smallcells_2

21 August 2012

Small cells are often discussed at wireless industry gatherings as being the solution for network operators that desperately need an answer to consumers’ growing appetite for mobile data. In fact, many analyst firms predict that the small cell market will grow exponentially in the coming years. Infonetics Research predicts that the global small cell market will grow to a $2.1 billion business by 2016, with 3 million small cells shipped.

But small cells have some challenges. First, the definition alone is confusing. Femtocells are typically considered the original small cell but are usually associated with devices used primarily in the home. As the femtocell market evolved from indoor residential applications to outdoor public venues the term small cells became more prevalent than femtocell and now small cells include other technologies such as microcells, metrocells and even picocells.

Whatever name your choose, the end result is that small cells are more complex than most realize because they have to be integrated into the rest of the network. This often requires intensive network planning and installation considerations since small cells are often located on city property or in buildings where owners want revenue for drilling holes, installing cables and supplying electricity.

Small cells alone may not be costly – estimates put their cost in the $2,000-$3,000 range—but when you add power and backhaul costs, the price becomes much higher.

In this FierceWireless ebook we will explore the various small cell solutions that are available and discuss how operators are planning to use them in their networks. This ebook will also look at small cell backhaul, which can be a major obstacle for deployments, and explore how rural carriers are planning to use the technology. –Sue

3Small Cells Are Promising for Operators but

Offer a New Level of Complexity

5Femto, Pico,

Micro: What’s in a Name?

6An Integrated

Small Cell Vision *Sponsored

Content*

7Cost Effectively

Deploying Small Cells

9Small Cells

Find Homes in Rural Markets

10Managing

HetNets and Maximizing Small Cell Automation

with SON *Sponsored

Content*

11Backhaul at

the Forefront

12Small cells

Applications: Hope or Hype?

*Sponsored Content*

DiamonD SponSorS:

GolD SponSor:

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OctOber 2012

by Sue marek editOr-in-chief /// FierceWireless

FierceWireless

Understandingthe Small Cell phenomenon

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43 OctOber 2012 OctOber 2012

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Most industry analysts are bullish on the concept of small cells, but caution that the capacity enhancements they offer could be tempered by the cost and complexity of deployment.

The industry analyst outlook on small cell deployment strategies is perhaps best summarized by the view of Iain Gillott, founder and president of market consultancy iGR: “Nothing is ever as easy as it seems.”

A wide range of analyst firms has predicted strong numbers for small cell strategies. Infonetics Research forecasts the global small cell market to grow to 3 million small cells shipped by

2016, driving a market worth about $2.1 billion. Informa Telecoms and Media, for its part, projects that by 2016, small cells will comprise 88 percent of all base stations deployed globally.

But there are many issues that must be addressed to make those projections a reality. “The biggest challenge is that small cells are such a significant departure

from existing network planning methodology,” said Dimitris Mavrakis, principal analyst at Informa. “Practical issues

are the biggest challenges.”To Gillott’s way of thinking, the

hurdles facing mobile operators with regard to small cells range from how and where they are located and installed, to how they are reached with backhaul connections, to how they interact with other network infrastructure.

“You have to be very careful how you deploy, because they can interfere with macrocells pretty easily,” Gillott said. “The ability to split the cell within the same frequency is pretty limited. Really, you want to do it in a different frequency band.”

Location is also an issue, Gillotte said, because “You can’t just bolt these things on the side of a building.” Considerations like power and backhaul make deployment more complex, as does the question of exactly who can deploy them, he says.

“One of the biggest things about small cells people are overlooking is how you’re going to put them up,” Gillott said. “You’re not going to have a truck roll for half a million small cells—it’s just not cost effective.”

Gillott’s view is that the installation needs to be accessible to someone at the level of an IT professional to keep costs low—but the requirements of small cell deployment extend beyond basic IT-type needs. “Think Wi-Fi hotspot levels of deployment, if those were durable and carrier-grade,” he said.

Michael Howard, co-founder and

Small Cells Are Promising for Operators but Offer a New Level of Complexityby JAsOn Meyers

principal analyst of Infonetics, notes that operators have many non-technology hurdles to overcome as they consider deploying small cells on structures like light poles, traffic lights and buildings.

“We hear stories already of city governments, utility companies and building owners wanting new regulations and ordinances to avoid unsightly boxes perched and attached around town,” Howard said. “Some cities want the boxes painted black and limited in size; utility pole owners see new charges for boxes and electric services (and bigger charges for bigger boxes); and building owners are looking for new revenue for drilling holes, installing cabling, and supplying electricity and network connections. All of this is new to all concerned, and it will take time to figure it out.”

