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.

CW Seminar on DAS vs Small Cells

I mentioned about the CW seminar in my earlier post here. The event is over so here are a few takeaways from the seminar.

The good news about CW Small Cells events is that David Chambers (ThinkSmallCell) does a very comprehensive summary. For this one, its available here.

For a limited time (for non-members), the presentations from the speakers is available on CW website here.

I wanted to highlight few takeaways and stats that were quoted during the seminar as follows:

• The 5 challenges of deploying small cells: compelling event, capacity, complexity, coverage, cost
• 90 operators now offer unlimited service with voice, SMS & Data
• Due to European roaming charges having been scrapped, there is 300% growth in European roaming traffic since last year.
• Average consumption is 1.9Gbytes/month forecast to be 15.8Gbytes by 2022. Finish operator Elisa is already running at an average of 18GB/month
• Modern inbuilding systems are 2T2R with many older installation still using SISO.
• 40% of the workforce will be freelancers, temps, independent contractors and solopreneurs by 2020 (Not sure if this is UK or worldwide figure)
• 39% of millenials say they interact more with their smartphones than they do with theur significant others, parents, friends, children or co-workers
• By the end of 2017, around 14000 co-working spaces will be in operation worldwide
• 67% of people around the world use a personal device at work to some degree

I have highlighted Opencell's view on DAS vs Small Cells in the earlier post here. This Tweet below also shows the comparison points

Good comparison between DAS & Small Cells by Graham Payne of @youvegotnetwork at @cambwireless #CWSmallCell pic.twitter.com/wE8MChjPSB

— Parallel Wireless (@Parallel_tw) December 7, 2017

Bob Slorach, from Wireless Infrastructure Group (WIG), drew some clear guidelines about building size, pointing to the needs of buildings between about 50000 to 300000 sq. ft. This represents a huge unmet demand of around 2 Billion sq. ft. in the UK alone.

As can be seen in the picture above, picocells can serve smaller venues while a 5 watt small cell (microcell) with distributed RF can satisfy the 100 - 300K sq. ft. venues. For bigger venues, a higher power unit would be required. It would also justify to have a neutral host solution so the costs could be distributed and coverage is available for everyone.

Adis Omeragic, Special Projects Manager at EE, shared his side of the story. While his slides are still not on the site (they are expected to be available), I have emnedded a tweet below.

Some very clear and concise points made by Adis Omeragic of @EE regarding DAS and Small Cells at @cambwireless #CWSmallCell pic.twitter.com/wNTlmbPNol

— Parallel Wireless (@Parallel_tw) December 7, 2017

Some of the points he made were, while passive DAS may no longer be used, active DAS will be around. Only about 5% of DAS deployments in the UK have all four operators connected as of today.

According to Adis, DAS displacement is slow because of lack of roadmap alignment between macros and small cells. Small cells upgrade path is very limited. DAS allows Carrier Aggregation, Multi-technology and multi-band capability, SON features which are more common in macros, etc.

Due to the new features like 4x4 MIMO and even Massive MIMO, things may start going in favour of small cells.

One final point that was discussed in the panel was whether VoWiFi is good enough so there is no longer a need for residential or enterprise femtocells.

While the panelists agreed that VoWifi is good enough for residential, it may not be good enough for enterprises. I disagree. If the enterprise has designed their WiFi networks properly, this may not be much of an issue.

There is other issue of the lack of devices and operators support for VoWiFi. As EE pointed out, they only support it for post-paid customers, on direct contract with them. So pre-paid, MVNO and partner customers wont benefit. Also, its supported in limited number of devices.

DAS vs Small Cells for In-building coverage

Small cells vs DAS has been a topic of discussion for a long time. ThinkSmallCell covered this topic back in 2014. I don't think things have changed much.

Recently I came across ClearSky and Opencell. They both have a slightly different approach to providing in-building coverage solutions. Instead of focusing on having neutral host small cells with MOCN or other network sharing approach, they act as neutral host providers responsible for integrating small cells from multiple operators within the building.

