Telecom Lead Asia: Huawei has launched its LTE small cell router called ATN 905.
The ATN 905 helps small base stations obtain high-rate media access across a variety of scenarios, allowing operators to extend their backhaul network coverage.
According to Infonetics, 86 percent of operators surveyed plan to backhaul small cell traffic to nearby macrocell sites via a variety of locations, including buildings, streetlights, and traffic and utility poles
Fiber is the preferred backhaul technology among respondent operators when available and cost effective, but the various forms of microwave—non-line-of-sight, standard microwave, and millimeter wave—will be deployed most often
“Small cell operators are scrambling to test and trial a large number of technologies, products, and topologies for outdoor small cells, and they’re under growing pressure to make the rubber meet the road—not only from their technology and operations people, but even their business planners,” said Michael Howard, principal analyst for carrier networks at Infonetics Research.
Deploying large base station routers into small base stations is often challenging due to the site and installation requirements. Huawei’s ATN 905 helps meet these challenges, as it is suitable for both indoor and outdoor use and can be easily installed.
It supports any media access, including fiber, GPON and xDSL, to offer additional resources for the existing network. The ATN 905 supplies power through Ethernet ports to overcome the many issues associated with powering small base stations and also supports plug-and-play and remote service deployment to ease operation.
Gai Gang, president of the Carrier IP Product Line at Huawei, said, “The ATN 905 demonstrates both Huawei’s deep understanding of customer requirements and its technical strength. We will continue to provide world-wide operators with more products and solutions catered to their needs.”
Huawei’s IP RAN mobile backhaul solution has served operators such as China Unicom, China Telecom, EE, BT, MTN, and Sunrise.
Infonetics expects a cumulative $5 billion to be spent worldwide on outdoor small cell backhaul equipment between 2012 and 2016, with the market kicking into high gear in 2014. This is in addition to the nearly $44 billion being spent on macrocell backhaul equipment during the same 5-year period.
