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Small-cell solutions for large enterprises and venues: improving the indoor user experience
© Analysys Mason Limited 2016
RESEARCH STRATEGY REPORT
analysysmason.com
SMALL-CELL SOLUTIONS FOR LARGE ENTERPRISES AND
VENUES: IMPROVING THE INDOOR USER EXPERIENCE
CHRIS NICOLL
Small-cell solutions for large enterprises and venues: improving the indoor user experience
© Analysys Mason Limited 2016
KEY QUESTIONS ANSWERED IN THIS REPORT WHO SHOULD READ THIS REPORT
VENDOR SOLUTION CASE STUDIES
2
1 See Analysys Mason’s Wireless network data traffic forecasts: trends and analysis 2015–2020.
Available at www.analysysmason.com/wireless-network-traffic-Jan2016-RDTN0.
This report analyses small-cell solutions for large-scale indoor
venues. These solutions address coverage and capacity
requirements, and support local services and monetisation
opportunities.
The report also provides recommendations for small-cell network
equipment vendors. It is based on several sources:
Analysys Mason’s internal research including our small-cell
forecasts1 and our analysis of consumer smartphone usage
interviews with stakeholders in the small-cell market including
representatives from Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia and SpiderCloud.
About this report
What are the key features of a large indoor/venue small cell solution?
What are the challenges for these installations?
What are the components of large-scale indoor small-cell solutions, how
are these components connected together into a system and how are
they managed?
What other features or services can be supported by indoor small-cell
solutions?
Executives in vendors’ CTO and marketing offices, because this report
provides a competitive review of key solutions for the large
building/venue market, which is expected to grow significantly in the next
3 years.
Third-party small-cell providers and public infrastructure owners, because
the report looks at the requirements and challenges, which may provide
a competitive differentiator to companies that can target these areas.
Executives in operators’ CTO offices who are responsible for network
technology and solution evaluation because this report provides a
comparison of leading solutions as well as an assessment of the
strengths and weaknesses of these solutions.
Ericsson Radio Dot System
Huawei LampSite
Nokia Networks Flexi Zone
SpiderCloud Wireless
Small-cell solutions for large enterprises and venues: improving the indoor user experience
© Analysys Mason Limited 2016
CONTENTS CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
INDOOR SMALL-CELL REQUIREMENTS
INDOOR SMALL-CELL CHALLENGES
VENDOR SOLUTIONS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND ANALYSYS MASON
3
Small-cell solutions for large enterprises and venues: improving the indoor user experience
© Analysys Mason Limited 2016
Figure 1: Indoor small-cell solution considerations
4
Small cells have made significant advances in terms of
scalability and manageability, but indoor coverage still poses
problems regarding scalability, macrocell feature parity and
ease of deployment and operation.
Indoor small cells have come a long way since the early femtocell
‘all-in-one’ designs. Initial large-scale deployments had
interference and manageability problems, and overall offered poor
service quality for users. New solutions deliver increased
intelligence to automatically manage small-cell and macrocell
interference, monitor service levels and provide centralised
management options that can support up to 100 000 users.
The systems identified in this report represent different
architecture – including distributed full-scale systems and
centralised baseband deployments with distributed active
antennas – but all minimise installation and operation costs,
provide scalable and upgradable service options, and support
additional services such as IPsec or applications for location-
based services (LBS).
Small-cell suppliers continue to find it difficult to communicate the
specific benefits of their particular solutions rather than just the
differences in the solution architecture. Some of these solutions
still need to mature in the areas of macro feature parity
particularly multi-band LTE-A carrier aggregation and multi-
spectrum support.
Executive summary
Source: Analysys Mason
Indoor
small cells
Coverage
and capacity
Manageability
Upgradability
Local
application
support
Performance
and
scalability
Installation
and
operation
cost
Small-cell solutions for large enterprises and venues: improving the indoor user experience
© Analysys Mason Limited 2016
Figure 2: Cellular data usage, average per person per game, top-five NFL team stadiums,
2015
5
Consumers are increasingly aware of the quality of their mobile
services indoors. Poor service makes them unhappy with venue
owners and mobile operators.
Users are quickly migrating to 4G devices that are consuming
increasing volumes of data. With these devices comes a higher
level of expectation regarding service quality, as well as generally
higher satisfaction scores that mobile operators do not want to
diminish.
Outdoor networks are having difficulty providing indoor coverage
making indoor solutions for large buildings and venues almost
mandatory. ‘Outside–in’ signal loss can be up to 7dB for a glass
‘wall’, up to 10dB for brick or 12dB for concrete walls. Metal wall
framing may cause a loss of up to 10dB, while concrete floors can
result in losses up to 30dB. GPS timing for indoor networks can
also be affected.
Indoor solutions also have technical issues to overcome: indoor
solutions do not always support the same spectrum bands as
macrocell networks and they require interference management
and call handling procedures to prevent user signals from ‘ping
ponging’ between the small cells and the macrocells.