ThinkSmallCell has a detailed write-up of Opencell and Clearsky Technologies. What impressed me is the Opencell article saying (emphasis mine):

This isn’t a true neutral host where a single set of small cells is shared by all operators and routed through a central gateway. Each small cell is connected directly to its host operator – there is no shared gateway switch  through which all traffic is concentrated.

Instead they use Enterprise Small Cells to provide in-building cellular service from all four UK networks at a 75% lower price than DAS including basestations. Parallel sets of small cells are installed, one set for each operator. Typically a single dedicated LAN is used with a single separate fibre backhaul through the Internet. Each installation is designed, commissioned and maintained directly by the OpenCell team.

A 24/7 Data Centre with fault and performance monitoring service constantly tracks operation and identifies problems. We can remotely diagnose and fix issues, and will attend next day to fix or replace faulty hardware. We charge an initial setup fee and an ongoing operational support rate. There would also be a callout fee and additional cost for major changes, such as when the building is redeveloped, layout changed or new tenants are introduced.

It can be 75% cheaper to install enterprise small cells from multiple operators rather than install DAS. Again, I am sure there is a point till which it would make sense to do this. After that, it would be cheaper to have a DAS solution.

In couple of weeks, Cambridge Wireless is hosting a seminar on this topic, 'DAS and Enterprise Small Cells - Competition or Collaboration?'. I am hoping to hear more details about this.

In the meantime, if you would like to explore more about this topic, see the links below.

• Multi-operator enterprise small cells commercially live with OpenCell - ThinkSmallCell
• ClearSky lights up Clearwater Beach Resort with multi-operator Small Cells - ThinkSmallCell
• Small cell deployment supports all four nationwide operators - RCR Wireless
• The three key differentiators between DAS and Small Cells for Enterprise - ThinkSmallCell
• DAS and Small Cells solutions become more intertwined - ThinkSmallCell
• Six ways to achieve multi-operator Small Cells - ThinkSmallCell
• Quick tutorial on Mobile Network Sharing Options - The 3G4G Blog
• Tutorial: An Introduction to Macrocells & Small Cells - 3G4G Small Cells Blog

Tutorial: An Introduction to Macrocells & Small Cells

I have been meaning to create a video tutorial on Small Cells for a long time. The problem is that its not as easy as most people may think. To explain small cells concepts, its necessary to explain macrocell, C-RAN & DAS. This is what I have attempted to do in this presentation.

The slides are embedded below and can be downloaded from Slideshare. The video is embedded on slideshare presentation but if you prefer, the direct Youtube link is here.

Please note that this video is for guidance only. Many vendors & operators use their own definition which may not agree to mine. In the end, we are all correct 😉

Densification – Small Cells & ODAS

An analyst's view on densification using Small Cells and Outdoor DAS (ODAS). Presented by Ken Rehbehn in 5G World Antenna Evolution Day 2016. Presentation below

Related posts:

• Underground Small Cells
• Small Cells & Wi-Fi in the pavements & roads

Related Article:

• 10 Key Issues for California Cities & Counties on the Challenges of Small Cells & “Not So Small Cells” - Omar Masry

Current-State and Future of In-Building Tech

From a talk presented by John K. Bramfeld (@johnbramfeld) in Wireless Training Seminar & Networking Event - DASpedia West. The talk was 60 minutes but there are just 26 slides; most of the info was in the commentary. Anyway, it is an interesting presentation.

In-Building Options: Facts, fiction, Architecture and Solutions

In-building solutions are still a big topic of discussion. While there are neutral solutions like Wi-Fi will become more common, does it mean that cellular is no longer a necessity? To answer these questions and to make everyone familiar with the options here are a couple of videos of recent webinars.

The first one is from Alcatel-Lucent titled "Fact vs. Fiction – The Debate on In-Building Architecture Options". It discussed the three architectures (as seen in the picture above) DAS, Distributed Radio Systems (DRS) and Small Cell. Here is the video:


The other webinar (actually 2) is from ThinkSmallCell.

