MTN sees future in 3G

I blogged about MTN last year after their presentation at Facebook's TIP Summit. This year again, another MTN Group executive, Babak Fouladi, Technology and Information System (Group CTIO) at MTN delivered an insightful talk. I have my summary below with video embedded at the end.

MTN has 223 million subscribers. Out of that only 72 million are data users, the rest are primarily voice users. The problem with that is their monthly spend is very low.

The typical entry and emerging segment customers in rural areas spend 30% of their incomes on food and often have limited access to reliable basic services. Its very tricky to convert these users to use high amount of data or any data at all in many cases.

5 Challenges known as CHASE need to be overcome to reach the volume segment. These are:

• Coverage: Data Coverage is insufficient in rural or low income areas and costly
• Handsets: Limited affordability and access to data enabled devices
• Affordability: Data services are unaffordable in some markets
• Service Bundling: Bundling and selling of data are unnecessarily complex and not regionally relevant
• Education: Lack of digital literacy & awareness of the potential of broadband content

To overcome these challenges, a dual data strategy is needed. Newer technologies, ultra high speed & superior customer experience for high value segment. Ubiquitous low cost data coverage for volume segment.

There are many rural coverage barriers. These practical challenges hinder the rollout. The main being that there is no infrastructure in place, the roads are inaccessible, there is no power, the security is poor, etc.

To solve the challenges due to rural coverage barriers, MTN has defined three solution categories for rural:

1. Rural Site - 50 to 100 km from urban
2. Ultra Rural Site - Very low population densities locations
3. Ultra-ultra Rural Site - Very small remote villages

MTN are already doing field trials with AMN and Huawei. With Huawei, they are using the RuralStar (see earlier post here). Other vendors listed above are working with them in the labs and will be trialed for Ultra and Ultra-ultra rural sites.

Their main motivation for working with Facebook and TIP is to find affordable solutions for Ultra and Ultra-ultra rural locations. There is a large scale trial happening soon in 2 countries, 120 sites in total.

One of the challenges in African market is that the average lifespan of handset is 7 years. What this means is that many people still on 2G today will be migrating to 3G in near future. As a result, 3G will be the most dominant technology in Africa in 2025.

While most operators and vendors are focusing on 4G and 5G, there is still going to be a big market for 2G and 3G in 2025. These users cannot be ignored and the operator that serves them well will eventually be the winner.



Further Reading:

• 2G / 3G Switch Off: A Tale of Two Worlds
• Telefonica, Mayutel, Facebook & Parallel Wireless: Connecting the Unconnected in Peru (#InternetParaTodos)

Small Cells growing fast, just not in Europe

Small Cell Forum held a workshop in Beijing, China last month to gain an understanding of China’s perspective on densification on the path to 5G. Complete report is available here. From the report:

APAC leads the world in network densification, as is clear from recent market data and forecasts out to 2025. New deployments in South East Asia alone are set to be greater than the sum total of those in the rest of the world until 2025. APAC can be characterized as experiencing two phases of growth, with a small plateau from 2019-2021 as 5GNR small cells are being commercialized. Our survey of MNOs reveals that densification in APAC is primarily capacity driven, to ensure data services maintain their quality of experience as mobile traffic volumes continue to grow. CMRI (China Mobile Research Institute) predicted its data traffic would grow 8x from 2016-2020 and 119x from 2016-2030. Ericsson predicted 8x global growth from 2016-2022, and others cited Cisco VNI’s 7x global growth 2016-2021, dominated by APAC.

A summary presentation from the event is embedded at the end.

As per Mobile World Live's report from Small Cells World Summit last month in London:

Kicking off the event, David Orloff, chair of the Small Cell Forum said: “Small cells are integral for 5G, and the reality is that there are capacity needs, there are latency needs, and both of these aspects can be driven through integration with small cells.”

He observed: “Europe is lagging. We need a new mindset, we need to look at different ways on this – in the 5G era we do have densification needs in the entire global industry, and we need to work [out] solutions to ensure the framework is there and the foundations are there. We need to think differently.”

Speaking about the global rollout of small cell technology, he continued: “We see global synergies and global barriers, but we also see regional barriers that are delaying densification. A good example in the US is cell siting; in India there is a cost target that has to be met; in China there’s mindsets around operations; and in Europe there is a question around the business case and whether it is profitable to do densification.”

“Asia is cranking, North America is doing well, really preparing that framework and foundation and starting to deploy cells that are NR capable, so that we have a structure in place so that we can turn on 5G, working on mmWave. Europe is pretty far down.”

Notwithstanding this lag, Small Cell Forum forecasts an increase in the number of non-resident small cells deployed in Europe from 52,000 in 2017 to 310,000 in 2022. But mobile operator deployments are not the only game in town: enterprises are an important driving force due to quality of service and IoT requirements, and technologies including MulteFire and CBRS are easing the way for new players.


