to provide backhaul for small cells and can be installed relatively quickly.

Thaicom recently announced that they have sent equipment and engineers to help reconnect the region quickly. From a picture posted on their website, it looks like they are backhauling the small cells but I dont have any more details.

A similar approach is being done by another satellite operator SES, in conjunction with emergency.lu.

Drones (UAVs) and Baloons are another option for use in these scenarios but they need (expensive) receivers to be installed, which may be an issue.

One of the lessons learned after the Japanese twin disasters of earthquake and tsunami was the need to deploy more small cells.

According to Akiyoshi Ishiwata, a principal research analyst at Gartner in Tokyo covering Japan's mobile networks, 'each of the operators are actively installing small cells and picocells in buildings, subways and indoor areas'. These miniature basestations improve indoor coverage, and improve a network's resilience by using more diverse power supplies and backhaul connections. Ishiwata said operators are considering using femtocells as the basis of a national machine-to-machine communications network that could also include earthquake sensors.

According to The Register, DoCoMo has tested blackout-proof hydrogen cell base station in Japan, ready for the next tsunami (see picture above).

Finally, I saw this tweet about Vodafone's emergency 'network in a back pack'

Vodafone prepares to launch emergency ‘network in a backpack’ in Nepal - 11kg mobile network which can be set up in just 10 minutes

— Rory Cellan-Jones (@BBCRoryCJ) April 29, 2015

Its not the first time Vodafone is helping out with a Small cell in a backpack. According to WSJ:

Vodafone Group said Monday its philanthropic division has created a mobile network in a backpack that can be deployed in 10 minutes, enabling aid workers to carry out their work in disaster zones. 

The Instant Network Mini, which can be taken as hand luggage on commercial flights, can provide up to five concurrent calls within a radius of about 330 feet and enable text messages to be sent to thousands of people. 

The 24-pound backpack is an innovation that follows on from the company’s original Instant Network—a portable network in a larger form that can be transported in four suitcases weighing 220 pounds. It offers a much wider operating radius of up to 3 miles.

Two original Instant Network kits were used in the Philippines during Typhoon Haiyan in November 2013, enabling 1.4 million text messages and 443,288 calls in 29 days, Vodafone says. 

The backpack, developed by Vodafone’s Spanish business, as well as Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies and nongovernment organization Télécoms Sans Frontières, provides a secure 2G GSM network, with a GSM base transceiver station connecting to a host network over a satellite connection. 

A 2G (short for second-generation) network can support voice calls and text messages but can’t easily handle Web surfing or video, unlike the 3G and 4G networks in wide consumer use.

In African countries, having a network allows people to use services like M-Pesa, for instant money transfers to friends and family. Vodafone has also donated £100,000 to support relief efforts following Nepal earthquake that killed more than 3,300 people.

Do let me know if I have missed anything.

Additional reading:

• How mobile tech is improving global disaster relief - BBC
• Part 1: How Satellite Made a Difference in Nepal - Via Satellite Magazine
• Part 2: How Satellite Made a Difference in Nepal - Via Satellite Magazine