True, the leading mobile operator in Thailand, and Huawei recently announced the use of time synchronization solution, Atom GPS to deliver high-precision time synchronization for 4.5G networks.
The solution addresses the challenges in traditional GPS deployment, greatly saving the total cost of ownership (TCO), achieving network-wide anywhere clock synchronization, and greatly improving users' network experience, said Huawei. Also, the Atom GPS solution can be co-managed with the IP RAN to achieve real-time management of the time synchronization quality.
True has over 20 million wireless subscribers, and video services are now becoming a basic service for True. The company's ever-growing user base places higher pressure on network coverage and higher requirements for network bandwidth, creating huge challenges for True's 4.5G network.
To address the challenges, True uses the 4.5G inter-site Carrier Aggregation (CA) technique to enhance the cell edge coverage and traffic rate. This technology requires high-precision time synchronization. How to handle the time synchronization challenge has become a major concern for True as it attempts to improve its users' video experience.
Conventionally, two solutions have been used for time synchronization. One is to deploy the GPS solution on each base station. This solution requires massive GPS deployment, with no obstruction to GPS antennas -- this leads to difficultly in site selection.
And the other way is to deploy the hop-by-hop 1588v2 solution on the IP RAN. This solution requires network-wide support for 1588v2 and hop-by-hop measurement of fiber asymmetry, leading to difficult deployment and high costs. Now, there is a new challenge for the mobile backhaul network based on how to provide more agile time synchronization for 4.5G networks.