Cost, of course, is one of the biggest questions about small cells that operators must address. Most analysts agree that small cell market growth will be driven by operators seeking to enhance capacity—but for that to be worthwhile, it must be cost-effective.

“In our conversations and survey

work with operators around the world, they want outdoor small cells in the $2,000 to $3,000 range, with another $500 or so for the backhaul,” Howard said. “Good luck to them for next couple of years. Depending on the size, power and range of the small cell, it can hit in that $2,000 to 3,000 range now, but the metro deployment size are today more in the $5000 range. There are a lot of factors in pricing, and some today are in the $10,000 range.”

Backhauling of traffic from small cells is yet another challenge—and because of the early stage of deployment, the answers are yet to be readily available.

“Since there very few rollouts to date, there is no clear industry operator approach for selecting

from the many alternatives for backhauling those small cells,” Howard said. “Operators are still evaluating, testing, and deciding. Most operators plan their first outdoor deployments in the urban core, where macrocell sites are connected to fiber backhaul networks, so most plan to aggregate small cell backhaul traffic onto the nearest macrocell site backhaul network.”

The other question mark with regard to small cell deployments is whether having them in place is just about coverage and capacity in

networks, or whether there are new service capabilities (like layering rich communications services on top and taking advantage of location-based services) that are enabled by a more complex web of coverage. Gillott said that small cell deployment is far more driven by capacity, and that the subject of differentiated services is one better addressed at the enterprise level.

Howard of Infonetics agreed that capacity and coverage are the main drivers for small cells, but noted that service differentiation could be possible in some deployments.

“Operators are looking at service models for premium users that choose the best service when walking or driving in a downtown area,” he said. “Operators envision situations of dense users in which they will keep low paying subscribers on Wi-Fi, while premium subscribers will be parlayed among the best small cell or macrocell. Also, location services are planned where a subscriber walks down a street, and special offers are sent them from the nearby businesses.” l

“The biggest challenge is that small cells are such a significant departure from existing network planning methodology.”

DimitriS mavrakiS, principal analySt at informa

“Most operators plan their first outdoor deployments in the urban core, where macrocell sites are connected to fiber backhaul networks, so most plan to aggregate small cell backhaul traffic onto the nearest macrocell site backhaul network.”

michael howarD, co-founDer anD principal analySt of infoneticS

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Small cell technology has evolved to encompass a lot of different architectures.

Quick: What’s the difference between a femto, pico and microcell?

If it takes moment to consider, you’re not alone. In fact, some might say the difference no longer matters. Or they’re so loosely defined

that it’s more economical to just say “small cell.”

It’s not as if that’s been lost on industry leaders. “Femto” has long been associated with devices for the home, but small cell technology evolved beyond that. In February, the Femto Forum announced its name change to the Small Cell Forum. It has since grown to more than 140 members representing operators and vendors linked to all kinds of small cell architectures.

In announcing the name change, the forum said it would address all small cells that “operate in licensed spectrum, are operator-

managed and feature edge-based intelligence,” including what have been dubbed femtocells, picocells, microcells and metrocells. It’s also supporting the crossover between small cells and other relevant technologies, including Wi-Fi, cloud RAN, Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) and macrocells as part of the heterogeneous network (hetnet) environment.

back to baSicSBroadly speaking, a “femtocell” is

often used to describe a consumer or enterprise product that resides indoors. A picocell sits in indoor public areas that can be residential or enterprise, and a microcell resides outside. But even the Small Cell Forum points out that a picocell is sometimes used to encompass outdoor cells as well. The term “metrocell” is typically used to describe technologies designed for high capacity metropolitan areas, but the forum says the

metrocell category also can include femtocells, picocells and microcells where they meet the deployment criteria. Go figure.

At the moment, femtocells seem to be the most deployed technology in terms of volume, said Aditya Kaul, ABI Research practice director for mobile networks. But in general, the market is moving from indoor residential applications to outdoor public venues, and the “small cell” banner is becoming increasingly popular.

The shift to the great outdoors is music to the ears of the vendors that specialize there. Over at Vanu, whose founder Vanu Bose has been a pioneer in software-defined radio (SDR), executives are cutting through the clutter by referring to their gear as a “small thing that sits on a pole.” Bose said the confusing array of small cell terminology has been a pet peeve of his for some time. “These definitions are so loose,” he said, noting that products often bleed into more than one category. “Ours is a full-fledged base station in a small package.”

