Deutsche Telekom, Huber+Suhner are jointly developing 5G small cell antennas

According to Telekom press release:

Deutsche Telekom, Huber+Suhner are jointly developing 5G small cell antennas

Deutsche Telekom is now also preparing its network for the use of 5G small cell antennas. To do so, it is collaborating with Huber+Suhner, the specialist for electrical and optical connectivity. The Swiss company has developed five small cell antennas for Deutsche Telekom that support 4G and 5G frequencies. The Sencity Urban antennas cover the range of frequencies from 1.7 to 4.2 GHz. Small cells are small amplifiers for the mobile network. The data throughput can thus be systematically expanded in areas where many customers are on the move or surfing.

The new small cell antennas first operate in Deutsche Telekom’s 4G network. They can be upgraded to 5G in just a few simple steps. Sencity Urban antennas will be used for the first time in Kiel, Lüneburg, Osnabrück, Munich, Mülheim and other cities.

Small cells will play an increasingly important role in Deutsche Telekom’s network in the future. They are creating a significant increase in data capacity in their coverage area. This is currently up to an additional 150 MBit/s. The new types of Huber+Suhner antenna make it possible to increase quality further with what is referred to as the MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) technology. Using this technology, several antennas provide higher data throughput – both at the transmitters and in the receiver.

“Small cell antennas are an important component of our expansion strategy. We can systematically cover squares and streets with the new antennas. This helps us create more capacity in the downtown areas and thus further optimize our network,” states Walter Goldenits, Telekom Deutschland’s CTO. “A big added value of our Swiss partner’s antennas is their flexible handling: we can convert the supply to 5G in a few easy steps.”

The small cell antennas made by Huber+Suhner will be installed on public telephone boxes, bus and streetcar shelters, walls, or on LED furniture. There are various types of antennas and housing, adapted to the various requirements. Omnidirectional antennas are used for market squares, for example, and directional antennas for narrow streets.

Small cells will be required in the future to provide urban areas with 4G and 5G. Combined with the conventional locations, the network can thus provide the necessary coverage and capacity to supply more and more wireless devices. The Sencity Urban antennas are very compact and can be easily installed in existing infrastructures. This saves space and enables future networks to perform at their best.

The press release is also available on Huber+Suhner site here.

Back in May, Huber+Suhner had already announced outdoor MIMO antennas for 5G Urban Deployments:

HUBER+SUHNER has developed small omnidirectional and directional antennas to maximise performance. The new SENCITY Urban 100 and 200 outdoor MIMO antennas cover both 4G and 5G high frequency ranges and are as compact as possible for discreet installation in different types of street furniture, such as bus shelters, poles or walls, depending on the location, thanks to various bracket mounting options.

Further details:

• SENCITY® Urban 100
• SENCITY® Urban 200

Related Posts:

• Small Cell Installation Challenges
• AT&T's Small Base Stations on Wooden Poles
• Antennas for Small Cells and C-RAN

AT&T's Small Base Stations on Wooden Poles

We blogged about Sprint's outdoor small cells in pictures last month, not we just heard about AT&T's small cells on wooden poles.

Kudos to @ATT for building built a few somewhat neat small base stations on wooden poles in PA https://t.co/MfqrCTkv0H
Will be glad to tweet comparable photos from other carriers to show it is NOT impossible!
Why not make it a credible industry goal?#5gReady NOT #5gMessy ! pic.twitter.com/yezr28e8gJ

— Michael Marcus (@MarcusSpecSoln) September 21, 2018

Here are some of the pictures courtesy of Michael Marcus:

Related posts:

• The 3G4G Blog: Different types of Mobile Masts
• The 3G4G Blog: AT&T Blog: "Providing Connectivity from Inside a Cactus"
• 3G4G Small Cells Blog: Sprint's Outdoor Small Cells - In Pictures

Verizon's got Balls and Small Cells

Matsing Balls are a first in an NFL Stadium at U.S. Bank Stadium - Source: Verizon

Love the fact that the mobile network operators have become quite open in talking about their infrastructure, data consumption statistics and their future plans. Last week I talked about Sprint's small cell deployments for Super Bowl, this week some info from Verizon.

Verizon has talked in detail in their blog about how its coping with the huge demand in data that has been increasing every year. Here is an extract from a few Verizon blogs.

The permanent new network enhancements will boost performance in U.S. Bank Stadium and areas of anticipated high demand, including Super Bowl LIVE, Super Bowl Experience, popular tourist attractions, airports, hotels, venues and other special event locations throughout the Twin Cities area. 

Verizon’s network enhancements for you include: 

• 24 new permanent cell sites 
• 230+ permanent small cell sites 
• Doubling of network capacity on Nicollet Mall with a new small cell/design solution inside new bus shelters
• LTE Advanced features added to the 4G LTE network for greater capacity and faster peak data speeds
• 48 percent more antennas added to Verizon’s Distributed Antenna System (DAS) at the Stadium in 2017
• A new neutral host DAS system at Mall of America® boosting Verizon’s network capacity by 900 percent
• A new neutral host DAS system at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport adding new 4G LTE coverage in tunnels, boosting Verizon’s network capacity throughout the airport by more than 1,000 percent 

Handrail antennas in U.S. Bank Stadium - Source: Verizon

DAS: Verizon built a neutral host state-of-the-art network system when the new tech-advanced U.S. Bank stadium opened in 2016 for the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority and added 48 percent more antennas in 2017 with innovative design solutions exclusively for your connectivity, including drink rail, handrail and under the seat antennas. 