According to Crown Castle, in a report in Fierce Wireless:

The small cell market continues to expand, and Crown Castle’s Mike Kavanagh pointed to two big factors as evidence: Small cell buildouts are starting to happen in smaller, tier 2 markets, and some small cell locations are now serving more than one carrier.

Small cells are “a big part of every big carrier’s build,” he said. “It’s a good time to be in the space.”

In the early days of small cells half a dozen years ago, Kavanagh said that a major installation would cover 50 nodes in a city. Today that number is reaching 2,000—and in some dense markets it can grow to 7,000. “You’re utilizing small cells as a much bigger element of the network build,” he said. “You’ve got to have that tower layer. And you’ve got to have small cells.”

He said in some deployments Crown Castle is seeing 2 to 4 small cells per mile, and in some dense, urban areas that number grows to 7 to 12 per mile. Kavanagh, the company’s SVP of sales and its chief commercial officer, said that Verizon kicked off the push toward small cells, but today all of the nation’s largest wireless operators are embarking on major small cell deployments.

And a big driver of revenues for Crown Castle is the growing trend toward multitenant small cells, which Crown Castle calls “leasing up.” Essentially, Crown Castle typically builds a small cell for one carrier’s equipment, but increasingly the company is adding equipment for a second carrier to that location, thus deriving more revenues per small cell site. Such site sharing is typical in the macro tower business.


Finally, here is summary of presentation from SCF looking at APAC in detail with regards to drivers and barriers for densification.

Small Cell Forum China Workshop: Densification Path to 5G from 3G4G

Small Cells Market Update from February 2018

Small Cell Forum recently released the updated 'Small cells market status report February 2018'. It contains the latest SCF market status update, which is based on operator surveys, modelling and forecasts, completed between November 2017 and February 2018. A total of 105 operators’ deployment plans were surveyed or modelled. The forecasts now include the first phases of 5G small cell deployment. SCF members can access the full data set associated with this report from the Resources folder on the member website.

The report confirms the continuing growth of small cells in non-residential scenarios – notably urban and enterprise sectors – and sees 5G, virtualization and densification playing a strong role in that growth. It also highlights the significance of ensuring simple, scalable and repeatable deployment processes. SCF is working with regulators globally to make this happen.

Key findings include:

• The installed base of small cells to reach 70.2m in 2025.
• Densification initially led by APAC and North America, with Europe lagging as it works to address commercial, technical and regulatory barriers.
• Massive annual growth (36%) in the rate of new non-residential deployments of small cells, led by urban and enterprise small cells, between 2015 and 2025
• 5G cell deployments overtaking 4G by 2024. The total installed base of 5G or multimode small cells in 2025 is predicted to be 13.1m, over one-third of the total in use.
• A stronger emphasis on virtualization, notably for 5G and multimode 4G/5G small cells. Virtualized systems will grow at a CAGR of 52% to reach 57% of the total in 2025.
• The vast majority of new deployments to be in dense or hyperdense environments by 2025.
• C-Band and high frequency bands to be the most important bands for 5G small cells. 
• Strong support from operators for the deployment of 5G small cells as their 5G capacity layer where LTE remains the coverage layer.

Here is a small video from SCF in the recently concluded Mobile World Congress (MWC18)

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.

Small Cells Densification for 4G & 5G

The recent Small Cell Forum (SCF) press release mentions that: SCF forecasts that between 2015 and 2025, new non-residential small cell deployments will grow at a compound annual rate of 36%, to reach almost 8.5 million, and by 2025 deployments will be 22 times higher than in 2015.

The research also provides an insight into operator’s densification plans, with 40% of operators expecting to deploy between 100 and 350 small cells per square kilometer (indoors and outdoors) in the areas they densify by 2020. Additionally, in the first 2-3 years of deploying 5G New Radio, 58% expect to focus primarily on small cells. The research also shows that the industry is already seeing acceleration of deployments in the Enterprise, where small cell deployments rose by 98% between 2015 and 2017, and are set to grow by up to 1600% from 2015 to 2025.

In addition, SCF also published Release 10 (not a permanent link though), a collection of documents, presentations and videos that present the organization’s vision for the 5G era. This collection is a response to the requirements the Forum spent the summer collating resulting from regional and partner events in India, North America and Latin America. SCF listened to input from operators, across the various geographies, on their key challenges and created a work program designed specifically to resolve the key issues raised.

I will link some SCF documents at the bottom of this post.

Stephane Daeuble, Nokia also published a blog post on this topic not long back. In that he points out:

Nokia looked at the growth in demand facing one operator in a very busy US city. In 2014, traffic density was around 1 Gbps/km2 and was served by an average 20 macrocell sites per km2.