Put another way, Vanu makes what it calls a “compact RAN,” or radio access network, thus solving the problem by being about as specific as you can get.

Indeed, one person’s femtocell may be another’s personal base

Femto, Pico, Micro: What’s in a Name? by MOnicA Alleven

At the moment, femtocells seem to be the most deployed technology in terms of volume

aDitya kaul, aBi reSearch practice Director for moBile networkS

continued on page 13

Small cell opportunityThe new standard for how users access the mobile Internet will be via small cell solutions. The peak of consumption will happen when in coverage of small cells, whether at home, on the office, at the stadium or in the mall. The network will shift to offering elastic packet core services that can scale to deliver the dramatic increase in Internet consumption as well as the monetization opportunities for service providers to insert into established value chains and create new value chains that leverage mobile analytics. Small cells take penetration into these locations and drive new location, service, context, and device aware services.

Cisco is tremendously enthusiastic about this transition which represents the massive adoption of mobile Internet services and the aggressive adoption of small cell solutions. Cisco has over a decade of experience in delivering small cell solutions to service providers using both licensed and unlicensed radio technologies. Moving forward, we are particularly excited about the opportunity to integrate licensed and unlicensed architectures. Our most recent announcement concerns the ASR 5500, Cisco’s next generation elastic packet core services gateway, which is dimensioned for future network loads and provides a platform for delivering unified small cell gateway functionality, supporting Service Provider Wi-Fi,

3G Iu-h based femto, 4G small cells of all sizes, as well as conventional macro networks.

Cisco is absolutely committed to the success of the small cell market. We have end-to-end solutions for both licensed and unlicensed technologies. Cisco is the market leader in carrier-grade Wi-Fi, unlicensed small cells if you will, and has delivered over 15 million such small cells. We have also deployed the world’s largest 3G WCDMA licensed small cell network with AT&T. We understand issues faced in large scale deployments such as the SuperBowl and the Olympics, and we have solved these problems with zero touch provisioning, Self Optimizing Networks (SON) functionality, beamforming, high density antennas, unified backhaul – the list goes on. We are committed to and engaged in developing open standards – both Next Generation Hotspot/Hotspot 2.0 for Wi-Fi through the WBA and the WFA and Iu-h for femto interoperability through the Small Cell Forum and 3GPP.

That’s our vision: to build infrastructure with a highly intelligent combination of licensed and unlicensed access points, then to bring our understanding of access types together to enable our customers to build analytical capabilities and services on top of it. That’s really our vision for small cells. l

induStry challengeThere is a clear technology challenge we face today. It is being able to recognize that as we are nearing the asymptote of radio performance, the only way to meet the expected demand in mobile data is to deliver a lot more smaller cells. The industry needs to realize that focusing attention on facilitating the massive adoption of small cells will bear far more reward than defining ever higher order modulation schemes and RF capabilities that are inaccessible to the majority of macro-cellular users. So we will use small cells to solve the bandwidth issues and fortuitously they will also help solve the signaling issues which have been equally challenging to address. The always-on nature of Wi-Fi together with the distributed licensed small cell architectures both allow for massive offload of signaling events from the overburdened macro cellular network.

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“We’re entering the post-macrocell era where radio type no longer defines the network architecture— and small cells are critical in delivering the mobile Internet.”

John chamBerS, chairman anD ceo, ciSco

Mark Grayson is a Distinguished Consulting Engineer at Cisco with responsibility for leading Cisco’s mobile architecture strategy. He has over 20 years of experience in the wireless industry, ranging from the development of military systems, the definition of satellite communication architectures, the evolution of traditional cellular systems through to the creation of the latest small cell solutions.

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Automation and self-provisioning will help reduce deployment costs.

The business economics of deploying small cells have made them appear excessively costly to deploy and maintain, but operators and vendors are feverishly working on efforts to bring down the costs.

As with macro cells, small cells require expenditures in site acquisition, backhaul, installation and ongoing maintenance. But because there are generally so many more small cells than macros--a 6:1 ratio is commonly envisioned--those costs can seem overwhelming.

One way to solve such issues is to avoid them in the first place by, for instance, focusing on residential or enterprise femtocells. “The biggest barriers to small cells are real estate, power and backhaul,” said Jared Headley, director, service provider mobility, at Cisco Systems. “In the home, all three of those are solved.”

Yet other small cell deployments, both indoors and outdoors, still must clear those hurdles.