"Choosing the right In-Building Cellular Solutions" is a high level webinar that discusses the needs and available solutions. It also shows the decision process in selecting the right solution. The video is embedded at the end of the slides below but can also be seen directly from Youtube here.

The other older webinar and presentation by ThinkSmallCell that goes more in-depth of these In-building solutions has already been covered in an earlier blog post here.

Connectivity in the stadiums

I have recently been observing a lots of discussions around connectivity in the stadiums. I have used this picture above a few times to show different solutions available in different situations. You can see that in theory Wi-Fi, DAS, Micro and Pico would all be suitable for the connectivity in stadiums. In practice this is generally limited to DAS and Wi-Fi.

ThinkSmallCell have recently written an article on the stadium Wi-Fi experience of The Cloud here. Some very interesting choices were taken to keep things simple:

For the main stadium bowl, The Cloud designed for 50% concurrent access for the maximum 30,000 crowd, connecting 80 Wi-Fi access points using 1km of fibre and 9km of CAT6 ethernet cable.

Each access point can handle up to 250 concurrent users. Tightly focussed beams were used to segregate seating blocks, splitting these into distinct coverage sectors.

To simplify the design, the older 802.11b standard wasn't used/supported, VoIP was blocked and a maximum of 3 SSIDs assigned. Unlike a cellular system, there's no handoff as you move around the stadium – you'd need to reconnect and create another session. During peak usage, almost everyone is sitting down rather than moving about (if you ignore those jumping up and down on their seats).

Both Wi-Fi spectrum bands at 2.4GHz and 5GHz were used, with devices capable of the higher frequency prioritised to use it. 56% of clients used the 5GHz band, which has much more spectrum and many more channels available. The different propagation characteristics mean there are different coverage footprints, so planners are actually designing two networks rather than one.

The side lobes on the 5GHz coverage footprint were massive, limiting the number of Wi-Fi access points that could be deployed.

You can read the complete article on the ThinkSmallCell website here.

A question some people often ask is why bother with connectivity in the stadiums. There are many reasons and personally, I would rather have connectivity than don't, even if I am not going to use it.

Real Wireless has done substantial amount of work in this area and a slide from their recent presentation discusses the benefits for various parties very well. You can read their opinion on this topic on their website here.

No discussion on Stadium connectivity would be complete without mentioning the US operator AT&T. They regularly publish statistics and details of connectivity in various sports venues on their website here. A recent report from their new site on DAS connectivity in various stadiums as follows:

• So far this season, there have been 119 pro football games and 214 college football games played across more than 75 different venues where we provide in-venue coverage via Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS). 
• In total, across these 333 games our customers have used more than 104.9 Terabytes of mobile data on our in-venue cellular networks. That’s the same as 104,913 Gigabytes. Or more simply put, it is equivalent to more than 300M social media posts with photos. 
• At this point in the year, pro football fans are edging college fans in average data usage per game by a 342GB to 293GB margin. Or a difference equivalent to about 140K more social media posts with photos per game on average.

Another recent report from the AT&T part in San Francisco where both Wi-Fi and DAS are present as follows:

Here are some of the record-breaking numbers we saw on our venue-specific mobile network at AT&T Park from the Giants’ three home games during the World Series:

• Fans used more than 477GB of data on the AT&T cellular network during the game on 10/25. This is equivalent to more than 1.36M social media post with photos.
  • This marked the highest single game total for cellular data usage at AT&T Park in ballpark history.

• Fans used an average of approximately 447GB of data per game over the weekend on the AT&T cellular network. This is equivalent to more than 1.27M social media post with photos.
  • It’s an increase of approximately 29% in cellular data usage compared to the average game during the League Championship series vs. St. Louis.
  • It’s an increase of approximately 109% in cellular data usage compared to the average game during the final home series of the regular season vs. San Diego (9/25-9/28).
• The peak hour of data usage during three home games was on 10/25 was from 5-6pm PT, the hour in which the first pitch occurred. In this hour more than 83GB of data crossed our venue-specific cellular network.

