Real Wireless blog

Real Wireless visit Critical Communications World 2013 in Paris

Posted on by
Reply

Real Wireless was in attendance at the 15th annual Critical Communications World conference on its opening day in Paris yesterday. This is the first time Real Wireless has attended this event which attracts over 120 exhibitors from across the world showcasing the latest critical communications products, networks and services.

The show was hosted at the Parc Exposition in Villepinte Paris Nord and runs over three days this week. Each day there is a theme relating to critical communications and Wednesday saw Critical Communications for Transport Users. This featured talks from vendors and integrators discussing the latest applications and case studies for use in the worlds transport systems. In addition, the show featured TETRA World Congress in which members in this community discuss different topics such as in-building public safety coverage, future of critical communications and personal security communications.

Exhibitors were differentiating themselves with highly interactive applications from control room dispatcher suites through to fully integrated TETRA networks which incorporated the VoIP, location based services and new data services. Also on show is a lot of hardware including antennas, handsets, tablet-like data terminals and cars packed with critical communications features.

LTE featured prominently at the event too with some vendors introducing LTE into their critical communications suite of products with some vendors supporting 700 MHz band and others, mainly European vendors, supporting the 400 MHz currently. Discussions with other delegates and visitors suggested that LTE still needs to find a place in global critical communications due to the disparity of spectrum availability within different global regions, with Europe high on the agenda. However, this has not deterred vendors from utilising the technology itself either in a region that can support a suitable frequency band or in the case of one large vendor in very remote areas where no frequency assignments are made which was deployed for M2M services.

The event show cased a lot of innovation with smaller players demonstrating some very interesting solutions and not just in private mobile and TETRA bands but making use of public cellular and Wi-Fi. This indicates a recognition that critical communications, or services that can support critical communications can find many different methods of delivering what is needed to end users. Overall the critical communications industry continuously strives to enhance the end user experience and address the growing demands of end users across all sectors from emergency response to transport and utilities.

Real Wireless will continue to play its role in supporting the critical communications sector by way of building relationships across the ecosystem and identifying the opportunities that will help the industry grow and move forward within a highly competitive and innovative sector.

The hidden secrets of the UK’s 4G Auction

Posted on by
Reply

The UK’s 4G auction was completed in February and Ofcom published detailed information on the bids made in the auction soon after. I thought it would be interesting to sift through this information in order to bring out the story of what happened in the auction and see if there were any indications of the mobile operators’ wider strategy.

So I put my deerstalker on and went through the data looking for clues. I was lucky with the auction design which let operators switch between a number of different types of spectrum ‘lot’. I’ll explain below how each time an operator jumped between different lot types, they left vital clues behind to unravel the secrets of the auction. However, this is still a work of deduction (though not detective fiction I hasten to add) and although the conclusions might not stand up in a court of law, I hope they make interesting reading.

A brief description of the auction design (skip if you’re already familiar)

Ofcom issued hundreds of pages of documentation about the auction, but I thought it would be useful to condense it into a few points. Ofcom auctioned two basic types of spectrum:

  • low frequency spectrum in the 800MHz band, better for penetrating walls and providing good quality reception inside buildings (important because a lot of mobile broadband use takes place in the home or office) but a substantially lower amount of spectrum – 2x30MHz – on offer.
  • higher frequency spectrum in the 800MHz band, less good at providing good quality reception inside buildings, but the larger amounts on offer – 2x70MHz  and 1x50MHz – means faster download speeds can be provided than with 800MHz.

The 800MHz band was split into two categories. One category had a coverage obligation – to cover 98% of the population by the end of 2017. The other category was free of any coverage obligation. The 2.6GHz band was split into 4 categories including paired spectrum and unpaired spectrum.

In the auction, participants bid for combinations of spectrum “lots” in the different categories and specified how much in each they wanted. Most of the bidders had caps on how much they could buy in total and in specific bands. This was done to ensure that market would be competitive after the auction.

Bidders could switch between lots of different types, at a fixed rate that stayed the same during the auction.  For example, the one 800MHz lot with the coverage obligation had twice as much spectrum (2x10MHz) as the four 800MHz lots without the obligation (2x5MHz each) and bidders were able to switch from the former to the latter at a rate of 2:1.

At the beginning of the auction, bidders specified how much spectrum they would initially bid on at the reserve price, and this set their eligibility – how much spectrum they could bid on in the next round. Bidders could reduce the amount of spectrum they bid for as the auction progressed (thus reducing their eligibility as the auction progressed). However, bidders were not allowed to increase they amount of spectrum bid on, i.e. bid more than their eligibility.

