The era of mobile Internet access has arrived, and it will rapidly change the business and infrastructure needs of mobile operators under the overall new requirements. We need 4G LTE to meet the rapid growth of wireless payload requirements, to avoid problems such as interrupted calls, failed downloads, and interrupted videos.
So, how can operators provide reliable services for these diversified new wireless data packets to meet user needs and achieve profitability? Of course, transformation. The time has come for wireless technology to transform wireless broadband. In the next few years, with the completion of technological transformation, the homogeneous macro base station and small base station topology of all mobile operators will become a powerful heterogeneous combination of smaller cell base stations.
The base station will include not only outdoor remote radio head-end cells, pico cells and metro cells, but also indoor enterprise-level cells and home cells. In addition, the operator's backhaul topology will also be heterogeneous, and some will continue to use and expand their own dedicated Internet backhaul connections, while others will be carried on another cable operator's existing Internet backhaul connection.
This latest combination of base station and backhaul topology must not only help mobile operators use the scarce resources and frequency bands to achieve profitability, but also provide reliable, low-cost voice, data and entertainment services anytime, anywhere. Adding small cells to this combination can bring better solutions for operators' business, fill in the inevitable coverage gap, add new cellular coverage areas, and operate with cable Internet service providers (ISPs) Providers cooperate better to pass a higher percentage of 4G network packet payload back to the Internet.
Increasing data rate
In 2010, video and multimedia surpassed voice as a killer application for mobile phone users. Smartphone users account for about 13% of the operator's customer base, but they use the operator's bandwidth as high as 33%. Now, with the advent of iPads and other mobile tablets on the network, operators must accelerate wireless data bandwidth to meet the current needs of all users.
The killer applications of these devices are entertainment, video, and streaming media because they require more wireless bandwidth. In the final analysis, the data transmission rate of a given mobile cell coverage area is fixed, and all working users in a cell must share the transmission bandwidth of the cell.
So, how can operators provide greater data bandwidth for each user? First, operators can provide larger chunks of data bandwidth for each user to reduce the number of users served by each cell. In this way, each user can be provided with a larger share of the bandwidth of cellular data packets.
Many operators combine 4G / LTE with 3G in each of their macrocells, and plan to reduce the current nominal radius of the macrocells from 16 to 48 kilometers to 8 to 24 kilometers, which will be shortened by half to provide each user Provide more data. As far as this change is concerned, it will greatly increase the coverage of signal gaps or dead zones between existing macro cells. This obviously will not satisfy users, so operators must find ways to cover these gaps to the greatest extent. Compared with macro base stations and small base stations, smaller cells are more suitable and cost-effective.
Small cells play a big role
Small cell installations take many different forms, including small outdoor cellular installations (such as remote radio head clusters, pico cells, and metro cells, etc.) and indoor small cell installations (such as enterprise and home femtocell femto cells). The small cell installation has the following common characteristics:
• The radius of the cellular coverage area is much smaller than that of macro base stations and small base stations (more suitable for covering small signal areas)
Gap);
• The shape is greatly reduced for easy hiding;
• Compared with macro base stations and small base stations, the cost of installation and operation per installation is greatly reduced.
However, they will also cause potential problems with more adjacent cell interference, so operators should try to understand the user experience at the edge of these smaller cells and master the methods to minimize this interference.
Remote radio head clusters, pico, and outdoor metro cell installations have a larger coverage area, and support more users than small coverage enterprises and home indoor cells. In addition, operators have to pay for the practical costs of outdoor installations, although this is lower than macro and small base stations. The practical cost of indoor femto cell facilities will be paid by the business owner or homeowner, not the operator.
Ensure service quality
Different data packets are handled in different ways. Both macro and small cells require packet inspection. The cellular base station should be able to distinguish different data packets such as voice, data, multimedia, and video streams, so as to properly set priorities and perform routing.
The backhaul of this mixed data packet payload from the small cell to the Internet is different from the backhaul path of the macro base station and small base station to the Internet. Macro base stations and small base stations have traditionally used operators' own private network backhaul connections, but most small cells will carry their backhaul traffic over existing third-party wired broadband connections.
The third party here may be the ISP used by the owners in home femto cell, enterprise femto cell, metro cell and pico cell. In different installation situations, the data transmission bandwidth provided by the ISP for the operator's backhaul load will vary greatly. In order to ensure the minimum quality of service for different installations, operators need to determine the minimum bandwidth usage with ISPs, and usually can reach an agreement through the revenue share of some mobile operators. However, this may be cumbersome because mobile operators and cable ISPs have rarely cooperated before.
It's really time to say goodbye to Dad's infrastructure
By developing from 3G to 4G, operators will transform their infrastructure from voice and data delivery topologies to multimedia and entertainment delivery topologies. The new topology is optimized for various users and usage scenarios. Using small cells to cover signal dead zones in existing macrocell topologies, operators and users will achieve higher data rates through better radio spectrum efficiency and spectrum reuse. Dad will be proud of it now!
Kyle Harper is currently the Marketing Director of Texas Instruments ’Wireless Base Station Infrastructure Business Unit. He has more than 27 years of experience in the wireless, network, high-performance microprocessor and embedded software industries. Prior to joining TI, he served as TImesys CorporaTIon business development director, Advanced Micro Circuits Corporate strategic marketing manager and a variety of different management positions . He has written numerous technical and business seminar papers and published numerous articles.
Harper graduated from Texas A & M University (Texas A & M University) and the University of Texas at Austin (University of Texas at AusTIn) with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and an MBA degree, respectively.
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