jcheek
Expert Member
A look inside a Telkom LTE base-station
A few days ago, I stumbled across some Telkom guys busy doing what they said was a complete LTE re-fit at one of the multi-operator ATC base-stations in my area. It's the same station as appeared in this post.
I was interested in this station because it was one of those recently identified as being involved in Telkom's "Uncapped LTE" promotion. Previously ATC had told me Telkom wasn't on this station, so I went there to see what had changed.
This particular station is also interesting in that I'm 99.9% sure it has a backhaul data connection into a node of a DFA (Dark Fibre Africa) fibre-optic cable that goes right past - see this post.
Anyway, unlike before where I couldn't see into the station, this time I could actually get access so I took the opportunity to chat with the guys and take some pics.
With the gate open, all is revealed:
There are four operators using this ATC highsite, each with their own equipment cabinet :
Telkom Mobile is front right, with CellC behind it. Front left is MTN, back left is Vodacom.
Look at the size of some of those coaxial feeder cables lying coiled on the ground in front!
An overall view of the goodies inside the Telkom cabinet :
On the left side, top to bottom, is some Cat6 network distribution equipment, fibre transceivers, DC power distribution and cabinet air-conditioning equipment. The three devices standing loose on the shelf on the right side are Huawei RRUs (Remote Radio Units), waiting to be fitted behind the antennas up on the mast. The red standby batteries are down below, two banks of 4x12V/190Ah batteries each to give the standard 48VDC supply used around telecoms equipment.
A close-up of the Huawei RRUs:
Each one is rated to consume a maximum of 16A @ 48VDC, a substantial 770W.
Techies mounting new sector antennas and associated equipment onto the existing brackets:
Here you can see some of the RRUs already fitted behind the sector antennas.
I guess Telkom got the worst (lowest!) position on this tower by virtue of being late to the cellular party in SA.
Close-up of one of the sector antennas (only partially connected at this point) :
This one seems to have three distinct sets of orthogonally-polarised antenna elements (designated Y1, Y2 and Y3). There is also a Remote Electrical Tilt Unit (previously discussed here) plugged into the leftmost 'Tilt' port.
A few days ago, I stumbled across some Telkom guys busy doing what they said was a complete LTE re-fit at one of the multi-operator ATC base-stations in my area. It's the same station as appeared in this post.
I was interested in this station because it was one of those recently identified as being involved in Telkom's "Uncapped LTE" promotion. Previously ATC had told me Telkom wasn't on this station, so I went there to see what had changed.
This particular station is also interesting in that I'm 99.9% sure it has a backhaul data connection into a node of a DFA (Dark Fibre Africa) fibre-optic cable that goes right past - see this post.
Anyway, unlike before where I couldn't see into the station, this time I could actually get access so I took the opportunity to chat with the guys and take some pics.
With the gate open, all is revealed:
There are four operators using this ATC highsite, each with their own equipment cabinet :
Telkom Mobile is front right, with CellC behind it. Front left is MTN, back left is Vodacom.
Look at the size of some of those coaxial feeder cables lying coiled on the ground in front!
An overall view of the goodies inside the Telkom cabinet :
On the left side, top to bottom, is some Cat6 network distribution equipment, fibre transceivers, DC power distribution and cabinet air-conditioning equipment. The three devices standing loose on the shelf on the right side are Huawei RRUs (Remote Radio Units), waiting to be fitted behind the antennas up on the mast. The red standby batteries are down below, two banks of 4x12V/190Ah batteries each to give the standard 48VDC supply used around telecoms equipment.
A close-up of the Huawei RRUs:
Each one is rated to consume a maximum of 16A @ 48VDC, a substantial 770W.
Techies mounting new sector antennas and associated equipment onto the existing brackets:
Here you can see some of the RRUs already fitted behind the sector antennas.
I guess Telkom got the worst (lowest!) position on this tower by virtue of being late to the cellular party in SA.
Close-up of one of the sector antennas (only partially connected at this point) :
This one seems to have three distinct sets of orthogonally-polarised antenna elements (designated Y1, Y2 and Y3). There is also a Remote Electrical Tilt Unit (previously discussed here) plugged into the leftmost 'Tilt' port.
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