Siting issues are a fact of life for macro and small cell deployments, but operators and vendors can make the process easier for local

officials. “We’ve been trying to pull together a set of best practices to lay down with them” in hopes of avoiding a

mish-mash of small cell regulations across jurisdictions, said Mike Schabel, vice president of Alcatel-Lucent’s small cell portfolio.

And operators have a plethora of backhaul approaches from which to select for small cells, including fiber, microwave and non-line-of sight solutions, all of which offer different cost bases. “You can’t just deploy the small cell where the backhaul is: You have to bring the backhaul to the small cell,” said Vish Nandlall, CTO and head of strategy for Ericsson’s North American operations.

uSing automation and modeling

Some of the most significant cost savings for heterogeneous networks, or HetNets, is expected to stem from automation. “It’s the self-provisioning aspect that makes femtocell deployments economical,” Headley said.

The same is true for larger devices. “More and more we just need to adopt automation technologies,” Nandlall said, adding the key is to be able to install, tune and optimize small cell equipment

in a highly variable environment without doing a truck roll every time a change is needed.

The cost of services can equate to 20-30 percent of a macro cell build but 40-45 percent of a small cell roll out, he said. Self-organizing network (SON) technology, which makes a small cell installation as zero-touch as possible, is key to reducing costs.

Vendors are currently “taking existing tools, automating them and tying them into the various IT platforms so we can create automatic workflows to install and tune the small cells,” said Nandlall. “It’s not what I would call 100

Cost Effectively Deploying Small Cells by tAMMy PArker


“You can’t just deploy the small cell where the backhaul is: You have to bring the backhaul to the small cell.”

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Used primarily to fill coverage gaps, small cells can solve problems for rural operators.

In urban areas, it’s fairly well understood that smartphones, tablets and other data devices are pushing data capacity limits, requiring more offload techniques, including small cells. But in rural areas, sometimes it just comes down to plain old coverage, regardless of whether it’s for voice or data or both.

Operators serving rural areas face a lot of challenges. Providing backhaul is one issue. Economies of scale play a big role – a lot of times, big vendors don’t want to make equipment that works on the smaller carriers’ frequencies because the orders are too small to justify the requisite retooling. Of course, the age-old problem remains whereby operators need to justify the cost of equipment in sparsely populated areas with few customers to support it.

Filling in gapS Earlier this year, Mosaic

Telecom in northwestern Wisconsin rolled out femtocells provided by Ubiquisys as part of a Nokia Siemens Networks solution, making it the first operator to deploy femtocells in AWS spectrum. But it didn’t come without some hiccups. The operator waited a long

time and went through three different vendors before Ubiquisys stepped up.

Keith Day, vice president of marketing at Ubiquisys, said Mosaic is a good example of an operator doing advanced implementations even though it’s serving rural communities that usually have to wait for the latest and greatest technology. The operator sells an in-home solution branded as Home Cell, which can use cable modem, DSL or Mosaic’s own LTE network for backhaul.

Mosaic CEO Rick Vergin has stated publicly that the carrier struggled for over a year to get a femtocell product that would work in its spectrum. Again, economies of scale

played a role; it’s difficult to get a manufacturer to make devices for an order involving thousands instead of hundreds of thousands or millions of devices.

Another Wisconsin-based operator, Cellcom, didn’t have the same problem but did have issues getting things rolling with vendors. Rob Riordan, executive vice president and director of corporate development at Cellcom and Nsight, said the operator had been looking

Small Cells Find Homes in Rural Markets by MOnicA Alleven

Mosaic is a good example of an operator doing advanced implementations even though it’s serving rural communities that usually have to wait for the latest and greatest technology. keith Day, vice preSiDent of marketinG at uBiQuiSyS


thiS iS where Son comeS in… A self-organizing network, or SON, offers LTE operators a better way to manage their HetNet, providing effective coordination of RF resources suitable for multi-radio, multi-standard small cell networks with automated steps for:• Self-configuration• Self-optimization• Self-healing• Enhanced O&M

By automating these steps, mobile operators can lower deployment and operations costs, mitigate interference, and optimize their network to boost capacity and throughput. However, they must decide how to implement SON to

meet their unique requirements:

• Distributed SON: Algorithms are executed at a network element, so the functionality resides in many locations; Provides more scalability, less operator control

• Centralized SON: Algorithms are executed in a centralized entity such as the OAM, so functionality resides in fewer locations; Provides more operator control, less scalability

• Hybrid SON: Algorithms are executed at the OAM and the network element level, providing enhanced flexibility

SON’s automated techniques effectively eliminate the need for dedicated manual control which is cumbersome and expensive. SON algorithms can also coordinate the large number of small cells with the existing macro network, significantly enhancing small cell gains.

