Virgin Media has engaged Intracom Telecom, a global telecommunications system vendor to field trial the StreetNode™, its small-cell backhaul platform. The trial which took place in Leeds, UK, where Virgin Media Business has a concession from the council for access to street furniture to provide mobile broadband and Wi-Fi access, is undertaken to validate the small cell backhaul architecture that Virgin Media Business is developing and helps to push the whole industry forward.
The StreetNode's highly-compact form factor and visually appealing shape makes it fit for installation on all types of street furniture and suitable to operate in Point-to-Point (PtP) and Point-to-MultiPoint (PtMP) mode through software-defined radio operation and this allows operators to build flexible network architectures, according to Intracom.
Mr. Bruce Girdlestone, Senior Business Development Manager at Virgin Media Business, said: "Small cell technology is the key to creating a supercharged internet service that can cope with the ever increasing number of smart devices. In offering city centre Wi-Fi connections, Leeds is one of a handful of cities in UK leading the way to fully connected smart cities. These services allow residents, visitors and businesses to stay online for free whilst out and about on the city streets. We're looking forward to seeing more results following this exciting trial and how the technology can be used in cities across the country."
Commenting on the trial, Mr. John Tenidis, Head of Marketing for Intracom Telecom's wireless solutions portfolio, said: "This was a great opportunity to trial our StreetNode™ with Virgin Media Business, one of the leading fibre asset owners in the UK, in one of the largest cities in the United Kingdom. StreetNodeT brought carrier grade small-cell backhaul connectivity to the street-level. The key innovation in StreetNodeT is its intelligent auto-alignment capability which allows installation to be carried out by a single street lighting team who can install each end of the link in sequence. This relieves the operator of employing multiple highly skilled telecom installer teams to install their small-cell backhaul networks."
