Virtua are showing off their rural solar small cell that fits nicely on the lamppost. The lamppost can be taken down to deploy the small cell and can be hoisted back up. Their website says:
The objective was to engineer a more cost effective rural small cell solution that would support applications such as Telematics & IOT.
The solution benefits from a hinged levered pole solution for ease of installation and maintenance. One of the applications uses GSM/Mesh repeater with a bespoke antenna and bracket design keeping the installation simple. This GSM/Mesh repeater radio technology negates the need for immediate backhaul and accelerates the solution into live operation.
A solar powered solution means that the active radio equipment is contained in the bespoke solar housing that sits at the top of the pole. The housing benefits from a lower wind resistant design and slides centrally down the levered pole for ease of install, no external power is required thus no electrical certification is necessary. Installation is quick and simple with no external cables other than the antenna RF cables at the top of the pole making the speed to deploy cost effective keeping the customer ahead of the competition.
I can see some power issues with 3G/4G small cells, as they are more power hungry. Also, there may be issue in countries that has small winter days and very little sunshine. Nevertheless, its interesting concept.
Its been nearly 4 years since I blogged about Ericsson's Radio Dot. Ericsson announced Multi-operator Radio Dot Solution this week. As per the press release:
Ericsson has launched three new scalable small cell solutions designed to help expand the small cell market and meet the growing demand for better mobile coverage and capacity while preparing networks for 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT) applications: the Multi-Operator Dot and the Multi-Dot Enclosure for indoor deployments; and the Strand-Mount Unit for outdoor micro radios. The Multi-Operator Dot solution delivers a set of Radio Dots that can be shared between multiple operators, with one operator managing the system while others provide radio frequency signals – similar to an active distributed antenna system (DAS). This new architecture allows up to four operators to broadcast over a single Dot solution; combining the multi-operator benefits of an active DAS solution with the performance, agility and cost-effective design of the Radio Dot System. As its name suggests, the Multi-Dot Enclosure combines multiple Dots in a single enclosure. The enclosure has a minimal impact on building aesthetics, is useful for multi-operator deployments, and presents a cost-savings option in buildings that charge per box deployed. The Strand-Mount Unit for outdoor micro radios makes it easier to install the radios on the existing grid, hung on aerial coax, fiber, or electricity cables. Aerial-strand deployments are critical for scaling outdoor small cells and can be deployed for both single and multi-operator usage. Ericsson’s new Strand-Mount Unit can support up to four micro radios, enabling multiple operators to utilize the same mount for cost-efficient deployments. The Strand-Mount Unit delivers superior outdoor coverage with zero footprint.
Just in case you were wondering what exactly Ericsson Radio Dot is, the specs can be seen in the picture above.
The most significant element of the announcement is the multioperator version of the Radio Dot, according to Ed Gubbins, senior analyst on the Global Telecom Technology & Software team at GlobalData. One of the bigger hurdles to penetrating enterprises (which is what the Radio Dot was designed for) has been that enterprises often have multioperator needs—because enterprise inhabitants typically bring their own personal devices to work and have their own operators. The creation of a multioperator Dot is overdue and gives Ericsson a leg up over rivals like SpiderCloud (now Corning), which have single-operator solutions, Gubbins told FierceWirelessTech. That said, there will still be challenges in penetrating enterprises, even with multioperator solutions. “Getting operators and enterprises to agree on using the same vendor and the same solution on a case-by-case basis isn’t necessarily quick, easy or easily scalable,” he said. The technologies Ericsson is using to help enable multioperator functionality (MORAN & MOCN) have been around for quite a while, as has the Radio Dot itself. “So the fact that it’s taken years to see a multioperator Radio Dot, despite how long one has been technologically possible to develop, gives some indication that this isn’t perceived as a silver bullet by any means,” he said. However, the fact that Ericsson is presenting more than one model for multioperator deployment is a good thing; operator and enterprise sentiments will vary, so having some flexibility in this area should help, he added.
Just in case you were wondering, the different options for Mobile Network Sharing as as shown above.
A presentation from Ericsson detailing the new releease and their Small Cells portfolio in general is embedded below.
