Don’t judge O2 on this LTE trial

O2 announced at the start of the week that it has launched a live LTE trial in central London. The head of the project, Rob Joyce, told Mobile Europe that the trial would map onto existing cell sites, and would therefore be a macro-based trial.

He also said he was confident that the trial would offer good in-building coverage, as O2’s 3G network works well indoors and so, therefore, it seems likely that LTE signals at a nearby frequency would also provide good coverage.

Both these statements attracted some interest. First, a comment from iBwave on our site stated that perhaps O2 knows something about in-building coverage that others don’t.

“When you look at things on paper, it appears that in order to achieve higher data rates (which is the main reason why LTE is being adopted), you also need a cleaner signal, i.e. better signal-to-noise-and-interference, than with 3G. And thus, in many cases, a simple LTE upgrade will NOT suffice, additional antennas/cells WILL be needed. Or maybe not, but then what’s the trick?”

Another comment we received, from TE Connectivity, took a very strident view on the necessity of small cells plus Distributed Antenna Systems to achieve full benefits from LTE networks.

Tony LeFebvre, director of product management at TE Connectivity, told us:

“A major problem with this trial is that it appears O2 will be delivering signals via the traditional macro tower architecture, which has already proven to be insufficient for 3G services. When considering that LTE services will require three – five times as many base stations, it seems unlikely that 25 masts within a 15 square mile radius will be enough. Making cells smaller is the most efficient way to deliver higher capacity per cell. By using smaller cells and the right products, operators can deliver high-quality service throughout a coverage area without the dead zones so common in macro networks. By combining with small cell architecture, such as Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS), operators would then be able to distribute this increased capacity via remote antennas to exactly where it is needed. Not only will this overcome any potential opposition to the erection of more masts within urban areas, but it will ensure that operators are in a position to provide the capacity required for future smartphone demands.”

You shouldn’t, though, get the impression that O2 is anti-small cells, or even anti deploying dense in-building networks. Joyce stated that this trial is intended to monitor the macro network performance, and that the operator is fully aware it will need to move to a Het Net approach as usage develops. Indeed, O2 itself has equipped its own HQ in Slough with a small cell on every floor, so it knows the value of small cells in providing in-building coverage. And it will be providing small cell LTE coverage at the O2 arena in Greenwich.

Additionally, O2’s trial supplier, Nokia Siemens Networks, will be keen to trial its Liquid Radio approach, and backhaul supplier Cambridge Broadband Networks is specifically geared to provide high capacity backhaul for dense small cell networks. If the suppliers have anything to do with it, O2 will be checking out a dense, small cell approach sooner rather than later.

I think, then, that when it comes to LTE network architecture, we shouldn’t read too much into O2’s current trial. And, of course, if all the small cell proponents are right, then the trial will swiftly show up the limits of the macro-only approach.

This week, Cisco announced that it has won a big contract to install lots of WiFi coverage at Real Madrid’s stadium in Madrid. The football club is using WiFi to offload a lot of data, and free up the mobile network for calls and those without WiFI devices. So what better illustration, then, of the relevance of our two upcoming webinars, the first looking at how to design high capacity networks in stadiums, and the second at how operators can build carrier-grade WiFi networks.

Please do register to find out more on these topics: Stadium design and WiFi Offload. Both events feature independent analyst comment, as well as expert information from the sponsors — who are iBwave and Ixia, respectively.

Finally, I’d like to draw your attention to a bout of mobile payments news: in Sweden, in Poland, from the GSMA and from Inside Secure. Check out the links to the left. There is increasing momentum in this field, even if not all of it is as focused as it could be on driving mass adoption. Although the Swedish JV is a sign of increasing cross-operator momentum, we can also view announcements such as that from Poland as continued evidence that there is, at the same time, a need for a piecemeal approach that is simply about getting a solution, any solution, into users’ hands.

Have a good weekend,

Keith Dyer?
Editor?
Mobile Europe

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