There were a number of phases to the auction and I focus on the primary bid rounds and the supplementary bids round, which are the most important for determining the winners and giving clues as to their wider strategies.

In the primary rounds, prices increased round by round (and demand fell in response) until the total demand for the spectrum equalled the amount available – there were 52 primary rounds. The supplementary bids round is a single round that follows the primary bid rounds. It gives bidders greater flexibility to express how much they are willing to pay for spectrum, consistent with how they bid in the primary bid rounds.

The overall progression of prices and demand in the auction

Before looking into the detail, I’ve put together some charts to give an overview of how the bidding ran in the primary rounds. The first chart shows how the prices changed round by round for 800MHz and 2.6GHz and the second chart shows the total number of lots demanded in each category.

Evolution of lot prices in the primary rounds

Evolution of total demand for lots in selected classes in the primary rounds

 

The competition for 800MHz spectrum

In round 16, Everything Everywhere, the UK’s largest operator, becomes the first operator to reduce its demand for the more valuable and strategically significant 800MHz. It then stops bidding entirely on 800MHz spectrum in round 24.

At this stage in the auction EE risks missing out on 800MHz spectrum if the price were to keep rising substantially. However it may be a smart move if it brings the bidding on 800MHz to an end more quickly (and more significantly at a lower price). EE will be able to modify how much it bids in the supplementary bids round, though its room for manoeuvre will be limited. . Moreover, EE has a substantial amount of 1800MHz spectrum, which it is already using to offer 4G services, and it may see this as a good back up if 800MHz becomes too expensive.

H3G is the second major operator to drop out of bidding for 800MHz in round 30. H3G knows it is very likely to win at least one block of 800MHz spectrum, because of Ofcom’s competition rules which limit the amount of 800MHz spectrum that O2 and Vodafone could win to 2x10MHz and because it is better placed than EE which dropped out of the bidding for 800MHz earlier.

The final burst of activity in the two 800MHz categories determines which out of O2 and Vodafone is likely to get the spectrum with the coverage obligation.

Interestingly, before the auction started, O2 argued that the price per MHz in the two 800MHz categories should be the same, whereas Vodafone argued that there should be a discount on the price of the lot with the coverage obligation. If the value of 800MHz spectrum were similar for Vodafone and O2 we should expect O2 to be willing to pay more for the lot with the coverage obligation than Vodafone.

As I said before, bidders could switch between 800MHz lots with and without the coverage obligation at a rate of 2:1. Now, if the extra cost due to the coverage obligation were minimal (e.g. if an operator would have met the coverage targets with or without the obligation) the coverage obligation would be worth twice as much as the lot without – reflecting difference in spectrum between the two lots.

However, the ratio of the starting (reserve) prices is significantly lower at 1.11 because Ofcom was cautious about the cost of the coverage obligation when setting the starting point.

So, excess demand is much greater for the coverage obligation lot early on in the primary rounds because it is relatively cheap compared to the other 800MHz lot. This causes the relative price of the coverage obligation lot to rise and it reaches 2 in round 40. At this point, Vodafone switches to the lot without the obligation and supply equals demand in both 800MHz categories as a result.

The case of the 2.6GHz lots

The bidding on 2.6GHz spectrum is seemingly straightforward, but there’s a twist at the end which any writer of detective fiction would be proud of (OK perhaps I’m exaggerating a little here). Up to round 27, the available 2.6GHz spectrum is more than three times oversubscribed and there is little change in the bids of the major operators. Then, Vodafone cuts its bid for paired 2.6GHz spectrum in half to 2x20MHz, and marginally increases its bid for unpaired spectrum (to 45MHz).

H3G makes a similar move to Vodafone, in round 30, reducing its bid on paired 2.6GHz spectrum by more than half to 2x20MHz and increasing its bid for unpaired spectrum marginally. H3G also drops out of the bidding for 800MHz at this point, suggesting that prices could be nearing its underlying values or that H3G may be close to a budget limit –H3G had bid just under £1.5 billion, though it bid nearly £1.7 billion in the supplementary bids round.

In the next round, 31, it’s O2’s turn to reduce significantly the amount of 2.6GHz spectrum it bid for (both paired and unpaired). This still leaves substantial excess demand for the 2x70MHz of paired 2.6GHz spectrum available – H3G, Niche (BT), O2 and Vodafone are each bidding for 2x20MHz and EE for 2x40MHz.

Similarly there’s also substantial excess demand for the 45MHz of unpaired 2.6GHz spectrum – H3G, Hong Kong Telekom, Niche (BT) and Vodafone each bidding for 45MHz and O2 for 15MHz.