Support for Wi-Fi is also a problem because Wi-Fi users tend to
consume nearly as much data as cellular users in large venues
such as stadiums and even more in retail locations.
Owners of large venues and mobile operators face challenges in
providing the best indoor user experience for voice and data services
Source: AT&T, Analysys Mason
Wembley Stadium
NFL Match
November 2015
416GB
Sunlife Stadium
Miami Dolphins
1400GB
AT&T Stadium
Dallas Cowboys
1257GB
MB Superdome
New Orleans Saints
895GB
Levi Stadium
SF 49ers
1054GB
Qualcomm Stadium
SD Chargers
1085GB
Small-cell solutions for large enterprises and venues: improving the indoor user experience
© Analysys Mason Limited 2016
Huawei LampSite
Nokia Flexi Zone
SpiderCloud and Cisco
Ericsson Dot
Ericsson Digital Unit
Huawei BBU
Nokia Flexi Zone Controller
SpiderCloud Service Node
Ethernet switch
Huawei rHUB
pRRU
Figure 3: Elements of indoor small-cell solutions by vendor
6
Solutions vary in terms of capacity, spectrum support,
management features, and macrocell network integration and
co-ordination, which complicates the decision-making process
for venue operators.
Early small cells were intended to address home and small-area
requirements while current systems can support the needs of over
70 000 attendees in the largest sports or event venues.
If the needs of a large number of users are to be met,
deployments of small cells must balance capacity, coverage and
performance requirements and stakeholders must ensure proper
use of Wi-Fi and macrocell integration techniques where needed.
The addition of mobile-edge computing capabilities enables small
cells to support LBS.
Indoor small-cell solutions for large buildings and venues are
challenged to meet complex interference mitigation and control
requirements, simplified installation and operations needs, as well
as scalability and technology upgrade compatibility.
This report looks at four solutions for large enterprise sites, retail
shopping malls and sports/events venues.
Small-cell solutions are evolving to meet the requirements of different
venues but gaps still remain
Source: Analysys Mason
Small-cell solutions for large enterprises and venues: improving the indoor user experience
© Analysys Mason Limited 2016 7
Recommendations and key implications
1 Vendors should make sure that the features and performance of small-cell solutions match those of the
macrocell network if they are to meet users’ service expectations.
Users expect their devices to perform consistently when on a cellular connection and have high levels of
satisfaction when indoor/venue performance meets or exceeds their expectations. In order to meet expectations,
vendors need to provide upgradable solutions with features that can match those of the macrocell network, such
as LTE-A carrier aggregation.
2 Indoor small-cell solutions vary in terms of architecture, but feature support, manageability, scalability and
upgradability should drive vendor marketing and sales efforts.
Marketing can devolve into technical battles over architecture differences rather than feature/function/benefit
discussions that focus on actual market needs. As small cells become more complicated with various active
antenna configurations and feature support (MIMO, LTE-A, CoMP), clear messages about competitive
differentiation based on performance, scalability and particularly cost will drive market success.
3 Indoor solutions are likely to be the stepping stone to early 5G, so vendors should consider developing small
cells that support multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) and higher-band spectrum.
Even where per-person traffic figures are low, heavy users require high-bandwidth solutions and will drive usage.
We also expect that as venues add more LBS to their user experience packages, data usage will significantly
increase and this will require more-scalable and higher-performing systems.
Small-cell solutions for large enterprises and venues: improving the indoor user experience
© Analysys Mason Limited 2016
CONTENTS CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
INDOOR SMALL-CELL REQUIREMENTS
INDOOR SMALL-CELL CHALLENGES
VENDOR SOLUTIONS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND ANALYSYS MASON
22
Small-cell solutions for large enterprises and venues: improving the indoor user experience
© Analysys Mason Limited 2016 23
About the author
Chris Nicoll (Principal Analyst) leads Analysys Mason’s Next-Generation Wireless Networks research programme. He specialises in new and
emerging wireless technologies including C-/V-RAN, edge and RAN virtualisation, small cells and HetNet, wireless fronthaul and backhaul, LTE-A
Pro and the technologies being developed for 5G. Chris has more than 30 years of expertise as a leader in defining telecoms strategy. Prior to
joining Analysys Mason, Chris held Principal Analyst positions at ACG Research and Nicoll Consulting, where he developed marketing strategy
and positioning for leading telecoms operators. At Yankee Group, Chris was a member of the Yankee Group Research Council and provided
thought leadership to the research organisation.
Small-cell solutions for large enterprises and venues: improving the indoor user experience
© Analysys Mason Limited 2016 24
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Small-cell solutions for large enterprises and venues: improving the indoor user experience
© Analysys Mason Limited 2016 25
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Small-cell solutions for large enterprises and venues: improving the indoor user experience
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Small-cell solutions for large enterprises and venues: improving the indoor user experience
© Analysys Mason Limited 2016
PUBLISHED BY ANALYSYS MASON LIMITED IN FEBRUARY 2016
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