Invasion of the pico-cells

Stuart Corner
Monday, 05 February 2007 08:24

Business IT - Networking

Japanese cellular operator, Softbank, is to deploy thousands of tiny cellular base stations within buildings to boost indoor coverage of its 3G HSDPA network. The development signals the growing importance of these and even smaller base stations, known as femto cells.

According to the supplier of the new network, Alcatel-Lucent, "The network will comprise thousands of pico-cells that are smaller in radius and coverage area than standard cells, but offer improved signal strength and support delivery of higher data rates than those currently available. The solution takes advantage of complementary UMTS radio access network components that come both from the former Alcatel and Lucent companies as well as through a recent acquisition of assets from Nortel."

Alcatel-Lucent claims that this network will offer a number of advantages over traditional cellular network with fewer larger base stations: improved performance from low-powered cells deployed in close proximity to users without requiring expensive indoor antenna arrays; and the opportunity for Softbank to bundle fixed/mobile services in solutions for corporate customers.

According to Alcatel-Lucent "UMTS [WCDMA 3G] and more specifically HSDPA is all about providing high quality of service and high data throughput. This become particularly challenging when it comes to in-building coverage.

Alcatel-Lucent says that between 60 percent and 70 percent of the traffic generated by wireless subscribers is initiated from indoor coverage, with a significant proportion coming from business users. "Deploying pico cells will not only boost mobile operator revenues, it will also decrease the total cost of operating their radio access networks by significantly offloading the existing macro layer, removing network congestion, decreasing the need for capacity extension as well as deployment of new macro sites."