Things move steadily on until EE makes a dramatic grab for the unpaired 2.6GHz spectrum (and stops bidding on the paired spectrum) in round 38. EE is the only one left bidding for the unpaired 2.6GHz spectrum at the end of the primary bid rounds and Vodafone, O2 and Niche are the only bidders remaining for the paired 2.6GHz spectrum.

But, just one more thing, as Columbo might say. I’ve forgotten the supplementary bids stage. The final twist is that the positions at the end of the primary bid rounds are overturned in the supplementary bids round. So the final result is that Niche and Vodafone win the unpaired 2.6GHz spectrum instead of EE, while Vodafone Niche and EE win the paired 2.6GHz spectrum.

Conclusions

Ofcom should be satisfied with how the auction ran. Bidders did respond as economic theory predicts to changes in the relative prices of the different lots in the auction and it showed the importance of having a supplementary round to extract more information about what bidders were willing to pay. There is no clear evidence to suggest that bidders were trying to ‘game’ the auction, i.e. put in spurious bids to trick their competitors (although there are some bids that are more difficult to explain in the two minor categories I haven’t talked about).

The competition proposals did probably affect behaviour in the bidding for 800MHz, although there was still a reasonable amount of bidding activity and the overall amount of money raised, when corrected for population, was similar to other European 800MHz auctions.

“Small Cells – Big Impact” – University of Oxford Forum Discussion

Posted on by
Reply

Our Director of Technology, Simon Saunders, joined a University of Oxford Forum discussion to respond to some frequently – and not so frequently – asked questions regarding small cells.

The transcript follows for your interest (this has been gently edited to align the threads of the discussion. The original is at http://linkd.in/11S10VW)

 ForumOxford Free Friday chat – 10 May – Dr Simon Saunders joins us to discuss ‘Small Cells – Big Impact’ at 15:00 (UK) – 16:00 (CEST)

Join our eighth Free Friday chat group, featuring Dr Simon Saunders, Director – Technology, Real Wireless (http://www.realwireless.biz/).

Topic for discussion on Friday 10 May 2013 – ‘Small Cells – Big Impact’.

Subjects for this week:

- What are small cells?
– Classification of small cells (pico, metro etc)
– Why do mobile networks need small cells?
– Implications for small cells and LTE
– What are the technical innovations which have allowed small cells to emerge now?
– What is the state of the market?
– Prospects and challenges for the future?
– What does Cisco’s acquisition of Ubiquisys tell us about the state of the small cell market?
– What about inter-vendor interoperability?
– Small cells versus Wi-Fi?
– Backhaul?

About Dr Simon Saunders:

Simon is an independent specialist in the technology of wireless communications, with a technical and commercial background derived from senior appointments in both industry (including Philips and Motorola) and academia (University of Surrey). As co-founder of Real Wireless, he is responsible for overall technical capability and direction.

He is an author of over 150 articles, books and book chapters. He has acted as a consultant to companies including BAA, BBC, O2, Ofcom, BT, ntl, Mitsubishi and British Land and was CTO of Red-M and CEO of Cellular Design Services Ltd.

Simon speaks and chairs a wide range of international conferences and training courses and has invented over 15 patented wireless technologies. Particular expertise includes in-building wireless systems, radiowave propagation prediction, smart antenna design and mobile system analysis.

He has served on technical advisory boards of several companies, was Visiting Professor to the University of Surrey, member of the industrial advisory board at University College London and was founding chairman of Small Cell Forum (formerly Femto Forum), which he chaired from 2007-12.

He is currently a member of the Ofcom Spectrum Advisory Board and advisor to Quortus and Adjunct Professor at Trinity College Dublin.

It is our pleasure to have Simon with us on 10 May 2013.

Follow us on Twitter @ForumOxford – https://twitter.com/ForumOxford

Follow Real Wireless on Twitter @real_wireless – https://twitter.com/real_wireless

realwireless.biz realwireless.biz

 

Peter Holland • Ok – Good afternoon/evening or morning (as appropriate for your time zone) to everyone from the University of Oxford!

Welcome to ForumOxford’s FreeFriday chat on 10 May.

To those who are following the discussion, please feel free to post any questions during the discussion (refresh your screen regularly to see the latest comments)

Let’s begin. Ajit and Simon – over to you……

Ajit Jaokar • hi simon great to see you .. sorry linkedin was putting comments for review .. welcome!

Ajit Jaokar • ok lets start – first qs – Can you explain the basic ideas and motivation behind small cells

Simon Saunders • Thanks Ajit – great to be with you on one of my favourite wireless topics

Simon Saunders • For sure…small cells are something of a chameleon technology – all things to all people…

 

 

Simon Saunders • For some they are the best way to address a future ‘capacity crunch’ to meet the rising tide of mobile demand

Simon Saunders • …for others they are the best way to get great coverage to places macrocells cannot [economically] reach

Simon Saunders • For others still they are a tool for competition, to deliver enhanced quality of experience and a wider range of personalised services to their customers compared with their peers

Simon Saunders • There’s often confusion about what we do mean by small cells however. The short answer is – every base station in a mobile network which is not a macrocell.

