SK Telecom: Commercial deployment of LTE Femto cell

SK Telecom does not fail to impress with their aggressive roll-outs and impressive solutions to challenging problems. One such presentation from the Small Cells World Summit 2013 in London is embedded as follows:

Commercial deployment of lte femto cell with the innovative technologies and the roadmap from Zahid Ghadialy

Another presentation from late last year is available here.

Satellite Backhaul for Rural Small Cells

 A typical problem with the rural small cells is how to power and backhaul them. Power issue can be solved using Solar cells, wind turbines, etc. and generally a combination of them as a failsafe mechanism but what about the backhaul.

DSL is generally not available and Microwave links maybe difficult to acheive. How about Satellite backhaul?

iDirect have an analysis on the business case of using Satellite for backhaul which is embedded below:

Small Cells and Satellite from Zahid Ghadialy

An Informa report titled "Satellite backhaul for rural small cells" is also available on Slideshare here.

Site Selection - Nice animation by Alcatel-Lucent

See Also:

• The biggest challenge to Small Cells deployment

Interference in 3G Hetnets in case of shared carrier

We had a discussion earlier on 'dedicated v/s shared' carrier here. This post is just re-iterating the fact that while in case of LTE, there are advanced techniques like eICIC to manage interference (see 3G4G blog here), in case of 3G there are no standard techniques to manage the interference in case of shared carrier.

A recent presentation from ZTE in one of the conferences explains this point further that has been reproduced below for reference:

While I think SON can help in certain situations in case of 3G, the chances of coverage black holes are very high which can lead to radio link failures in ongoing calls. As such, the operator has to be absolutely sure where a small cell will be placed in a shared carrier situation for sake of maintaining a good macro coverage. 

Small Cells in LTE - 3GPP Rel-8 to Rel-12

A simple picture showing the Small Cells support in different 3GPP releases. For more details refer to the 3G4G blog here.

AT&T Experience: Small Cells in the office

From a presentation by Gordon Mansfield, in the Small Cells World Summit 2013.

What do the customers think?

“The Metrocell is working very well, we’ve seen significant improvements with data connection and speed which was our biggest issue before installation. Voice also seems to be working well.”

“The individuals within the office have seen a stronger signal and are able to make and receive calls in areas that they couldn’t before.”

“The new system seems to be working – my primary benchmark is whether or not I experience dropped calls …. I am not. In the past I received a voice mail notice but the phone never rang to give me an opportunity to answer it now all calls are coming through.”

Small Cells and X2 Interface

In the Release-8/9 of 3GPP, X2 interface between Small Cells and between Small Cells and Macro cells was not available. In Release-10 and 11, this was made available as shown in the picture above.

X2 is not only useful for lossless handovers in LTE/LTE-A but is also very useful for Interference management using eICIC (enhanced Inter Cell Interference Management) feature introduced in Rel-10.

More details on this enhancement is available in 3GPP TS 36.300 here.

Case Study: Mexico Prisons and Metrocells

Couple of interesting tweets from the Small cells world Summit recently caught my attention, unfortunately I am not able to find more information. Having said that the tweets are self-explanatory:

#SCWS2013 Mexican prisons use jammers to block prisoners making calls. This jamming bleeds outside the prison grounds causing problems!
— Small Cells (@small_cells) June 6, 2013

#SCWS2013 Solution was metro cells located in the residential areas outside the prison - to give the people connectivity - not the prisoners
— Small Cells (@small_cells) June 6, 2013

Here is a link about the Mexican prison jammers blocking neighbours cellular service.

Small Cell World Summit 2013: Video and Report

David Chambers, Think Small Cell, has compiled a quick summary of the recently concluded Small Cells World Summit which is worth reading and available here. A video made by him is embedded below:

'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.