Radisys’ field-hardened, pre-integrated TOTALeNodeB™ solution includes SON, Radio Resource Management and OAM functions which are supported by standards-based software stacks, but customizable for operators’ specific deployment scenarios.

Radisys offers a broad portfolio of products to address a range of bandwidth optimization, network monetization and security solutions. The Trillium® TOTALeNodeB™ is a fully integrated LTE small cell solution for today’s HetNet. To learn more, visit www.radisys.com. l

The iPhone 5 launch with LTE signals a major upsurge in LTE devices and LTE network rollouts. However, operators must deliver on LTE’s promise, meeting user demand for broader coverage and faster data speeds. To meet demand, operators can complement their LTE rollouts with small cell deployments to manage traffic and monetize the network. This combined heterogeneous network, or “HetNet,” is a multi-layer network that enables demand-based capacity and coverage. It combines macrocells with strategically placed, multiple other node types including indoor small cells, Wi-Fi hotspots, relays, remote radio head, and open access pico and microcells.

The versatility of HetNets can help operators achieve the mobile broadband nirvana of best speed and coverage everywhere. However, there are challenges to overcome:

1) Deployed macro networks are based on extensive configuration, planning, installation and monitoring that is done manually

2) HetNet deployments will add thousands of micro/picocells to the network, making it essential to have an automated approach for set-up, installation and ongoing maintenance

3) The small cells network under the macro umbrella is an interference prone environment, necessitating constant coordination and optimization for a seamless user experience

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• Provides automation for deployment, optimization and maintenance, leading to reduced OPEX

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Executing a small cell strategy isn’t a simple plug-and-play solution to coverage and capacity concerns—the backhaul portion of the equation is one of the most critical elements for success.

The concept of implementing a network of small cells to enhance the coverage of a mobile network seems fairly straightforward, and it is—except when it comes to transporting the traffic that those cells collect back into the network. When it comes to backhaul, mobile operators that are pondering a small cells strategy must contend with decisions about whether to use fiber or wireless solutions, the reliability of each and the cost impact those decisions have on their overall business model.

“The backhaul connection for small cells plays a significant role in carriers’ decision to roll out small cells in the network,” said Joe Schraml, vice president of marketing for BridgeWave Communications, a developer of wireless backhaul solutions. “Without the right small-cell

backhaul technology, the economic benefits of deploying small cells are lost, and any value the carriers thought they’d see with small cells is not realized.”

According to ABI Research, both fiber and microwave/millimeter wave platforms are viable contenders for small cell backhaul. ABI recently forecast the global microwave backhaul segment to grow to more than $6.4 billion in 2017, up from a forecasted

$1.5 billion for 2012. Millimeter wave line-of-sight, meanwhile, is forecasted to garner $2.8 billion by and orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing non line-of-sight $1.9 billion. Wi-Fi, meanwhile, will capture $784 million of the 2017 market, according to ABI.

ABI also expects fiber backhaul solutions to experience healthy growth, grabbing 24 percent of the global market by 2017. But Schraml believes fiber will prove not as

viable for small cell backhaul, and that wireless solutions will be more cost-effective and faster.

“While carriers will desire to use fiber for the backhaul connection, the reality is that fiber is not ubiquitous, and the costs to bring fiber to places like street poles simply doesn’t scale with the number of small cells they look to deploy,” he said. “Permit delays, right-of-way issues and tearing up city streets to bring fiber to these

locations isn’t going to be an option when carriers need to quickly and economically deploy small cells.”

Cost certainly is a major consideration when it comes to small cell backhaul strategy, said Rajesh Kumar Sundararajan assistant vice president for data communication products at Aricent Group.

‘“The backhaul strategy that an

Backhaul at the Forefrontby JAsOn Meyers


and a whole host of router, Wi-Fi and media gateway device manu-facturers are vying for a piece of the action.

In this crowded market

place small cells stand tall as the only device that truly bridges the mobile networks and local area networks. Some of the possible applications that enrich the user experience in the home environment are:

1. home automation – Basic presence-based scenarios like automatically turning the lights on or off based on user presence in the room, advanced scenarios like adjusting the television volume based on user behaviour and location within the room.

2. home energy management–Climate control configuration based on user presence and localization, intelligently combining pre-set rules and demand response features for energy savings.