Simon Saunders • Certainly including femtocells, picocells, and microcells in both their urban (metrocell) and rural (“meadowcell”?!) guises.

Ajit Jaokar • “every base station in a mobile network which is not a macrocell.” thats a good definition .. :)

Ajit Jaokar • so whats the difference between femtocells, picocells, microcells and metrocells? are these being used interchangably?

Simon Saunders • The terms aren’t interchangeable, but likewise they don’t have hard boundaries. Femtocells = typically home and small office/SoHo. Picocells = Enterprise, retal etc (mainly indoors), Metrocells = busy cities, outdoors, “Meadowcells” = rural outdoor application of metrocells.

Ajit Jaokar • medowcells! first I heard that!

Simon Saunders • And for some they also include access points in unlicenced/licence exempt spectrum – i.e. mainly Wi-Fi. For other still they include every tech which puts the antennas close to the users, i.e. Distributed Antennas Systems and Cloud/Centralised-Ran solutions. But not everyone agrees with that!

Ajit Jaokar • Re “Distributed Antennas Systems and Cloud/Centralised-Ran solutions. But not everyone agrees with that!” – why not? ie where is the disagreement in the industry wrt it?

Simon Saunders • The disagreement on DAS and C-RAN is really about where each solution fits best, and on where the processing intelligence sits.

Simon Saunders • The original concept of small cells is to make use of cheap silicon processing at the edge, and keep the high-rate processing off the backhaul.

Simon Saunders • C-RAN allows the same radio benefits – antennas close to users – but centralises the processing. This allows each antenna unit to be closely coordinated with all the others, enabling exciting processing opportunities such as CoMP, but puts a big load on the backhaul.

Ajit Jaokar • @simon – thanks re c-ran concept

Simon Saunders • A word on DAS: a great workhorse, and currently the solution of choice for the biggest public venues and the largest enterprises.

Ajit Jaokar • thanks Simon. yes thats a good distinction. so next question – “What does Cisco’s acquisition of Ubiquisys tell us about the state of the small cell market?”

Simon Saunders • Cisco’s acquisition of Ubiquisys is a great validation of several things:
– the value of small cells
– the opportunity for small cells in the Enterprise
– the role of the UK in wireless innovation and tech innovation generally.
Ubi were definitely one of the key pioneers in the field – but many others deserve honourable mention too!

Ajit Jaokar • so whats the benefit ffor cisco? enterprise?

Simon Saunders • I look forward to the day when enterprise IT system integrators are as skilled at designing and implementing 3G/4G systems as they are today at implementing enterprise LAN/Wi-Fi: and are as accepted at that jon by mobile operators as their current SIs in the DAS space.

Ajit Jaokar • ok next qs – do small cells and wifi complement each other? (or whats your view)

Simon Saunders • Great question – and the industry has changed on this point (small cells and Wi-Fi) over time.
2005-7: Some think femtocells could be the mobile competitive response to Wi-Fi…

Simon Saunders • 2007-2009: Femtocells and Wi-Fi complement each other: different characteristics, different devices, different places…
2010 – today: If we implement both small cells and Wi-Fi in a coordinated fashion it’s better for operators and consumers alike. And we need to use all the spectrum we can get!

Ajit Jaokar • @simon – thanks(re wifi) yes we need all spectrum

Dr John Kelliher IKC • Surely the concept of edge is somewhat of a misnomer – an artificial concept that should not be introduced or exist in cellular ? Well, why should it ?

Ajit Jaokar • we will take @John’s qs now re concept of edge?

Simon Saunders • @John:
The question of where is “the edge” is a good one. I was using it earlier to mean simply “close to the user”. But there are many options for how to distribute processing across a network and these options suit different use cases. C-RAN and femtocells represent two extremes of those options, but there are many useful cases in between which deserve more attention.

Ajit Jaokar • @thanks simon (re edge insights)

Ajit Jaokar • coming back to Operators .. other than spectrum case.. Why do mobile networks need small cells?

Simon Saunders • Mobile operators need small cells because:
– You can’t multiply today’s macrocells by x10
– Spectrum efficiency is limited
– Space (and money) for antennas on macros and in devices is limited
– User demand higher rates, reliably – and even without considering capacity, macrocell geometries struggle with that
…

Simon Saunders • …and operators need small cells to remain different. One day operators will advertise that they provide the best service because they have the most small cells. That may seem implausible today, but watch this space!