The Mobile Network magazine has some more info on this new products and comparison with other multi-operator deployments:
Unlike, say, the Nokia FlexiZone or SpiderCloud E-RAN small cell designs, Radio Dots are not in themselves miniature base stations. Rather they are distributed radio heads attached to a centralised “feeder” baseband unit, mediated through an indoor remote unit (IRU). What Ericsson has announced is the ability to support multi-operator service in three ways. First – parallel deployments with each operator using its own dedicated baseband, IRU and Dots. These Dots can be housed in the same enclosures (the new enclosures known as the multi-dot bracket) to tidy things up a bit. Secondly – a multi-operator deployment using a shared baseband and IRU, over the same network of distributed radio heads, using MORAN (Multi Operator Radio Access Network) or MOCN (Multi Operator Core Network) network sharing capabilities. Thirdly, a multi-operator Dot solution where operators provide multiple RF sources to the same Dot system. They do this by feeding baseband capacity to a new access unit from Ericsson, the RF Access Unit (RAU). This new RAU can support three 2×2 MIMO RF inputs, and can be connected on the other side to four IRUs, which then feed the shared Dot remote radioheads. In both the second and third options, one operator remains in overall control of the deployment. ... Ericsson’s Dot was initially designed as a single operator system, as was SpiderCloud’s competitive E-RAN. Where once SpiderCloud once made a virtue of its single-operator necessity – stating that an operator would gain competitive advantage by being the “best” carrier within a given office block or campus, it has in the past couple of years taken steps to add multi-operator capability – by adding support for more carriers, LAA and CBRS models. Another small cell vendor, ip.access, has also gone down the multi-operator, or neutral host route. Ip.access’ Viper platform combines multi operator access points with a gateway node that can be deployed as a virtual instance that links to separate operator core networks. Huawei recently expanded band support for its LampSite product – probably the most similar product in terms of architectural design to the Radio Dot – and its aim was specifically to increase support for multi-operator deployments. Although Ericsson claimed at launch that its dual band Dot could enable a multi-operator deployment, it clearly needed to take additional steps to really enable multi-operator models. One approach, as we have seen, is simply to make it a bit easier to deploy two or more instances of everything in the architecture. That seems like a hard model to scale economically, apart from in the biggest sites, perhaps. The other approaches either a) require the implementation of a new element (the RAU) or b) limits the number of multiple operators to two.
Finally, embedded below is a video describing the Radio Dot in more technical detail for anyone interested. In case it does not automatically skip to 26.11 mins, please do it yourself
Ericsson is running a webinar on this topic on 27th September. Details here.
While we are on the subject of street lights and lamp posts, I thought it may be worth mentioning about ZTE's BluePillar Streetlamp solution that it announced back in 2016:
An integrated streetlamp, charging pillar, base transceiver station (BTS) and smart city information solution, BluePillar enables a traditional streetlamp pillar to double as a 4G/5G BTS, or a charging point for electric vehicles. The solution can also collect local data on weather, environment, transportation and security while its large outdoor LED screen can be used to display information and advertising. The BluePillar solution consists of ZTE’s BlueBox charging pillar, 4G iMacro base station, intelligent controller and intelligent streetlamp, all fully integrated into one product. It makes full use of a streetlamp pillar and integrates seamlessly into the surrounding environment, which could not only solve the difficulty in siting 4G networks, but also assure Wi-Fi construction, environment monitoring, security management and data collection in hotspots. It also offers direct outdoor advertising opportunities, as well as the display of municipal information and other value-added services at the same time. This solution could reduce the unit cost and promote the business density of each site, which could help operators acquire sites whilst saving land, electricity and other resources. Local governments, operators, everyday citizens and electric car owners all stand to benefit from this solution. For example operators could expand their business scope, and make the transition from traditional telecoms operation to the comprehensive operation of data services in cities. The innovative integration of the solution, including the BTS, streetlamp and charging pillar, coupled with its ability to charge electric vehicles makes this a convenient solution for telecoms tower companies. ZTE's BluePillar solution could solve the challenges of Internet access on roads and in communities, as well as making streetlamps intelligently connected via information exchanged through its BTS.
Besides street lighting ZTE BluePillar is an integrated part of smart city. The system supports security surveillance, real-time information collection on the environment, real-time monitoring of the assets/special crowd with RFID .Through the LCD, important information and advertisement can be displayed which will bring benefit to the citizens as well as operators. RRU and WIFI equipment can be installed with BluePillar, citizen will be facilitated with WIFI services. Nowadays people have concern about air pollution and prefer clean transportation, such as Electrical Vehicles .However, due to limited space, lack of charging piles becomes an vital factor hinders the popularity of EV. Integrated with AC charging piles, BulePillar solution can save space and be an ideal method for municipal department to spread EV.
According to the ZTE magazine: ZTE has deployed its IoT solutions in over 140 cities in 40 countries globally. She stated that a wide variety of solutions using smart meters have helped optimise city infrastructure with smart street lighting, parking as well as water and air monitoring Some examples include the deployment of 20 thousand smart street lamps in Paris’ smart city project: the City of Light. These smart street lamps are outfitted with sensors that help manage its energy consumption and maintenance optimisation. To help alleviate traffic jams in congested cities, ZTE has smart parking solutions that notify users where they can park their vehicle without having to search for hours on end for parking spots. With its smart building and environmental monitoring, building managers would be able to better manage power distribution within the building.
I could not find any information about the 4G / 5G solution being trialed anywhere but I am sure it probably is.
Also, it seems that this Streetlight is developed by another Chinese company called Shanghai Sansi Technology Co.,Ltd. See here. More info also on their Youtube channel here.
Vint Cerf, who is universally recognised as one of the founding fathers of Internet recently said that there will be 1 Trillion devices on the net by 2036, many of them being IoT devices.
This presentation also lays out use cases for IoT. As always, I am interested in hearing your thoughts.