3. media and entertainment – automatically synchronizing content across multiple devices, contextualized and dynamic follow-me services that enable consumers to enjoy media on their device of choice.

4. home Security and Surveillance- simple remote feeds and alert-me services that allow consumers to remotely manage their security

systems, intelligent burglar alarms and emergency response services that take action based on location and presence home.

Smalls cells are prime candidates for deployment not only in the home but also in the enterprise environments. Some of the possibilities are:

1. Short Dialling – location and presence information can be used to reach an employee on his/her cell phone via a short code while connected to the small cell.

2. facilities management – intelligent business automation systems which turn off power in conference rooms/offices based on lack of registered user presence in the room, automated access control to buildings where the cell phone becomes the access card.

3. enhanced find me/follow me– Find Me and Follow Me“services in enterprise have been around for some time now, but now can be enhanced with real time location capabilities to seamlessly deliver media (voice/video) on the device of choice.

Smart phone applications on mobile phones have transformed the mobile industry, the next big change in the applications ecosystem will be enabled by the interaction provided by the small cells between the worlds of mobile, internet and local area network applications. Small cell applications offer a hope for the mobile operators to monetise their investments and move up the value chain. www.aricent.com l

In the era of exploding mobile data, the need for small cells as an indoor data offload & coverage solution in homes and enterprises is well accepted. What is not that well understood is the important role that small cells play in enabling the convergence of the internet and mobile applications eco-systems.

Smalls cells are unlike any other base station deployed by the operator. They are not only a part of the operator’s mobile network, but are also a part of the home or enterprise LAN. This sets the small cell in a perfect position to be a conduit between the mobile and internet worlds. Key pieces of information made available by the small cells are Location, Service discovery with in the local area network and secure connectivity between the mobile and local network.

This valuable information provided by small cells can be accessed and used by applications running anywhere in the mobile & internet applications ecosystem; be it applications running on the mobile device , applications hosted on the local network or applications on the internet.

While the verdict is still not out on which device is going to be the centre of the digital home; companies like Apple, Microsoft

Small cells Applications: Hope or Hype?by Arun nAtArAJAn

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station. AT&T started marketing a femtocell device back in 2009 under the name 3G MicroCell. Sprint has been telling customers to call its Airave product “your own mini cell tower.” Verizon Wireless also describes its 3G femtocell product as a device that works “like a miniature tower in your home or home office” but gives it the rather innocuous label of “Network Extender,” which sells for $249.99.

Perhaps the “small cell” moniker is the safest bet. Alcatel-Lucent markets “small cells solution for the home” as the 9361 Home Cell. Its enterprise solution is the 9362 Enterprise Cell, supporting from 16 to 24 to 32 users. For urban and rural spaces, it offers its Metro Cell Outdoor (MCO) solutions.

Ip.access, a longtime leader in small cells, offers an end-to-end femtocell and picocell solution that it calls the nano3G. It also offers what it calls the “world’s most deployed GSM picocell,” the nanoGSM.

more than a nameTodd Mersch, director of product

line management for Radisys, said his team looks at small cells across several dimensions and tries not to get too hung up on the names. Other factors come into play, like how many users are supported, power requirements, coverage area and whether it’s outside or closed to public access. Hybrids also exist that can give priority access to a certain user group.

Another way to think about small cells is the problems they’re designed to solve. Rupert Baines, vice president of corporate strategy and marketing communications at

Mindspeed Technologies, which acquired Picochip earlier this year, said one of the nice things about small cells and all their flavors is they can solve lots of different problems.

Among the issues they address: lack of coverage, both in residential rural areas and places like shopping malls and train stations in urban areas; the explosion in data traffic in urban areas; and the desire to serve enterprises with better capacity, coverage or features.

Baines points to SoftBank’s deployments in Japan, where the operator is now serving parks and ski resorts – places that previously didn’t have coverage – in a big way. Small cells also are applicable in

emergencies, as they were widely used in Japan to reach places where macro sites were hit hard by the tsunami. Baines likens the small cell phenomenon to the shift from the main frame computer to PCs. The idea of making things smaller, cheaper and closer to the end user leads to better performance.

For a recent report on small cell backhaul requirements, Senza Fili Consulting President Monica Paolini needed to establish some definitions. For the purposes of the report, she ended up excluding residential or enterprise femtocells that operators do not install or control because they don’t require dedicated backhaul. In defining a small cell, part of her criteria included coverage up to 200 meters radius, with the expectation that most small cells will have a sub-50 meter range.