Ajit Jaokar • @simon – very insightful :) ” One day operators will advertise that they provide the best service because they have the most small cells. That may seem implausible today, but watch this space!”

Dr John Kelliher IKC • @Simon – Cisco and Juniper have a somewhat traditional view of Internetwork edge, which I thought you may be referring to. However processing should, I would be consider be a distributed function, granted that the air-interface processing is high. Operators usually consider use cases as multifaceted { end user – designer/implementer – Architectural }, so ordinarily I would consider this to be more a design consideration than a use case.

 

Simon Saunders • @John: I think the best location of the processing is indeed a design consideration, but the optimum location is a function of the use case.

Simon Saunders • .. so the best processing location for a remote rural village is entirely different to that for a national football stadium!

Ajit Jaokar • @simon – What about inter-vendor interoperability?

 

Simon Saunders • Interoperability = big topic.
Starting point: femtocells needed standards to get off the ground. And got them very early in the lifecycle I’m proud to say,

 

Simon Saunders • But interop is much more than standards. We organised plugfests to encourage and demo actual interop and to iron out standards ‘bugs’. But even then you have to advance step by step towards meaningful functionality. Today operators can genuinely buy femtocells from different vendors and have them work with a third vendor’s gateway, though there is still more pain than I’d like in that process. Nevetheless for femtocells it’s all trending in the ‘right’ direction.

Ajit Jaokar • :) and the femto forum had a role to play :)

Ajit Jaokar • @simon yes agree tending in right direction ..

Simon Saunders • Metrocells are in a different state. They need very tight integration with the surrounding macro network. And there are sharp compromises at this stage between interop and performance. And tough choices for operators who want one “neck to choke”!

Simon Saunders • And let me be clear: open interop is not only good for operators, but also for vendors who want to address a wide market, and also for consumers who want products which work well. But it has to be done without sacrificing innovation or performance unduly,

Ajit Jaokar • @simon – thanks for insights on macro cells. agree re innovation

Ajit Jaokar • from a custromer standpoint femtocells have a cost?

Simon Saunders • For consumers, femtocells bring benefits which I believe outweigh costs. If you are genuiniely needy, most operators today will let you have a femtocell as part of the package (in exchange for a little loyalty!).

Simon Saunders • Another way of looking at it: given femtocells can (in the right circumstances) reduce overall costs of delivering a service for the operator, and eventually the customers pay for every cost in the network, reduced cost for the operator translates to reduced cost for the customer (assumes a competitive market!)

Ajit Jaokar • yes agree. win-win for all

Ajit Jaokar • ok we are in last 15 mins .. @simon anything imp we have not covered you think?

Simon Saunders • A tangential topic: for those considering research in this area, we need:
– More analysis of the lifetime environmental & energy impact of small cells
– Radio techniques for hyperdense networks

Simon Saunders • Would also like to give due acknowledgement to the >145 organisations (operators and vendors) in Small Cell (Fermto) Forum who made all this happen. When we started it was heresy – now 98% of operators want small cells in their networks. Prevailing orthodoxy!

Simon Saunders • But (maybe finally) there are unanswered questions: exactly how many small cells are needed, and exactly where they should go, and exactly how they are managed – are all open questions. We need to rewrite the mobile network planning rulebook!

Ajit Jaokar • @simon – yes indeed – great work by femto forum and great to have you here for that reason

Simon Saunders • Thanks @Ajit and all online – great to chat. Go and ask your mobile operator for a femtocell!

Ajit Jaokar • indeed! thats a good point to conclude!

Peter Holland • Thank you to Ajit and Simon for a great discussion and also thank you to all those of you who followed and contributed to the conversation.

It’s goodbye from ForumOxford at the University of Oxford for now.

UK 4G Spectrum Auction Results – Ofcom points the way to 5G

Posted on by
Reply

Ofcom today announced the results of the UK 4G spectrum auction. The winning bidders and the spectrum they won in the 800 MHz and 2.6 GHz bands are summarised below.

The auction sets the landscape for the deployment of UK 4G networks, taken along with their existing holdings of 900, 1800 and 2100 MHz spectrum, all of which Ofcom proposes to liberalise (i.e. make technology-neutral).

The specific frequencies to be held by each of the winners is not yet fixed and a subsequent ‘assignment stage’ will determine the final outcomes.

That isn’t the end of the story and Ofcom is already planning for further spectrum releases to support “5G” services, citing Real Wireless’ work on the capacity needed to support growth of 80x today’s demand by 2030.

Full details on the Ofcom website.