By 2017, traffic density hit 4 Gbps/km2. The operator simply adds 40 outdoor small cells and 50 indoor small cells per km2 to the network. Deploying relatively few small cells allows the operator to meet quadrupled capacity and coverage demand, both indoors and outdoors.

Let’s project these figures forward. By 2025, the operator will need a very dense network to support a ten-fold increase in traffic density. With no scope for deploying more macrocell sites and upgrades to macrocell base stations unlikely to meet the demand, even this extreme density can be supported with the help of small cells. Now we are looking at 150 outdoor and 500 indoor small cells deployed per km2, keeping to the intial 20 macrocell sites. Over the period covered by the study, the average inter-site distance plunges from 240m to 82m – a figure impossible to achieve without small cells.

The most obvious advantage of small cells is their compact physical size. They can be deployed unobtrusively to meet city regulations, giving the network a rapid, yet low cost boost in performance. Not only do they provide much-needed extra capacity and improve indoor coverage, but small cells can aid network balancing by off-loading traffic from the surrounding macrocells. Deployments have shown that, after deploying small cells, some macrocells stay above 60% average RF usage, indicating there was substantial unserved traffic with the macros alone.

If you prefer in-depth technical papers, this IEEE paper on small cell Ultra Dense Networks (UDN) is an interesting read.

Check out my introduction to macrocells & small cells and HetNets if you are looking for a quick refresher on these topics.

Here is a list of new SCF documents on densification

SCF Release 10 Vision for Densification into 5G Era

Overall Vision and Requirements gathering
[SCF110] Vision for densification into the 5G Era: Release overview
[SCF200] Ten trends SCF has driven and vision for 2027
[SCF201] Partners’ Day: Industry alignment on densification roadmap
[SCF202] Mumbai Densification Summit: Asia Market Requirements

Technologies for Densification
[SCF014] Edge Computing made simple
[SCF197] mmWave-based 5G eMBB 5G

Standards and Interoperability
[SCF085] SCF Plugfests and long term vision
[SCF208] Private ePC PlugFest report
[SCF209] Test cases for the Private ePC PlugFest
[SCF196] TR196 Small cell updates to 3GPP SA5

Operations
[SCF203] Operational aspects of densification into the 5G Era
[SCF079] Enterprise deployment process (2017 revision)

Business Models
[SCF204] 5G Era business models and stakeholder engagement
[SCF206] Business case for small cells in healthcare

Market Status and Engagement
[SCF050] Small cells market status report December 2017
[SCF194] SCF operator survey: Deployment plans and business drivers for a dense HetNet
[SCF205] Connectivity in healthcare - an essential service

References of the form [SCFXXX] are linked to their landing page on www.scf.io, where they can be downloaded free of charge.

Small Cell Forum workshop on 5G

I was having a twitter discussion earlier today as to whether 2G/3G should be switched off to make room for the more efficient 4G/4G+. While I agree with regards to the efficiency of 4G/4G+, there is still plenty of room for existing technologies, including 2G for a long time. 

While 5G is great and as can be seen in the picture above, a very optimistic picture has been painted with regards to LTE/5G.

Small cell forum recently held a workshop on 5G in Rome. Though it doesn't say explicitly, I am assuming the focus was Small Cells and 5G. It wouldn't be surprising as most of mmWave deployments would be comparatively small as compared to macrocells today.

“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

I like this picture below as it shows that there are practical problems to solve today then worry about the 5G deployments of 2020. Having said that, the mobile community has to start preparing for it now to be ready by early 2020's  

Huawei had another interesting concept of how 5G HetNets will look

Nokia suggested that the lessons learned from Small Cells will help vendors with 5G deployments.

You can see all the presentations available here.

If you found something very interesting, please share in comments.

HetNets On The Bus

Earlier in March, I helped organise 'The Gigabit Train' seminar'. The intention was to look at the connectivity options inside the trains and its monetisation. While connectivity in the trains is challenging, thinking back about it, due to a predictable route it can be sometimes easy to deploy. It could be more of a challenge for cars and buses that go through unpredictable routes and conditions.

I also discussed the "Vehicular CrowdCell" or "Vehicular Small Cell" concept here to look at some advantages of such a solution option.

Some of you may be aware that I recently joined Parallel Wireless. We were selected by M1 Limited, Singapore’s most vibrant and dynamic communications company, to support its WiFi-On-The-Go service as a part of the HetNet trial.

This is the architecture of the On-Bus Hetnet. Some of you would find it self-explanatory.

The mobile operators in Singapore are looking for innovative technologies to address spectrum scarcity as subscriber demand is growing rapidly with smartphone penetration reaching 130 devices per 100 people. Maximizing utilization of the spectrum and easing network congestion in areas with heavy human traffic is necessary to meet Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (iDA) vision of connecting the whole nation as a part of world’s-first Smart Nation initiative.

