The Importance of Small Cells in Wireless Networks
People consider their wireless devices to be among the most important personal items they own. They take their devices with them wherever they go and they expect the services they receive on these devices to be consistent and high quality, regardless of location.
Service providers will use a variety of new technology innovations to make sure they can meet these needs. One approach is to implement small cell architectures for improved coverage, capacity and signal strength where needed, such as in a home, enterprise or public area that is subject to frequent network congestion. The increased capacity in these locations will also address emerging wireless data use cases, which emphasize greater use of devices in fixed locations rather than mobile access that typified voice services.
"We find that 60 to 70% of mobile data consumption takes place within the home or enterprise, where consumers are stationary," said Steve Kemp, wireless marketing director at Alcatel-Lucent. "Small cells are ideally suited to these environments. They provide greater capacity and faster data speeds and they offload traffic from the macro network, which frees resources for those users who are truly mobile."
Small cells, also known as femtocells or picocells, are low-power wireless access points that operate in licensed spectrum. While the use of small cell architectures in mobile networks is still in its infancy, the approach is gaining traction and is expected to increase in importance.
"Over the next 24 to 36 months, I see significant increase in demand for small cells because traffic is not slowing down and because service providers will need to get as far up the demand curve as they can relative to their competitors," said Phil Marshall, chief research officer at Tolaga Research.
First offered by operators to help bolster services in residential settings, deployments have now begun to serve enterprise and urban network needs, according to Informa Telecoms & Media. The firm reported in February that there are now 19 femtocell deployments globally. Of these, six are enterprise offerings, two are urban and one is an outdoor rural service. The introduction of these non-residential deployments has been sudden; a year ago, all deployments targeted residential users.
One of the fundamental advantages to extending small cells to enterprise and public settings is that they do not require the large capital investment that macro cells require. For example, their deployment can avoid many of the legal restrictions associated with traditional cell sites, which reduces costs substantially. They also offer plug-and-play conveniences, which further reduce deployment costs.
Small cells will be friendly to and benefit from LTE network technology because the 4G standard uses a flat, IP-centric architecture that simplifies integration of the cells into the network. The IP architecture is used to drastically lower latency, which improves quality of experience particularly for applications like gaming. The architecture can also leverage self-organizing network solutions to configure and optimize the components, which will improve performance and reduce network planning and deployment costs.
According to recent Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs research, the incorporation of small cells into a network can reduce the total cost of ownership associated with delivering data services to customers. The study found that small cells can save an operator up to 53% in capital expenses and up to 10% in operating expenses, depending on traffic and loading projections.
Operators can also use small cells to help generate new types of revenue-generating services. When deployed in a metro, enterprise or home environment, small cells can be used to leverage the use of application programming interfaces (APIs) for presence, location and other network-based features to enable new and innovative applications and services for customers.
Alcatel-Lucent has recently expanded its small cell portfolio with its 9363 and 9364 Metro Cells. The new metro cells bolster coverage and capacity in indoor and outdoor high-traffic areas such as shopping malls, hotel lobbies and airports or even remote, rural locations. Alcatel-Lucent has also introduced a new 9362 Enterprise Cell, which can connect mobile phones to a company's PBX system or automatically share real-time presence and availability information to employees in the building. Alcatel-Lucent has also presented miniaturized femtocell concepts, one the size of a deck of playing cards and another the size of a memory stick. Referred to as the 9361 Home Cell X-Series, these concept femtocells use a standard USB connection for power and backhaul.
Alcatel-Lucent has received notable acceptance for its small cell solutions. Already, 17 mobile operators have signed agreements with Alcatel-Lucent to commercialize use its 9360 Small Cells solution for their home and enterprise customers. These operator customers include Vodafone UK, whose award-winning Sure Signal offering is based on the 9360. Other customers include Telefonica Spain, du in the UAE, Etisalat in the UAE, and Chunghwa Telecom in Taiwan. In addition to these wins, Alcatel-Lucent has more than 20 trials of its small cell solutions under way with operators around the world. One of these trials is being conducted in Saudi Arabia by Zain KSA. The operator is using the trials to evaluate first-hand how small cells address three of its business challenges: filling in coverage gaps, increasing capacity to deal with growing mobile data traffic, and creating new, value-added services cost-effectively.
Alcatel-Lucent's small cells are part of its lightRadio portfolio, which the company has developed to help service providers increase capacity at a lower cost per bit.
For more information, visit: www.alcatel-lucent.com/wireless/femto_small_cells.html and http://www.wilson-street.com/
