Optus 'Satellite Small Cell in a Container' wins another award

Optus has won the Satellite Provider of the Year award at Communications Alliance’s 2018 ACOMM Awards dinner.

Optus received the distinguished award for its Satellite Small Cell in a Container. Optus designed the standalone, autonomously-powered solution to extend the Optus mobile network, using Optus' satellite backhaul service, into remote regional and rural sites where other telecommunications facilities, infrastructure and power are unavailable.

Nick Leake, Acting Head of Satellite Networks, said Optus is committed to decreasing the digital divide in geographically challenging locations.

“We are investing significantly in regional and remote areas across Australia. Our Satellite Small Cell in a Container is a fantastic example of how Optus continues to innovate our satellite solutions to provide resilient mobile connectivity to communities in geographically challenging locations.”

Optus was the first in Australia to deliver satellite small cells, enabling 3G mobile coverage and extending the Optus mobile network into remote, rural and regional locations using Optus’ satellite backhaul service.

Mataranka National Park in the Northern Territory was the first site to benefit from the Satellite Small Cell in a Container, with ten additional sites in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia currently being built, tested and rolled out.

I blogged about the Australian mobile notspots program earlier here and Parallel Wireless CWS Radios helping Optus connect Australian outback via satellite here. This Optus deployment won Small Cell Forum award in 'Excellence in Commercial Deployment of Rural/Remote Small Cells' category in 2017 along with Parallel Wireless for their CWS & Gilat for satellite backhaul.


Further Reading:

• Out of the way not out of touch
• Regional Victoria's black spot boost
• Optus switches on 50th Mobile Black Spot site in Parawa

Vodafone Australia trialing regional coverage hub (small cell) with Nokia

Vodafone Australia has unveiled its new technology for helping improve mobile signal for voice, data, and Internet of Things (IoT) in regional areas, with its Vodafone Regional Coverage Hub. The Hub is a simple, self-install, small cells solution. It relies on ethernet backhaul for connectivity with the operator network.

ZDNet reports that this has been developed in partnership with Nokia. Nokia has a similar solution called Kuha that they have trialed in UK.

Vodafone press release mentions that this hub was able to provide coverage for 8 sq. km., which is roughly 1.5 km radius. Its a low power solution so coverage area would be restricted. The small cell is providing 4G and NB-IoT coverage.

Its interesting to note that as this is 4G only, older 4G devices and devices that do not support VoLTE will not work on this small cell. 

Telstra continues Small Cells rollouts as part of Mobile Black Spots Program

Back in February, Telstra announced that they had turned on the 300th site as part of Federal Government’s Mobile Black Spots Program. The announcement said:

With hundreds of new base stations, small cells and site upgrades built over the last 6 months or scheduled around the country during the next 6 months, this financial year (FY18) is shaping up as a big year for expanding mobile coverage for regional Australia.

Then in March, it installed 4G small cells at 50 sites across the Melbourne CBD as part of a national three-year rollout of 1000 cells intended to boost capacity. As per RCR Wireless, Telstra’s small cell program stipulates the deployment of 1,000 small cells in metro and regional locations within the next three years. Some of these areas include Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.

Finally, another announcement in March indicated that Telstra is trialing small cells on Tasmania’s power poles to fix mobile black spots. As per this announcement:

We have announced we will trial the installation of small cell mobile technology on TasNetworks‘ electricity distribution infrastructure to help fill some of Tasmania’s mobile black spots.

The small cells trial will begin with a single site in the Weldborough area, where a small cell installed on TasNetworks infrastructure will provide new mobile voice and broadband coverage.

With the construction of a standard mobile base station typically costing several hundreds of thousands of dollars, small cells may allow us to deliver mobile coverage and capacity to smaller communities and areas where the construction of a mobile base station would otherwise be uneconomical.

The trial will test the feasibility of using existing TasNetwork power poles to improve mobile coverage in parts of Tasmania.

Related posts:

• Small Cells to help connect Australian Outback
• Covering Australian Mobile Not-spots

Covering Australian Mobile Not-spots

Picture source

Came across this Quora question recently, "Is Australia much bigger than it appears on the map?". The answer surprised me because Australia is as big as USA or China and is 3.5 times bigger that Greenland but in the map that certainly does not show up. With a population of just 23.2 million, it's definitely bound to have loads of not-spots.

Picture Source

Telstra's 4G small cells are connect Queensland's mobile blackspots, but lack of coverage is still common. The problem with low power small cells sometimes is that the coverage area can be very small. In this particular case its less than 300 metres.

Optus is another operator committed to spend AU$1 billion to in regional and rural Australia to eradicate mobile blackspots, improve overall mobile coverage outside the big cities and help future proof the networks for data-hungry applications like video streaming.

It's the biggest network investment in the company's 25-year history and will fund:

• 500 new mobile sites across regional and remote Australia (including 114 sites built through the government's Mobile Blackspots Program)
• Upgrades for more than 1,800 sites to go from 3G to 4G
• The addition of 4G to more than 200 sites (to increase capacity for peak periods)
• The continued rollout of satellite small-cell technology (bringing voice and data to the remote outback)

I talked earlier about their 3G Small Cells using Parallel Wireless CWS here. The solution also won Small Cell Forum award in 'Excellence in Commercial Deployment of Rural/Remote Small Cells' category along with Gilat for satellite backhaul.

Here is a video showing how users reacted to one of the sites having just been turned on.