Real Wireless Appointed to Enhance Cricketing Experience via Wireless

Posted on by
Reply

The England and Wales Cricket Board has appointed Real Wireless, working with partners Two Circles  to  review opportunities to enhance wireless services to mobile and fixed devices inside its cricket grounds. In an initial review earlier in the year we identified a wide range of opportunities for wireless services to provide additional data of interest to cricket spectators, to deliver a more informative and entertaining experience and to provide opportunities for interaction with the game in progress. These services can also support more efficient operations and ensure a trouble-free experience for all match personnel.

 In the new project we will engage with a wide range of wireless operators and conduct surveys at major cricket grounds to:

  • Gather ideas for wireless-enhanced applications of benefit and interest to cricket fans and support and media personnel
  • Audit and survey existing infrastructure and service from surrounding networks
  • Set clear requirements for wireless services, differentiated according to size of ground and timescale for deployment
  • Explore suitable engagement models to support technologies including Wi-Fi, 3G and 4G
  • Determine the form and scale of wireless infrastructure which will best deliver near-term benefits while operating within a strategic framework which is clear and consistent for the longer term future

 These steps will enable us to create a clear plan for rapid deployment of initial solutions and a longer-term roadmap for on-going service and infrastructure enhancements. We are now inviting expressions of interest to contribute to this process at: ecb@realwireless.biz

Latest Small Cell Forum market status report published for Q4 2012

Posted on by
4

Just ahead of the Small Cell Forum’s meeting in Dallas last week, Informa Telecoms and Media has published their latest small cell market status update for the fourth quarter of 2012.  This highlights the dramatic growth in shipments of small cells with Informa estimating that between October and November 2012 that the number of small cells deployed surpassed macrocells at 6 million small cells versus 5.9 million macrocells.  It is also increasingly hard to find an operator without some belief in the future small cells with 97.5% of mobile operator respondents to Informa’s survey saying that they believe that small cells are key for the future of mobile networks.

The high growth in the number of small cells deployed appears to due to two factors:

  • A steady flow of small cell launches by operators in 2012 – according to the report there were 10 new small cell services launched by operators in 2012 bringing the total of small cell commercial deployments to 46 across 25 countries worldwide.  Interestingly since this summer the UK has become one of only two countries where all operators have small cell offerings.
  • Early adopter operators of small cells seeing the number of small cell sites in their networks reach significant levels – the report highlights Sprints announcement that their network reached 1 million femtocells in October 2012, having been the first to launch femtocells commercially in September 2007, and estimates that the AT&T network will have similar levels of femtocells.  Softbank and Vodafone UK deployments are also reported at above 100,000 femtocells.

The report provides a very interesting case study from Vodafone Greece which is said to be the first hard launch of small-cell zone services based on location.  The case study describes a public-area small cell service which has been launched by Vodafone Greece recently in partnership with fixed line provider Hellas Online (HOL) and two of Greece’s fast food and café groups, Goody’s fast food restaurants and Flocafe.  The service makes use of both WiFi and 3G access points to offer free data connections to its customers when in 200 of its partners’ premises.  The service named “Free 3G Hotspot” is triggered once a subscriber is handed over from a macrocell to a small cell in one of the venues and effectively white lists all traffic from the subscriber whilst they are using the small cell so that their data usage in the registered venues appears free of charge.  This is an interesting application of small cells which may lead to other revenue avenues for operators such as targeted advertising, being able to provide user statistics  to venue partners and being able to provide customised mobile services in venues that are attractive to venue partners (such as log in screens with special discounts, store maps etc.). 

This has similarities to O2’s decision in the UK to partner with a series of venues to provide free indoor wireless broadband in certain locations (see http://www.cambridgewireless.co.uk/Presentation/Mobile.Broadband_Gavin.Franks_10.10.12.pdf). However, key differences appear to be:

  • The O2 offering is purely WiFi based and in unlicenced spectrum.
  • The O2 offering is open to any mobile users – not just O2 subscribers.  O2 felt this was crucial for gaining interest and partnership with venues.
  • The O2 offering doesn’t charge the subscriber for this service in any way whereas the Vodafone Greece “Free 3G Hotspot” appears to assume that the user has an existing contract even if the traffic used in the venues does not come out of the user’s monthly data allowance.