Real-time HetNet orchestration and traffic prioritization is made possible by HetNet Gateway (HNG). All bus riders receive seamless, high throughput connectivity from an on-bus multi-mode LTE/Wi-Fi Converged Wireless System (CWS) small cell with integrated backhaul including licensed assisted backhaul.  By enabling carrier aggregation for backhaul, the end user throughput can be increased 10 times (up to 300 Mbps) allowing transit passengers to enjoy multimedia content without buffering.

Here is a presentation that gives the complete story:

Some questions on this demo from Linkedin:

Q: Does seamless handover are available with no drop in data throughput through out the travel route of Bus? 
A: Yes, handover is seamless, no dropped data or voice calls. This was one of the iDA trial requirements. We can do seamless VoLTE to VoWiFi handover and back.

Q: What is the maximum data rates does the system accommodate for all seamless data transfers? Does the system support motion video play from N/W. If so of what bandwidth and data rates? 4. How many users does the system support and what data rates?
A: It will depend on the backhaul. We can increase backhaul capacity with CA on 4G + to 300 Mbps shared bandwidth.

Q: This seems to be a relay device ( a femto or pico grade small cell with UE backhaul). an their innovative hetnet gateway for traffic engineering ( LBS support ). 
A: Our in-vehicle unit is a Small cell (LTE/Wi-Fi for access) with any backhaul incl UE backhaul. The HetNet Gateway, in addition to performing 3G, 4G, WI-Fi gateway functionality and real-time SON with ICIC, will also do the traffic engineering.

And demo from inside the bus:


Further reading:

• Parallel Wireless Selected by M1 to Support Smart Nation Trial

Small Cells Forecasts...

Small Cell Forum published a report last year titled 'Crossing the Chasm: Small Cells Industry 2015' in which draws on the findings of three very different pieces of research to show that, in 2015, for the first time outside the residential segment, small cells moved from trials and smaller deployments, to large-scale roll-outs, and this process of densification will accelerate from 2016 through to the end of the decade. The three studies each targeted a different base of respondents and so the plans and opinions of three key stakeholder groups – mobile operators, the component ecosystem, and enterprises – are all brought together to create a uniquely multidimensional view of the state of the market today. The report is available here to download.

ThinkSmallCell held their annual analyst forecast with Caroline Gabriel of Rethink Technology Research and Joe Madden of Mobile Experts. Their slide deck (with Video at the end) is embedded below. The webinar could also be viewed directly on Youtube here.

Feel free to add your opinion in the comments section on if you agree or disagree with these forecasts and statistics.

10 million small cells and growing?

There were some good news that was announced in MWC 2015. Here are some interesting points from Total Telecom:

• Operators around the globe have purchased more than 10 million small cells
• In excess of 75 operators worldwide are using small cells in their networks
• The majority of these to date have been deployed in residential scenarios, but we have also seen a significant step upward in the enterprise and urban sectors.
• 17,000 small cells have been deployed in rural or remote applications

While this all sounds good, Small Cells are facing many challenges. The biggest among them being WiFi. With the introduction of VoWiFi, many operators are starting to play a waiting game rather than deploy more small cells.

I blogged back in 2013 that AT&T planned to deploy 40,000 small cells by 2015 but it looks like they have now abandoned their goal. The reason being cited is that they acquired another small operator (Leap Wireless) which gave them additional macro sites, hence removing the need for small cells.

As per a report by the analyst firm ThinkSmallCell, TalkTalk, a UK based "thick" MVNO is trying to deploy an "Inside-out" Femtocell network. They have also been experimenting with 3MHz bandwidth in LTE and surprisingly, it works fine on most devices.


Another option could be to have LTE-LAA/LTE-U along with this and they could provide good speeds not only to the people indoor but also outdoor.

In any case, we will have to wait and see if operators continue rolling out small cells and if they do why, how, where and in which situations.

HetNet Strategies with Oi Brazil

Brazil has been in limelight since the beginning of the year. Initially, the focus was on how the FIFA World Cup may fail but later on for the way everything came together at the last minute and everything worked. From a technology point of view, WiFi was a big saviour in the stadiums, allowing good connectivity for everyone wishing to add the things they liked on social networks as soon as they can.

An example was this chart tweeted by Ruckus Wireless to proudly show what their achievement was with stadium WiFi.

Recently, Maravedis-rethink conducted a webinar with the Brazilian operator Oi, regarding their HetNet strategies. The video for the relevant part is embedded in the end. Two slides caught my attention. The first was about the different technologies and their concerns (above). For example for a HetNet to be successful, all components should synchronised and have a strict time accuracy requirements. The Backhaul & Fronthaul requirements are equally interesting for different cases.

The second interesting slide is the final one where they have their wish list to what they would like to do in near-term and long-term. WiFi features in all the scenarios except for the rural case (as expected). Anyway, here is the video:



You can download the slides from Slideshare here.