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SMALL CELLS SHOW GREATPOTENTIALIN URBAN HOTSPOTS

The Small Cell Forum used the International CTIA WIRELESS

2012show in New Orleans to unveil its latest whitepaper

outlining the opportunities and challenges facing public

access 3G small cell deployments. The paper highlights the

impact that the technology could have in urban hotspots

using conservative small cell models.

PUBLIC ACCESS SMALL CELLSCAN OFFLOAD MORE SUBSCRIBERS

It claims that these cells could offload the majority of subscrib-

ers in many areas, thereby drastically reducing network

load and improving the user experience. According to the

body, just one public access small cell per macrocell can

equate to 21% of users being offloaded; this rises to 56%

with four small cells and 75% with 10 small cells.

Simon Saunders, chairman of the Small Cell Forum, explains:

The next major stage in small cell deployments is going to

be in public spaces. The entire operator community now

appreciates that small cells are the key to long term mobile

network capacity increases, as well as providing a means

of economically delivering coverage in rural blackspots.

Their impact will be especially dramatic in dense urban

hotspots where small cells could quickly be carrying more

users and data capacity than the local macro network.

DEPLOYMENT CHALLENGESTO CONSIDER BEFORE MIGRATING

However, the report also warns that a number of deploy-

ment considerations need to be taken into account before

adopting small cell solutions. These include:

Choosing between open access or hybrid small cells

solutions: The forum points out that by choosing hybrid

access operators will be able to provide a gold-class

service to certain subscribers or to organisations, such

as police or first responders, who may help to cover

the cost of deployment by providing small cell sites andpotentially backhaul as well.

Choosing how to deploy: Operators must weigh

up whether or not to enforce self?deploy or allow

organisations to deploy open access small cells

themselves without assistance. The report concludes

that Self Organising Network technology will be required

in both cases as networks will need to be permanently

aware of their surroundings.

http://www.ctiawireless.com/http://www.ctiawireless.com/http://www.smallcellforum.org/newsstory-report-finds-public-access-small-cells-could-quickly-carry-more-traffic-than-macros-in-urban-hotspotshttp://www.smallcellforum.org/newsstory-report-finds-public-access-small-cells-could-quickly-carry-more-traffic-than-macros-in-urban-hotspotshttp://www.ctiawireless.com/http://www.ctiawireless.com/

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Addressing the full variety of interference challenges:

Operators need to be aware of and overcome

these potential issues, including downlink and uplink

interference or potential impacts from mobile connections

in fast-moving vehicles. Possible mitigation measures

include inter-frequency and intra-frequency handover,

active hand-in and re-calibrating transmit power and

scheduling.

Backhaul options for public access small cells shouldalso be considered: These vary in terms of availability,

suitability, cost and latency. Unfortunately, in rural areas

there tends to be the fewest backhaul options; however

DSL and satellite have already been successfully

employed. Meanwhile, the Forum also used the show to

announce the availabilityof its FemtoZonal Awareness

APIwithin the GSMAs wider OneAPI programme. This

means that mobile developers globally can build small

cell enabled applications using the GSMAs OneAPI.

These can then be tested using the Forums emulator,

also unveiled at the show, which simulates a small cell

environment.

The list of potential new applications is limitless. These

range from simple home reminders when you walk through

the door to enhanced enterprise follow-me call services

and clever personalized e-commerce shopping mall apps,

said Andy Germano, Chairman of the Small Cell Forums

Services Working Group.

The key right now is to lower the barrier to entry for

developers. They need to know that they can target apps

at a global market and simply build and test them without

any small cell kit or knowledge of radio networks this

announcement gives them those guarantees.

According to its whitepaper, public uptake of these small

cell applications will need to address three key challenges:

1. To encourage broad uptake of public small cell apps,

the small cells will need to support subscribers from

other mobile networks.

2. To retain high levels of user loyalty and satisfaction

it will need to support opt-in functionality.

3. Operators need to consider alternative billing

arrangements such as support for gold subscribers,

or to allow shops hosting applications to take on the

data costs rather than the consumer

http://www.smallcellforum.org/newsstory-small-cell-forum-announces-gsma-oneapi-support-and-launches-developer-toolshttp://www.smallcellforum.org/newsstory-small-cell-forum-announces-gsma-oneapi-support-and-launches-developer-toolshttp://www.smallcellforum.org/developers/http://www.smallcellforum.org/developers/http://oneapi.gsma.com/http://oneapi.gsma.com/http://www.smallcellforum.org/developers/http://www.smallcellforum.org/developers/http://www.smallcellforum.org/newsstory-small-cell-forum-announces-gsma-oneapi-support-and-launches-developer-toolshttp://www.smallcellforum.org/newsstory-small-cell-forum-announces-gsma-oneapi-support-and-launches-developer-tools