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In 2016, Wireless Carriers Will Shift Infrastructure Focus From Coverage To Capacity

In 2016, Wireless Carriers Will Shift Infrastructure Focus From Coverage To Capacity Image Credit: Vertex Innovations

From the inception of the US public wireless networks to around 2013, the dominant infrastructure trend was the expansion of geographical network coverage. During this period, network performance was measured by signal strength, voice quality and connection reliability. Since then, the infrastructure trend has shifted from network coverage to expanding network capacity. A major reason for this shift was the introduction of 4th Generation (4G) smart phones which enabled Internet-like communications that in-turn required the processing of large amounts of data and content. Subsequently, the measure of performance was replaced with mobile users’ immediate data access and communication speed.

Looking ahead to 2016, decision-making by public wireless network operators will be in pursuit of expanding capacity to meet network data traffic forecasts. Two major forces are influencing this trend. First and foremost is the consumers’ insatiable demand for immediate data access and content. Data applications and content, especially in the form of video, are driving data traffic growth. The second force is the ever increasing technological requirements being driven by communications equipment manufacturers and standards organizations, such as the 3GPP and ITU. New standards are being released periodically in preparation for future wireless communication technologies such as the 5th Generation (5G) of wireless communications and the Internet of Things (IoT).

#1: DATA TRAFFIC GROWTH BY THE NUMBERS

AT&T has stated that its network data traffic has increased 1,000-fold since 2007. Although this has slowed considerably, data traffic is expected to continue growing at a rate greater than 50% over the next several years. Individual smart phone data is forecasted to grow from around 2 GB per month in 2015 to about 5.5 GB per month in 2018, and up to 11 GB per month in 2020. New 4G network smart phones consume 3 times as much data as 3G smart phones. Keep in mind that 4G network smart phones comprise about 50% of the US market. Video currently accounts for about 50% of all data traffic and it is forecasted to increase to more than 60% in the next two years. Additionally, the IoT fueled by the growth of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), will grow to more than 50 billion connections by 2020. In short, expected growth will exceed the capabilities of the current 4G wireless network technologies that have been deployed.

Imagine- an individual in a typical American city will have up to 5,000 sensors capable of tracking and communicating with him or her at any given time.

A substantial part of this growth will be from wireless remote-sensing devices connecting with other computing devices. Machine to machine (M2M) communications will become ubiquitous in the next few years. Some M2M technologies will require enhanced network performance that can only be met by deploying the latest 4G network technologies, such as LTE-Advanced and future 5G technologies.

Wayne Smith,
President,
Vertex

#2: CAPACITY, INFRASTRUCTURE & NECESSARY TECHNOLOGIES

The most effective long-term network solution to increased data traffic is to increase the network’s physical capacity. This can be accomplished by increasing the speed data can move through a given pipe, increasing the capacity of said pipe, or some combination of both. This requires building new technologies into the network’s infrastructure.

Over the past five years, LTE has been established as the dominant 4G wireless network technology. It has been deployed more widely than any other technology, and its capabilities will continue to be upgraded until 5G begins rolling out in force around 2020. The vast majority of implementations in 2016 will continue the LTE evolution. Network operators will continue to use more radio spectrum and implement LTE as a wireless, voice over IP solution.

2016 Trends and Outlook Polls

2016 will also see early implementations of LTE-Advanced technologies. These will enhance the network’s air interface capabilities such as non-contiguous carrier bandwidth integration, MIMO and CoMP. These upgrades will introduce several considerable advances to capacity and performance. Turn around latencies will be shorter, spectrum efficiencies will be improved, peak downlink data speeds will increase to around 1 Gbit/s and much more.

LTE-Unlicensed (LTE-U) will be further deployed in 2016. LTE-U is a version of LTE that operates on the unlicensed radio frequencies currently used by WiFi. It is an alternative to WiFi with the capability to communicate with LTE macro-cells. T-Mobile has already introduced this product to its customers for in-home and small office use. LTE-U will provide network operators a low cost avenue to seamlessly integrate in-building technologies with their outdoor macro networks.

#3: PREPARATION BY CARRIERS IS WELL UNDER WAY

In addition to the evolving LTE technologies, network providers will continue to add more access points to their networks. Solution providers in this space such as Vertex Innovations, are actively managing several hundred cell site projects for their carrier partners. These projects include new and upgraded macro-sites as well as new small cell site projects. Small cell projects are being deployed to expand capacity in buildings, in public spaces, on high traffic corridors, in signal dead spots, at macro-cell edges, within macro-cells and many more venues.

Small cell access points provide additional capacity, better coverage, and the ability to off-load macro traffic while lowering construction, maintenance and operating costs.

Changes are occurring in the front-haul and back-haul spaces, too. The distance between the tower and the location of the radio baseband unit (BBU) is expanding. BBUs that support cell sites are beginning to be collected and housed in BBU hotels up to 20 kilometers from the radio tower. This is an early step in evolving the current radio access network into a cloud-based radio access network (CRAN). This will not only improve capacity, but it will reduce the network operators’ operating costs. However, this migration does require that cell sites have fiber connections to handle the increased traffic and lower latencies. Apart from small cells, Solution providers are also engaged in managing several hundred CRAN and fiber installation projects for new cell sites and older cell site upgrades, and expect this activity to increase considerably over the next couple of years.

Network operators are also upgrading their data and switching centers, which are massive projects that involve hundreds to thousands of smaller tasks designed to improve these large hubs of data processing. As a result, there is now a steady increase in new build, site upgrade and site remodel projects. These projects include new buildings, remodeling existing buildings and upgrading communications equipment, power requirements, back up generation, cooling systems, etc. These may take six months to several years to complete, but they are required to keep infrastructure up to capacity demands.

In sum, the major trend for wireless network infrastructure has shifted away from expanding geographical coverage (remember all of those coverage map commercials?) to adding network capacity for improved performance. This trend is an effort to meet the ever growing data traffic demands of smart phone applications and video data.

About The Author:
Vertex Innovations president Wayne Smith has helped build the United State’s telecom infrastructure, the foundation upon which much of our 21st Century lives rest. Wayne played a critical role in the switch from dial-up modems to DSL; now he is replacing his own networks with wireless technology. With his multifaceted expertise, Wayne has built massive data centers for wireless carriers in their entirety, from the construction of the building itself to the high-tech guts inside. At Vertex Innovations, Wayne and his colleagues are not so much specialists of any one technology, but rather experts at solving the problems of their clients.

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