The stadium DAS system Verizon built is one of the largest in the U.S. and Verizon customers will be connected by more than 1,200 antennas distributed over more than 100 coverage zones. A similar outdoor stadium DAS provides coverage at the east entrance, light rail station and west plaza area. In the first indoor use at an NFL stadium, two Matsing Ball antennas (that appear like giant white disco balls) are installed 330 feet above the field on the ridge beam. They provide coverage by dividing the field into sectors, like slices of a pie, for Super Bowl photographers and staff, and for you at popular concerts with floor seating. 

One of Verizon’s small cells outside U.S. Bank stadium enhances wireless data capacity. - Source Verizon

Small Cells: Small cells are designed to blend into the urban landscape, literally “hiding in plain sight” on street lights, traffic signals or utility poles, and provide 4G LTE coverage for a radius of approximately 1,000 feet.  Small cells bring the fiber connections and network “densification” needed to enable Smart Cities technology (like managing traffic flow) and the next generation network, 5G. As part of our Smart Communities work with the city of Minneapolis, we’ve also installed security cameras on street lights with our small cells in the downtown area to help the city ensure the best experience possible for fans and citizens.

On the side, Verizon also deployed a network for Public Safety officials and it tested the limits of 5G.

So what did the statistics look like? Here it is from another blog post:

Game day facts 

• Verizon’s network was used by 57% of the attendees in the stadium at this year’s Super Bowl, up from 45% the previous year.
• Verizon fans benefitted from the highest average download speeds at U.S. Bank Stadium according to third-party testing by P3 of all four national carriers during the game. 
• On Super Bowl game day, Verizon fans used 18.8 TB of data in and around the stadium, the equivalent of a single user binge watching HD video for 435 straight days.
• The data usage by Verizon fans was 70.9% more than the 11 TB used at Super Bowl 51 – the same as watching HD video for 256 days in a row. At Super Bowl 50, Verizon customers used 7 TB of data – roughly 1/3 of Sunday’s big game.
• Top wireless uses by Verizon customers were led, in this order, by web browsing, streaming video and using social media and sports apps.  
• The top three favorite social media apps of Verizon customers were Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram, with Snapchat moving from third at last year’s Super Bowl to first most used.

The biggest spikes of wireless data usage occurred during:

• The halftime show driven by social media video sharing. 
• The next biggest usage spikes occurred when the Patriots fumbled the ball late in the fourth quarter, and;
• At the game kickoff, with fans streaming video and web browsing.

Our Network team of 150 engineers, 3X the size of an NFL team roster, staffed Verizon’s network Command Center 24x7 to ensure a reliable network experience for fans, first responders and public safety teams.

So the headline figure was 'Verizon fans used 18.8 TB of data in and around the stadium'.

To put this in perspective, here is a tweet from EE CEO, Marc Allera:

Tottenham's 2-0 win against Man Utd in January currently holds the record for the most shared #PremierLeague game on the @EE network @wembleystadium – fans used nearly 1 terabyte of data (988GB) ⚽📲👍

Will the #NorthLondonDerby exceed that figure on Saturday? #TOTARS pic.twitter.com/2Y9qx46XFZ

— Marc Allera (@MarcAllera) February 8, 2018

So you can see how much data was consumed in the Super Bowl match.

Localytics has some more info on the data consumption pattern, apps, etc. during the Super Bowl here.

Looking forward to finding some similar info from T-Mobile and AT&T.

Antennas for Small Cells and C-RAN

While a special antenna is not required for Small Cell deployment in general, they do require the right kind of antennas to make sure the original purpose of deployment is achieved.

Specifications for base-station antennas for use with small cells developed by NTT DOCOMO are shown in the picture above. The following is from the NTT Docomo Technical Journal:

These antennas feature dual polarization and can be shared among the 1.5 GHz and 1.7 GHz frequency bands. A separately developed compact duplexer is installed between the SRE and antenna to separate and combine signals of these frequency bands. The compact configuration of these antennas simplifies their installation.

When planning a service area by placing small cells next to each other, deterioration in signal quality due to interference between small cells is an issue of concern. To resolve this issue, downward tilting in the vertical plane is effective to reduce the interference caused by that antenna’s signals on adjacent cells while also to raise the receive level within the antenna’s own cell. The end result is improved throughput. The following summarizes the features of three types of antennas developed by NTT DOCOMO taking interference reduction and diverse installation environments into account.

1) Rod Antenna (Two Types): Having an omnidirectional radiation pattern in the horizontal plane, this type of antenna is installed on the wall or ceiling of a building to form a service area in its periphery. Two types of rod antennas have been developed: one with tilting for an interference-reduction effect and the other with no tilting for a compact configuration. The rod antenna with tilting consists of multiple vertically aligned antenna elements, the amplitude and phase of each of which is adjusted to produce an electrical tilt. The tilt angle, however, is predetermined.

2) Plane Antenna: This type of antenna has high gain while having a unidirectional radiation pattern making it applicable to installation on high places like building roofs to form a service area in a spot-like manner. A plane antenna can be given a mechanical tilt with a metal fixture to reduce interference.

Interested readers can download the article from here.

I also posted an article on the 3G4G blog titled 'Antenna evolution: From 4G to 5G'. The presentation by Kathrein provides more details on Small Cells and mmWave antennas. Why mmWave? Because most of the industry thinks that mmWave 5G will be small cells.

“All of 5G looks a lot like a small cell” - Matt Beal, Vodafone Director of Innovation and Architecture at #SCWS2016 https://t.co/RGSC6aSTLF

— Zahid Ghadialy (@zahidtg) August 28, 2016

The relevant part is embedded below

As always, comments, insights and suggestions welcome.