*Full Disclosure: I work for Parallel Wireless as a Senior Director, 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.

Small Cells to help connect Australian Outback

Picture Source: William Creek Hotel on Facebook

Optus, the second largest mobile operator in Australia is working hard to provide coverage to blackspots. According to their black spot program:

Under Round 2 of the Program, Optus successfully secured $26.4 million in Federal and State Government funding to build 114 new mobile sites, with Optus co-contributing a further $36.4 million to provide dedicated connectivity to thousands of Australians. Optus’ bid includes funding for 65 mobile base stations as well as the deployment of 49 satellite small cells.

William Creek, a town that is fifteen hours from Adelaide is one such place that recently got a small cell from Optus. One newspaper put it as:

All ten permanent residents of South Australia’s William Creek will get mobile coverage for the first time when Optus switches on its first base station subsidised under the federal government’s mobile blackspot program.

The outback town is famed for having one of the world’s most remote pubs and the only petrol station between mining centres Maree, Coober Pedy, and Oodnadatta.

It is surrounded by the world’s largest cattle station, Anna Creek, which spans some 24,000 square kilometres.

However, it is also frequented by a number of tourists passing through the village as they explore the famous Oodnadatta Track or stop over on their way to Lake Eyre, which is about 1000 km away.

Visitors - as long as they are Optus customers - will now enjoy 3G mobile reception in town rather than having to rely on one of William Creek’s solar powered pay phones.

Optus, which was conspicuously left out of the first $100 million round of the mobile blackspot subsidy program, has installed a satellite small cell in the centre of town, relying on both satellite connectivity and backhaul to deliver 3G mobile reception within a radius of three kilometres of the town.


Optus national planning manager Vince Mullins said William Creek's new technology was the result of an 18-month trial in Oodnadatta.

"Unlike a normal mobile base station, which is quite expensive and large, we've shrunk that down and we're basically able to provide hot spot coverage in these really remote areas," he said.

"To deploy, it's very quick, as opposed to building a massive tower, and it's great because we can use satellite technology to backhaul it rather than having to run microwave or fibre."

Optus, the South Australian and Federal governments have invested $8.5 million to improve mobile coverage across regional and remote areas in the state.

More than a dozen other remote locations will also see similar technology soon.

In a news item in January in Telecom Times, Optus had said:

"Our primary vendor for this project is Gilat," an Optus spokesperson told Telecom Times. "Through our relationship with Gilat we also work with Parallel Wireless, who are providing the mobile related equipment and technology for the rollout, such as small cells and mobile network gateways."

Related Links:

• Optus Mobile Black Spot Program
• Optus ups WA mobile coverage with new small cells along 2,000 km highway
• Mobile Operators in Australia - Wikipedia
• Optus’ first blackspot base station connects all ten residents of William Creek
• Filling in Mobile Blackspots brings Facebook to a remote pub in South Australia
• Outback town William Creek enters 21st century with mobile reception

Rural and Remote coverage back in spotlight

The Small Cell Forum recently launched its Release 5: Rural & Remote to address the growing concern of especially rural coverage that is plaguing many developed nations.


The release contains 16 new and updated documents ranging from case studies of small cells already used in a range of rural and remote settings, through to those covering backhaul, deployment challenges, architectures and the services that can be enabled by small cells.

From my point of view, backhaul is one of the biggest challenge for the rural and remote coverage. As I have discussed in an earlier post here, satellites are a good option for rural small cells. The main issue with satellites is latency which could be around 0.5 seconds which may make them unsuitable for voice and other real time applications. Another option being trialled are Balloons and Drones as I have discussed in another post here.

The Australian operator Telstra is rolling out small cells in around 50 rural areas. While the small cells would be good for 4G data, they wouldnt be available for voice. While I do not have the details on what backhaul they are using and the voice issues could be more of VoLTE support on handsets, I am sure the users would appreciate the data coverage. If latency is not an issue then they could use OTT services like Skype, Whatsapp, Viber for voice.

The UK operator EE has been working with Parallel Wireless to use innovative mesh backhauling. Part of the licensed spectrum (20MHz chunk of EE‘s 1800MHz LTE spectrum) could be used for backhaul which would be different from the access network for the end users. The meshing allows in theory for the small cell to macro connection, with a couple of hops, be as much as 30km.

As I have mentioned in a post earlier, Vodafone UK has its own Rural Sure Signal program. Vodafone claims to have received hundreds of applications from communities across the length and breadth of the UK. Following a trial covering 12 towns and villages, it has now announced the first 30 communities selected to join the programme, which it is hoped will enhance everyday life for consumers and make it easier to do business in rural areas. There is a plan to continue this program for the rest of this year.

ThinkSmallCell has an interesting article where it asks if the drive towards the rural coverage is operator driven or regulator mandated. While it is a combination of both is most developed countries, in some developing nations it can just be that people are desperate and will find their own way. One example is people in remote villages in Mexico that are installing open source base stations from NuRAN to provide coverage to their villages. Another example is Nepal, where villagers are banding together to provide WiFi coverage to rural areas.

Opensource is another concept argues ThinkSmallCell that may also be an opportunity to connect some of the most remote and unserved communities which commercial organisations haven't been able to reach. It may also be useful for experiments and for colleges and universities with limited budgets. PA consultants have shown how to create a 2G base station using Raspberry-Pi. I have a feeling that we will see more projects like these soon.