How to get 4G into towns
Mobile technology is changing as it comes to terms with the IP world.
The deployment of micro networks in the UK’s rural areas by EE offers an interesting route for Africa’s mobile operators as they get to grips with 4G delivery. Russell Southwood spoke to the vendors – Parallel Wireless founders Rajesh Mishra and Steve Papa – about the deployment to see if it offers a cost-effective solution.
Back in 2005 I used the phrase “desktop GSM” in the context of the idea of creating rural “plug-and-play” operators in Africa. It was meant to describe the shift from a world in which vendors sold relatively high-priced equipment to large-scale operators, to one in which small-scale communications companies built their networks out of equipment that came from a mail order catalogue and operated largely on IP.
The use of micro networks is a part of the shift from big, proprietary equipment packages to smaller, lower cost, IP-based equipment. The Parallel Wireless antenna technology can be used as meshed architecture that, on the upside, allows a relatively small number of antennas to cover a significant area. The downside, as with any mesh architecture, is that the higher the number of users the lower the throughput.
But with between 3-4 antennas, a community of up to 150 people in an area of about 0.5 square miles can be connected. The equipment can provide 4G to those 4G capable devices (smartphones, tablets, routers) but defaults to 3G where a 4G device is not being used. In EE’s case, the 4G is delivered using 1,800MHz spectrum and the 3G using 1,800MHz spectrum.
EE plans to connect 1,500 rural communities this way where the small mobile antennas in the micro network link to the nearest mobile macro cell (a conventional BTS) – removing the need to use microwave or fibre backhaul links to be connected.
Depending on signal strength, frequency, and topology, the Converged Wireless System (CWS) can be laid like a series of connecting islands across short distances.
In the African context it could be used at the edge of a network to extend it into nearby towns and villages or to fill in areas where high-speed data services make sense, but at a slightly lower potential revenue level.
It also says that the equipment is a Self Organising Network: so easier to set up than more conventional mobile equipment.
“The CWS works out the access and backhaul side and mesh multiple independent radios. If it finds a mesh radio, it hand shakes. The SON dynamically generates a configuration… it’s gone from the installation and management of equipment to it operating ‘off the shelf’.”
The CWS units can be daisy chained, and a cluster of CWS units when meshed can increase the overall throughput. Papa said that the units would work well with TV White Spaces because of its ability to dynamically allocate frequencies.
In cost terms, the two items of equipment needed – the LTE Access Controller and the Converged Wireless System – are between US$3,000-5,000 depending on the configuration.
The CWS is described as a “base station re-imagined” and comes in a “compact enclosure” that can either go outside or be put in a vehicle. EE estimates that the approach will cost it 30% less than what it would spend on putting up a macro base station in similar circumstances.
So does Parallel Wireless see potential in the African market? Steve Papa said:”I think Africa is a fantastic market. We’re looking for people to do trials with”.
Mobile operators have tended to stick with a single vendor or two vendors. That way it can either have its staff familiar with the whole network and minimize training required for unfamiliar equipment, or have it externally managed by the vendor.
Papa makes the point that: “The future of HetNet requires interoperability…The LTE Access Controller will provide that interoperability.”
Source: Balancingact-Africa
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