Finally the Informa report highlights a growing interest amongst operators in public access and metrocell deployments with AT&T announcing plans to deploy 40,000 LTE public area small cells to cover dense urban areas and SK Telecom’s launch of public access LTE services in June 2012.  The report also mentions recent wins by Virgin Media in the UK to deploy WiFi metrocells in cities, that will likely become cellular in future, and a growing body of companies announcing plans for Small Cells as a Service (ScaaS) offerings which would package and make wireless ready batches of street furniture sites to operators for small cell deployments in urban areas.  Multimode access points are highlighted as a key technology enabler for this market as operators in the short term want to address capacity bottlenecks on 3G networks but also want to have a migration path towards LTE and an offload option via WiFi where available.  Traffic balancing across these radio access technologies is seen as an important area to make multimode access points reach their full potential.  Vendors are already responding with announcements of multimode small cell products from both NTT DoCoMo and Ubiquisys recently.

The full Informa report can be obtained from the Small Cell Forum’s website at:

http://www.smallcellforum.org/resources-white-papers

Simon Saunders appointed as independent advisor to edge-based mobile core company Quortus

Posted on by
Reply

 

Our director of technology, Simon Saunders, has been appointed as an independent advisor to UK-based technology company Quortus.

Quortus provides software solutions for mobile cores across 2G, 3G and 4G. Distinctively, their solutions are designed to run at the edge of the network. For example, it is possible to run an entire mobile core on a 3G femtocell: a complete 3G network in a box the size of a paperback book. This opens up a wide range of applications for mobile networks in remote areas and in special locations such as enterprises. Their approach represents a highly logical extension of  the small cell concept from pushing radio processing to the edge to including the entire core functionality.

Simon joins the technical advisory board of Quortus to assist with technical and strategic issues. The appointment builds on Simon’s previous activities as founding chairman of the Small Cell Forum (formerly Femto Forum).

Quortus’ website and press release provide further details.

Ofcom unveils plans to avoid mobile ‘capacity crunch’ – draws on Real Wireless analysis

Posted on by
Reply

Ofcom has announced its plans for use of the 600 MHz spectrum and 700 MHz spectrum. These follow its previous strategic considerations of this band, which was supported by our extensive study on mobile capacity issues. In particular Ofcom has examined the needs for extra capacity under a medium demand growth scenario which we created  and is illustrated below. The extra spectrum capacity is beneficial even given techniques such as LTE-Advanced, small cells and offload to Wi-Fi and femtocells.

In summary, the Statement indicates that:

  • The 700 MHz band may be needed to meet future mobile capacity demand. Although it will not be available until around 2018, there is strong momentum behind international harmonisation of this band for LTE.
  • The 600 MHz band may be needed to preserve digital TV capacity. This band was previously cleared as a result of the switchover from analogue to digital TV, but there is no harmonisation of this band for mobile applications. 
  • However in the interim the 600 MHz band may be available for white space devcie applications. We have supported Ofcom’s work on this by conducting a short audit of the technical analysis conducted by the  BBC to determine the available white space bandwidth. We also previously issued a comprehensive report on the prospects and challenges for white space devices.
For further details see:

Ofcom finalises 4G auction rules

Posted on by
Reply

Ofcom today published its final rules for the 4G spectrum auction in the UK. Key points:

  • The combined total of reserve prices is £1.3 billion
  • Provisional application date is 11th December
  • Bidding begins in January
  • The outcome depends on the bidding process, but bidders should know what they have won and its cost in February/March
  • Ofcom expects resulting services to be launched in May/June
  • Press release
  • Full statement

4G’s here … the last word in mobile network capacity?

Posted on by
Reply

The UK’s first 4G service has just gone live with others set to follow next spring, but some people are asking whether anyone really needs faster 4G speeds yet.

In addition, the amount of spectrum that can be used for mobile services is more than doubling with the 4G spectrum auctions that have or will soon take place in Europe. So the future’s bright … our mobile and wireless networks should have the capacity to meet the future demands of consumers and businesses for using our smart phones and wireless broadband services?

However, the amount of data we consume through our mobile devices has been growing frenetically and many expect that growth to continue, particularly as smart phones and tablets become more widespread.

The chart below shows a series of market forecasts that vary widely but all show rapid growth – the Mid forecast shows roughly a 100 times increase in demand for mobile data over the next 10 years. NOTE – it’s plotted on a logarithmic scale which gives a compressed view of how fast demand for data is predicted to increase. Going up one notch on the vertical axis represents an ten-fold increase in demand (not a doubling). So is there perhaps a question to answer despite the imminent arrival of 4G and so much new spectrum. And what could we do if there were a risk of a mobile network capacity crunch in the future?

 

Source: Real Wireless

Does or can government help industry meet soaring demand?

One reason to consider this now is because, if we do need to bring more spectrum on stream in the future, the process is cumbersome to say the least – potentially years of international negotiations and heaps of technical work. In order to get more spectrum in 10 years’ time, we might need to set the wheels in motion quite soon.