• On our AT&T Wi-Fi network we saw more than 1,626GB of data move across our network during the game on 10/25.
  • This is the highest single game Wi-Fi total in the history of AT&T Park.
  • 1,626GB is equivalent to more than 4.65M social media post with photos.
  • This showed an increase in Wi-Fi usage of approximately 302% compared to the average game during the 2012 World Series.
  • This showed an increase in Wi-Fi usage of approximately 163% compared to the average 2014 regular season game at AT&T Park.
  • This showed an increase in Wi-Fi usage of approximately 29% compared to the average game of the League Championship series vs. St. Louis.

• The collective data usage equaled approximately 2.1TB of data across both our cellular and Wi-Fi networks at AT&T Park during the game on 10/25.
  • This marked the highest single game total for collective data usage (cellular and Wi-Fi) in AT&T Park history.
  • 2.1TB is equivalent to more than 6M social media post with photos.

Note: All cellular data is specific to only AT&T customers using the DAS network at AT&T Park.

AT&T DAS guru Paula Doublin was one of the most memorable speakers at this year’s HetNet Expo. The company’s AVP for antenna solutions, DAS and small cells did not shy away from questions about AT&T’s budget for heterogeneous networks, nor did she sugar coat the outlook for small cell deployments. A video of her presentation is embedded below and a writeup is available on RCR Wireless website here.




See Also:

• Case Study: Deployment scenarios with DAS, RRH, Small Cells and Wi-Fi
• HetNet Strategies with Oi Brazil

In-building Wireless Solutions Webinar

Last month, David Chambers from ThinkSmallCell held a webinar exploring available In-building solutions and comparing the advantages and disadvantages of each solution, also looking at the approach taken by different vendors. Worth a look. The presentation and Youtube video are both embedded below.

Case Study: Deployment scenarios with DAS, RRH, Small Cells and Wi-Fi

I attended an interesting webinar (details in the end) from Infonetics Research, EXFO and ExteNet Systems where one of the areas of discussion was around which technology for which scenario. The four main technologies being considered was DAS, RRH, Small Cells and Wi-Fi. There was some interesting deployment examples that I have embedded below:

How to Get the Best Out of DAS, Small Cells, and WiFi from Zahid Ghadialy

NOTE: If the slides are not working, please view it on Slideshare - slides 21 to 24

To watch the webinar recording and download slides, please follow this link: http://w.on24.com/r.htm?e=783410&s=1&k=CD70E2F6D98C3E67A3B5A1936E23DB13

DAS or 'Small Cells' for Indoor Location

There was a recent webinar by Maravedis-Rethink & EJL. The slides are available on Slideshare here. I think there were some good points made about using DAS or Small Cells for the Indoor environment. Here is the youtube clip. You can drag the pointer to the beginning, to listen from the start.

Small Cells to improve service in Disney parks

Slightly old news but I did hear Jim Parker, Senior Manager, Antenna Solutions group at AT&T talking about metrocells and their deployments in the Disney parks.

The original press release from July mentioned the following:

AT&T will add more than 25 distributed antenna systems in an effort to add capacity. It will also add more than 350 small cells, which extend the availability of the network. AT&T is adding 10 new cell sites across the Walt Disney World resort to boost coverage and capacity. And it will add nearly 50 repeaters to help improve coverage of the network.

Chris Hill, AT&T's senior vice president for advanced solutions, said that AT&T's efforts to improve coverage in an around Disney resorts is part of a bigger effort the company is making to add capacity and improve coverage in highly trafficked areas. He said that even though AT&T had decent network coverage already within the Disney parks, customers often experienced issues in some buildings or in remote reaches of the resorts.

"The macro cell sites can only cover so much," he said. "So you need to go to small cells to really get everywhere you need to be and to provide the capacity you need in areas with a high density of people."