At the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2014, Ericsson today announced that telecom operator Vodafone will use Radio Dot System, a new indoor small cell solution.
Ericsson Radio Dot System is designed to extend Vodafone’s 3G and LTE mobile broadband network capacity into enterprise buildings to deliver a high-performance mobile broadband experience to Vodafone customers.
Outdoor small cell market
Telecom operators will spend $3.6 billion on outdoor small cell backhaul equipment over the five years from 2013 to 2017, down from earlier forecasts based on operator plans.
Recently, Infonetics Research said 2013 was supposed to be the year for greater deployments of outdoor small cells, but installations haven’t proceeded as quickly as operators expected.
“Costs are higher than anticipated, and many challenges remain difficult to solve, including siting, jurisdictional issues, unsettled local regulations, power availability, copper and fiber availability, small cell packaging with or without backhaul, and products, and backhaul connections,” said Michael Howard, co-founder and principal analyst for carrier networks at Infonetics Research.
A recent survey said operators are finding that outdoor small cell deployments are more expensive than anticipated: more respondents now expect the 5-year TCO ratio of a small cell deployment to be 25 percent of a typical macrocell deployment, up from 10 percent in Infonetics’ 2012 survey.
1/4 of operators will use software-defined networking (SDN) in outdoor small cell backhaul networks by 2016 or later.
Ericsson Radio Dot System
Ericsson’s mobile broadband technology already powers Vodafone’s services in multiple countries including Germany, the UK and the Netherlands.
The new Radio Dot System is designed to extend that mobile broadband capacity, both 3G and LTE, into enterprise buildings and public venues.
Ericsson Radio Dot System is compact and offers flexible mounting. It introduces a revolutionary antenna element, or ‘Dot’, which delivers mobile broadband access to users. Dots are connected and powered via standard internet LAN cables (Category 5/6/7) to indoor radio units that link to a base station.
The Ericsson Radio Dot System leverages the same features found in Ericsson’s macro base station, including Carrier Aggregation and Combined Cell for WCDMA and LTE. Deployments and upgrades are simple, addressing growing capacity and coverage requirements.
The user experience is consistent wherever they go and the indoor network evolves in lockstep with the outdoor network. Ericsson Radio Dot System also supports integration with Ericsson’s carrier Wi-Fi portfolio enabling features such as real-time traffic steering to ensure the best user experience across both Wi-Fi and 3GPP networks.
Recently, Vodafone announced that it will enhance its network roll out across the globe.
