research strategy report small-cell solutions for …

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



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



CONTENTS CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

INDOOR SMALL-CELL REQUIREMENTS

INDOOR SMALL-CELL CHALLENGES

VENDOR SOLUTIONS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND ANALYSYS MASON

3



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



Figure 2: Cellular data usage, average per person per game, top-five NFL team stadiums,

2015

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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



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

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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


© 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.



CONTENTS CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

INDOOR SMALL-CELL REQUIREMENTS

INDOOR SMALL-CELL CHALLENGES

VENDOR SOLUTIONS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND ANALYSYS MASON

22



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.



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