Her basic approach is to exclude the two extremes – macro and residential small office/enterprise, reasoning that a new vendor could unveil something tomorrow that could fit somewhere in between the macro and the small cell. Products are built in a continuum, and “there is a grey area in between, for sure,” she said. l

continued from page 5

percent SON that’s being deployed as yet. It’s SON-lite.”

In addition, engineers are learning that their previous approaches to deploying macro cell networks are not appropriate for small cells. Alcatel-Lucent built a geo-location optimization model to identify the locus of acceptable sites to serve native offload and then a built a costing model on top of that.

“We found a lot of results that were perhaps going against the grain of institutional knowledge with respect to how you would deploy [small cells] to optimize cost,” said Schabel, adding that nontraditional sites are often preferable for deployments.

“We were able to rationalize why with some of the early-stage trials you heard these horrific stories about how much it cost to deploy the darn things, and that checks out with some of the models that we were dealing with,” he said.

Sprint hopS on FaSt trackOperator Sprint Nextel is deeply

involved in boosting coverage and capacity for its networks via femtocells for homes and businesses and a picocell deployment strategy that is just ramping up, with an initial focus on indoor deployments followed by outdoor deployments in 2013-2014.

Iyad Tarazi, Sprint Nextel’s vice president of network development

and engineering, said the traditional model for in-building coverage and capacity enhancements at marquee locations such as amusement parks and large stadiums is untenable because it demands a rigorous, expensive engineering process as well as specialized equipment such as DAS gear and special cabling. Further, venue owners typically demand compensation for allowing an operator to add coverage at their location. “That model is unsustainable over the long term because it is very slow and very expensive,” Tarazi said.

Sprint is working with its small cell suppliers on low-cost, low-power, compact and intelligent end points that do not require specialized equipment, engineering or design work and are capable of reconfiguring themselves. The carrier aims for fast-track deployments that take six weeks rather than six months.

“The cost of deployment is a fraction of what you do in the other system,” Tarazi added. “We aim for the ability to drop the cost by north of 80 percent.”

Starting the learning curve Despite the technological

advancements that have been made to rein in small cell deployment costs, this young market has a long way to go.

“There’s a lot of learning still yet to be had,” Nandlall said. l


“The biggest barriers to small cells are real estate, power and backhaul.”

JareD heaDley, Director, Service proviDer moBility, at ciSco SyStemS

Baines likens the small cell phenomenon to the shift from the main frame computer to PCs.

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at small cells for a few years but experienced a few bumps in the road, mainly tied to inactivity in the vendor space. Starent Networks was working with Cellcom until it was bought by Cisco, and after an evaluation period, Cisco decided not to pursue it.

Nowadays, Cellcom uses small cell technology from Taqua and Airvana, and it’s been undergoing friendly trials with femtocells in employees’ homes. Cellcom’s relationship with UBEE AirWalk goes back to at least 2004 when it started supplying the AW-96 micro solution RAN for markets in Michigan. AirWalk Communications also has supplied its enterprise CDMA femtocell product to Sprint Nextel.

Riordan says operators generally look to small cell technology for three reasons: capacity, coverage

and, in the case of some of the things Cellcom is exploring, presence. As for capacity, it costs a lot less to deploy small cells to cover game day at Lambeau Field than to install an expensive macro cell, he said. To address coverage, a small cell can fill in rough spots where a macro cell will pose interference problems. And with presence, all kinds of usage scenarios come to mind, such as a home equipped with a small cell that can let parents know when a child has arrived home from school, or serving as notification when a car salesperson leaves or returns to the dealership.

over the hillS oF vermont On the East Coast, the state of

Vermont represents one of the more challenging RF areas. The state is the second least populous of the 50 states (behind Wyoming) and its biggest city is about 40,000

residents strong. Its hills, foliage and valleys make for great tourist attractions, but not for cellular coverage. “It’s a challenging terrain to cover wirelessly,” said Christopher Campbell, executive director of the Vermont Telecommunications Authority (VTA).

The state is still recovering from the torrential rains and flooding from 2011’s Hurricane Irene, after which the lack of reliable communications became painfully clear. The state is also aware that providing wireless coverage is necessary not only for emergencies but ongoing business and economic development. “It’s hugely important to the economic well-being of the state,” Campbell said. Tourists who visit Vermont expect their cellular connections to work, as do people who are encouraged to locate or to relocate their businesses to Vermont and/or telecommute.


