Strand Mounted public access femtocell, NaN & PicoChip

Strand mounted femtocell ecosystem will be one of the biggest deployment of femtocell based coverage blanket that will deliver 4G signal ubiquitously. This is neither a ‘new’ concept nor an innovative solution, as it has been used by Muni wireless providers for blanket Wi-Fi coverage in metro areas. These femtocells will share the space and the power with multiple other uses – surveillance, power grid monitoring, traffic cameras, etc. These femtocells will have different names – Local Area BTS, Metro-Femto etc and will operate with different technologies – UMTS, LTE and WiMAX and will take design and deployment to the next level. A regular Monopole or a rooftop has to pass through different stages of search ring, zoning and site acquisition modes, whereas an electric utility company can bypass all this and give access to a telecom provider to support this kind of deployment due to a different class of RF propagation limitations.
This kind of Femtocell will leverage both network power as well as Ethernet backhaul for data either on copper or fiber. It requires a voltage converter with an optional integrated DSL or fiber optic media converter that provides a simple, scalable, and low cost solution to the problem of delivering reliable power and Internet broadband connectivity to field mounted electronic equipment. For outdoor Wireless Access Points, Femtocells, outdoor surveillance cameras, traffic control devices, electronic displays, or any other outdoor equipment needing easily installed reliable power and/or Internet connectivity.

Another concept that is interesting is Broadband over power lines (BPL) which never really took off due to many concerns including reduction of the number of radio frequencies available for ham and short-wave radio operators and that RF transmission over unshielded medium-voltage lines will cause interference with already-assigned frequencies. BPL has not been standardized by IEEE or any other organization. But BPL as a backhaul solution for Femtocells can be considered in rural areas where there is no access to Fiber or DSL providers.
Femtocell deployment can also be clubbed together with Smartgrid deployment which integrates a Wide Area Network (WAN) for distribution and a Neighborhood Area Network (NAN) for metering. NAN as a concept for smart metering has been around for a while, and will be leveraged for coverage by wireless network operators.

Smart RAN for 4G – Compact-BTS, Metro-Femto & ORI

As we race towards 4G there has been a trend in the radio access network (RAN) architecture of simplifying it, making it more compact and flat. The primary motive has been to enable mobile operators to maintain control on their network costs, while they deal with improving coverage and capacity. However, the explosion in data traffic  volumes, due to smart phones like the iPhone, have thrown a spanner in the works for operators to keep tabs on CAPEX/OPEX costs while they try and keep up with incessantly exploding mobile data demand from burgeoning smart devices, applications, and changing user behavior. This calls for a new architectural paradigm that optimizes existing cell site infrastructure, most of which is macro layer enabled, but at the same time introduces new network layers at the micro-, pico- and femtocell level, that can effectively complement the macro layer.

A new type of base station – the compact BTS along with Femto in the outdoor implementation has also entered the market, further reducing footprint and power consumption, while retaining the performance of macro BTSs. Let us explore these concepts and value proposition that we see for 4G deployment –

• Compact BTS
• Metro-Femto
• ORI – Open Radio Equipment Interface

Femtocells – A turning tide!

Femtocells tide finally seems to be turning – Sprint has announced last week that they will be giving away a new Airvana femtocell product that supports EV-DO, to customers based on the need and eligibility.  The initial version of Sprint’s Airave device, which was made by Samsung, was released in the summer of 2008 and supports only CDMA 1x service. Earlier this spring, AT&T Mobility launched a nationwide femtocell offering, the 3G MicroCell, which it developed with Cisco. Verizon Wireless also has a femtocell that supports CDMA 1x service, called the Network Extender. Only the fourth largest carrier T-Mobile doesn’t to have a Femtocell strategy in place, but they have had UMA (Unlicensed Mobile Access) which did not take off as expected because of lack of Handset vendors commitment.