Ericsson's Radio Dot System

Just come back from the SON conference, I noticed that Ericsson's dot system was discussed heavily on what it is and how its different from Alcatel-Lucent Light Radio and NSN's Liquid radio. Here is a bit of detail from the Ericsson press release:

Ericsson Radio Dot System is compact and offers flexible mounting. The device weighs 300 grams, is the result of two years of research and development, and incorporates 14 patents. It introduces a revolutionary antenna element, or "dot," which delivers mobile broadband access to users. Because of its convenient size, scalability, and compelling evolution path, this product caters to different kinds of users in medium to large indoor locations, and aims to address operators' needs of offering a complete indoor solution.

Dots are connected and powered via standard internet LAN cables (Category 5/6/7) to indoor radio units that link to a base station. Radio Dot System leverages the same industry-leading features found in Ericsson's macro base station. Deployments and upgrades are simple, addressing growing capacity and coverage requirements. Thus the users' experience is consistent wherever they go and the indoor network evolves in lockstep with the outdoor network. Ericsson Radio Dot System supports integration with Ericsson's carrier Wi-Fi portfolio enabling features such as real-time traffic steering to ensure the best user experience across both Wi-Fi and 3GPP networks. 

There was a bit more detail available from a discussion in the Linkedin HetNet group here. My edited version of the discussion:

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A related patent by E///, on how they may be transporting digital I&Q (essentially CPRI) between RadioDot and IRU by introducing APL.

The Statutory Hurdle in Small Cell Deployment

A presentation from MLL telecom in our recent event highlights the rules and the requirements from regulation during Small Cells deployments. The regulation hurdles are higher in Europe compared to most other parts due to strict requirements to make sure its not going to affect the character of an area and at the same time not to cause any damage to health and environment. Anyway, the complete presentation is embedded below:

Small Cell Deployment The Statutory Hurdle: Town & Country Planning (De-)Regulation of Small Cell Roll-out from Zahid Ghadialy

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."

Wi-Fi and Cellular Data - Two sides of the same coin?

Going through a presentation from Small Cells World Summit, Analysis Mason argues that all WiFi activity is not just offload / substitution of cellular data but to a lot of extent its addition too. I completely agree as I think that once users get used to using data on their devices, they are more comfortable in using much more data over WiFi. Of course here I am assuming carrier or public WiFi rather than what is privately used at home or in the office.

To a lot of extent this use of data is encouraged by the operators and the newer and more efficient technologies. Once a 100MB data cap was more than enough for most users while now, most users struggle with 1GB of data caps. WiFi is always an alternative, especially if the data usage is not counted in the allowance or included at a reduced rate.

Building a Sustainable HetNet - Telus, Canada

Came across this interesting presentation from the LTE World Summit 2013, one from Telus in Canada. The presentation is embedded below but here are couple of things that caught my attention:

One of the issues which is now becoming universal is the need to negotiate with the municipalities and local councils for the right to lamp posts and other street furniture. I blogged this earlier as well with regards to a presentation by EE here. This also encourages for a third party to provide small cells hosting as a service (SCaaS)

The growing synergy between Small Cells and Wi-Fi

The growing synergy between Small Cells and Wi-Fi from Zahid Ghadialy

Small Cell Backhaul: Industry Trends and Market Overview - Slidedeck

Very good overview of Small Cells backhaul by Monica Paolini, Lance Hiley and Frank Rayal

Enterprise Small Cell Architectures

Deployment in enterprise is a challenging task for the operators but it has many benefits hence this is one of the areas they have been working very hard to get it right.

China Mobile's Nanocell

China Mobile prefers to call its Small Cell, Nanocell. I found an interesting summary on this topic from Rupert Baines in the OSP Magazine, some of this information is copied below.

Nanocell is defined by the China Mobile Research Institute (CMRI) as follows: “An integrated Small cell supporting GSM / TD-SCDMA / TD-LTE standards and WLAN (WiFi) solutions. With the key feature of supporting both wireless network and WLAN (WiFi) services, it can be deployed in enterprise, home and high capacity hotspot locations. It also uses standard broadband connection as a low-cost network backhaul, hence reducing deployment and maintenance cost while providing advanced and reliable security features.”

WiFi & Cellular: True Love or Arranged Marriage?

An interesting video of the presentation by Nick Johnson from IP Access which he gave in the LTE World Summit 2013