The key things to consider are:

  • how fast demand for mobile data may grow in the future, taking into account that some of the demand might be carried over Wi-Fi or indoor small cells (i.e. a mini femtocell or picocell base station inside a home or office)
  • what spectrum may be available for mobile in the future – it also makes a difference whether other countries are considering doing the same thing
  • potential future developments in technologies which could improve mobile network capacity.

My associates, Real Wireless, experts in mobile technologies mapped out the potential future technology enhancements that could increase the capacity of mobile networks in a study for Ofcom. Generally we can identify quite a few techniques now which could be introduced over the next 10 years (despite the uncertainty inherent in technology forecasts):

  • deploying more infrastructure – either outdoor small cells (micro / picocells) or full scale base stations (macrocells)
  • improvements to 4G technologies e.g. LTE Advanced should enable mobile networks to use spectrum more efficiently and flexibly and increase the top speeds mobile networks can deliver
  • techniques to use mobile frequencies more efficiently – e.g. increased sectorisation and use of multiple antenna technologies (MIMO)
  • distributed processing and sharing of traffic loads across multiple cell-sites – e.g. Coordinated multi-point and Cloud RAN.

Real Wireless worked out a number of plausible combinations of these techniques and looked at how much additional spectrum Ofcom is currently predicted to make available for mobile use over the next 20 years – up to 350MHz (which compares well to the 200MHz of 4G spectrum currently being released in Europe). This enabled them to make a good forecast (using information on real geographic areas) of how mobile network capacity is likely to increase in the future.

This allowed mobile data demand to be matched against mobile network capacity (once the fluctuations of mobile data demand during the day were taken into account to get a measure of the peak demand).

Spectrum currently earmarked for mobile could be exhausted in just over a decade

The result is that that there may well be a network capacity crunch, in as little as 10 to 12 years’ time in some areas, even given the likely technological improvements and increased spectrum we currently expect to come on stream.

By capacity crunch we mean that the mobile operators will have exhausted all the techniques for increasing capacity we can currently forecast, and the only way to increase capacity would be a significant expansion in base station sites. This would not only be costly, but physical and planning limitation could mean that a major expansion was unlikely to be feasible, particularly in urban areas.

The result was derived by evaluating the costs of the alternatives for increasing mobile network capacity, i.e. using more of the spectrum available for mobile vs.  new technologies vs. deploying more base stations. The most cost effective way to increase capacity to meet demand was calculated on a rolling 2-3 year basis. The result is shown in the graph below.

 

Source: Real Wireless

What could be done to provide more capacity?

The option that is most in the control of governments and regulators is to try to allocate more spectrum for mobile. It’s likely that any suitable candidates are already being used for something else, hence there would be a cost to society in switching over such spectrum to mobile.

The 700MHz band is one possibility. Although currently used for terrestrial TV broadcasting, moves are afoot in Europe and in other regions to consider possible future mobile use. The 700MHz band is attractive because it may gain broad international support. This would make it more likely that leading handsets would work on it. Also, its physical characteristics mean that it can provide more reliable coverage, and hence capacity, compared to the majority of existing mobile spectrum.

700MHz could alleviate the potential capacity crunch

Our research shows that mobile operators could save substantial sums of money by deploying 700MHz spectrum at the key point in the future, instead of deploying more base stations. Consumers should benefit as well through lower prices and more consistent service quality.

However the timing of when 700MHz is available is important, particularly the closer we are to the worst case scenario of when mobile broadband demand is high and the government cannot release as much spectrum for mobile as it currently expects over the next 10 years.

If 700MHz spectrum were available in 2020, the benefits for mobile operators (and consumers) would be much greater than if it were only available when current 700MHz licences expire in 2026.

If 700MHz is not available until 2026, mobile operators would have to start deploying new base station sites when the capacity crunch hit in 2022 to 2024. Deploying new sites would lock the operators into a certain course of action (to exploit the new sites to the full). The potential cost savings from using 700MHz would be much lower than if 700MHz had been available before the new sites were deployed. In other words, there is a risk that the industry could get locked into the wrong technology path.

Conclusions

Despite the exciting changes that 4G is likely to make to our smartphone and tablet experiences, regulators and mobile operators have to keep an eye on the future needs of the mobile networks. Our technological inventiveness may not be enough to avoid a capacity crunch 10 years down the line, hence the mobile sector is likely to need even more spectrum, preferably harmonised on a European or wider basis.

The 700MHz spectrum is potentially a good prospect, but the cost savings it could bring need to be offset against the costs of clearing out the existing broadcasting users.

 

Full details of the work, including an illustrative video, download of the full report and a link to Ofcom’s use of analysis in their UHF strategy consultation are available at:

http://www.realwireless.biz/mobile-capacity-in-the-uk-major-study-published/