Unlocking the Potential of Outdoor Small Cells

While the pace of outdoor small cell adoption is slower than anticipated, momentum in North America is now gathering pace. ABI Research recently predicted a 43 percent compound annual growth rate for the outdoor small cell backhaul market from now until 2020, demonstrating that operators are waking up to their potential. This is further highlighted by the fact that the analyst firm also reported both Verizon and Sprint forecast meaningful outdoor small cell deployments in 2015.

Outdoor small cell deployments have been aided by the FCC’s vote to make it easier to deploy wireless infrastructure on buildings, cell towers and utility poles. However, planning requirements still present a challenge, and aesthetic concerns from the public also need to be considered. For example, Verizon recently undertook a public consultation on their plans to deploy 400 small cells in San Francisco and minimized street-mounted equipment to meet planning requirements.

Despite these challenges, the fact that small cells can bring the network closer to the user and cost-effectively address targeted areas of demand, means they are well suited to support densification strategies. With monthly smartphone data consumption per user in the U.S. forecast to rise from 1.8GB in Q3 2014 to 14GB in 2020, it’s clear networks must evolve and embrace innovative solutions to remain competitive. Outdoor small cells will no doubt play a vital role.

Evolving business models for small cells

The increased cost sensitivity, and new aesthetic and planning constraints of outdoor small cells has brought into sharp focus the need for a new approach to backhaul. The decision on what small cell backhaul strategy to adopt can depend on a range of factors. Firstly, and before any decisions are made, operators are likely to re-plan and optimize their current macro assets. Spare capacity can often be provisioned to other parts of the network that can increase coverage in areas of high demand. Once complete, small cells can address areas that require a further boost in capacity or coverage.

The choice of backhaul solution is dependent on many factors and will result in operators using a variety of techniques. Fiber can be used where available or financially viable, however the cost and slow deployment means operators may struggle to create a business case.

However, one of the most common approaches is likely to be wireless, utilizing a variety of new solutions now on the market. No longer do operators need to sacrifice quality of service (QoS) to benefit from the cost efficiencies, flexibility and time-to-market benefits that wireless can bring.

By offering high capacity and guaranteed QoS, highly efficient wireless solutions now have the ability to seamlessly integrate with fiber backhaul and deliver identical services as consumers move from one network to the other.

New wireless backhaul technologies

One wireless backhaul technology to emerge in North America over the past 18 months has been licensed point-to-multipoint (PMP). Following the introduction of U.S. frequency variants, increasing spectrum availability and an expanding local ecosystem of suppliers, licensed PMP has been quickly adopted by carriers across multiple states.

One of the strongest use cases for licensed PMP has been in highly dense networks that are under-served by carrier-grade fixed or wireless infrastructure. In these environments, the advantages of licensed PMP versus other wireless technologies, in terms of speed of deployment, ease of installation and cost efficiency, are most marked. HetNets, and in particular small cells, are a logical evolution from that environment and can benefit from the 14.4Gb/s hub site capacity licensed PMP now delivers.

Licensed PMP’s carrier-grade performance, achieved through the use of licensed spectrum, is balanced with significant cost savings. Cost savings derive from the aggregation of backhaul traffic from multiple cell sites to a single licensed PMP hub. By reducing the amount of hub equipment, particularly the antenna count, operators can comply with more stringent site acquisition regulations and realize total cost of ownership savings of up to 54 percent compared to fiber or point-to-point (PTP) solutions.

With spectrum increasingly at a premium as wireless solutions grow in popularity, PMP’s efficiency brings further benefits. PMP’s sector coverage can serve multiple cell sites from a single spectrum channel, compared to one link with PTP. This improves spectral efficiency by 40 percent, with PMP’s multiplexing ensuring there is no degradation of QoS across any of the cell sites.

In addition, the latest licensed PMP small cell backhaul units have a compact, unobtrusive form factor, ensuring they’re better suited to gain public acceptance and meet local planning departments. The underlying maturity of licensed PMP also has the benefit of providing operators with a field-proven technology, which is tried and tested for 3G, 4G/LTE and small cell backhaul across the world.

The evolving wireless ecosystem

As we move toward the small cell era, it is vital for operators to progress their backhaul strategies to meet customer expectations and drive the revenues that will secure the future of their business.

But it’s not only new wireless backhaul technology that will play a role. Spectrum holders have streamlined acquisition of the 28GHz and 39GHz bands which support licensed PMP. Not only is 2.5GHz of spectrum available for these bands across the U.S. (more than enough bandwidth to handle the most demanding small cell backhaul applications), but licenses are simple and cost effective to acquire.

This demonstrates how much innovation is being driven by the wireless industry in the U.S. and how focused it is on unlocking the potential of small cells. As outdoor small cell deployments build over the course of 2015, we look forward to seeing new backhaul strategies emerge and the benefits play out in regions across the country.

Mark Ashford – VP North America. Mark has over 20 years’ experience in the wireless industry, gained in a range of multinational commercial, technical and strategic roles. As VP North America for CBNL, Mark is responsible for leading US business and developing CBNL’s transformational business partnership initiatives. Before joining CBNL, Mark worked for both for AT&T / Lucent Technologies for 12 years as well as for Apertio Ltd, where he supported the successful sale and integration of the company in Nokia. He is an Associate Member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) and has a BSC in Physics from Imperial College, London.

CBNL is the market-leader in licensed PMP. CBNL serve customers in over 40 countries for backhaul and enterprise access, including seven of the world’s top ten largest mobile operators.