This past summer, the VTA signed a $500,000 contract with CoverageCo to deploy small cells in parts of rural northern Vermont that were identified as being unserved by wireless carriers. The state identified 90 miles of unserved roadway in three sections of the state, and CoverageCo is covering an additional 125 road miles through private capital investment. The small cell equipment is provided by CoverageCo’s affiliated company, Vanu.

Part of the reason Vermont is able to afford the gear is Vanu has been commercially deploying its software-defined radio technology in places such as Nepal and India, bringing down the cost per base station. That, along with the fact that CoverageCo is using existing infrastructure – telephone poles – on which to put the gear means it’s more affordable.

making numberS work

As part of the profit

side of the equation, CoverageCo said it had entered into an agreement with a national cellular carrier. The company isn’t naming names, but since one of its founders is Barry West, the former president of Sprint’s 4G unit, the unnamed customer is widely believed to be the No. 3 carrier.

CoverageCo CEO Rich Biby, who

was the chief technology officer at tower company Crown Castle International for several years, would not confirm that, but he said the plan is to offer roaming services, much like it traditionally has been done in cellular, so that wireless operators will pay roaming fees to CoverageCo in exchange for using CoverageCo’s network in the remote areas. The company has executed roaming agreements that cover both CDMA and GSM carriers, with additional agreements in negotiations.

“We’re doing quite well,” Biby said of the deployment in Vermont, which is expected to be done before the end of this year. After Vermont is up and running, the company will look for opportunities in other states. l

Operators generally look to small cell technology for three reasons: capacity, coverage and, in the case of some of the things Cellcom is exploring, presence.

roB riorDan, executive vice preSiDent anD Director of corporate Development at cellcom anD nSiGht

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operator chooses must come at the optimum cost that is viable to provide good quality of service for the subscriber base being served, while providing room for growth,” Sundararajan said. “Balancing profitability in the present while providing for the future is always a challenging game, especially in extremely competitive environments. The cost itself is a factor of how scalable the backhaul network is, how resilient it is to environmental changes, rainy-day scenarios, disasters, etc. And cost definitely influences how much redundancy can be built into a network and how resilient the technology is.”

Making the decision on that optimal platform for small cell backhaul typically depends on a given operators’ existing network topology, Sundararajan said.

“An operator with existing cable layouts will always find it more economical and scalable to use a wired network,” he said. “In the absence of an existing network,

the optimal way does seem to be microwave or millimeter wave. These two technologies provide the necessary flexibility, installation cost and ability to grow. It is not surprising that there is enormous research going on in exploitation of these two strategies.”

Schraml of BridgeWave added that while cost is a critical consideration for small cell backhaul, it is far from being the only driver in operators’ decisions. Form factor, scalability spectrum availability and location are all important issues, he said.

“There is the need to have a form factor that seamlessly blends in with the urban environment, and any solution must scale in capacity as needs grow,” Schraml said. “Any wireless solution proposed also must have the spectrum available to deploy easily and quickly. Finally, there is the need for the operator to gain access to locations to deploy the small cells. Many people talk about light poles, but there is also the opportunity to deploy them on the sides of buildings or on low-level rooftops.”

The primary consideration from a cost perspective, Schraml said, should be on lowering operating expenditures—which he said requires backhaul products that operate in unlicensed spectrum bands, install quickly and don’t require costly truck rolls.

“Certainly lower costs and faster connection speeds

for these backhaul solutions will need to keep pace with carriers’ implementations, but other factors—such as self-optimizing or self-aligning antennas, auto-discovery, and self-healing ring architectures—will also evolve into the platforms as carriers look to adopt small cells en masse,” he said. “No single technology will provide all the backhaul needs for small cells. The backhaul for small cells is going to require multiple tools in a carriers’ toolbox, with non-line of sight, Wi-Fi offload and millimeter wave radios being the solutions.”

Iain Gillott, founder and president of market consultancy iGR, maintains that the marketing claims for wireless backhaul solutions have yet to be proven in real small cell deployments, and deployments that rely on them could prove to be stickier for operators than many are anticipating. Gillott said the backhaul for a small cell strategy is often overlooked and could stall the small cell deployments many operators are relying on for fast coverage and capacity enhancements in their networks.

“Everyone loves to forget backhaul,” he said.“With LTE in particular, you have to have really good backhaul. The backhaul question is big enough with small cells to put a hold on the strategy.” l

“Everyone loves to forget backhaul.”

iain Gillott, founDer anD preSiDent of market conSultancy iGr


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