smallcellnetworks

Small cell networks for wireless broadband

deployment

3G networks have become main stream. Almost all the major Operators across the world have deployed 3G networks. With this, wireless data usage is getting extensive. The wireless data demands are not limited to plain old corporate email (a.k.a Blackberry email) alone. Present data usage on the smart phone include: social media, instant messaging, multi media and even TV. An obvious solution for the increased data demand is more bandwidth. But, spectrum is at a crunch. Licensed spectrum for cellular technology usage becomes less efficient above 2.5GHz. In that available spectrum, allocation of extra large contiguous blocks of spectrum for future developments will be a challenge. Even with extra bandwidth, deploying more cells or base stations to serve the increased demand hits the spectral reuse limitation very quickly. Technology developments need to concentrate on the improvement of spectrum reuse, with the above limitations in consideration, Small Cell Networks at the edge, which manage the bandwidth demands within that cluster, could be the answer. Small cell network could become an underlay network for the macro network at the edge. Deploying them widespread may have to wait for compliance with zoning and other regulations.

Moving forward there will be many situations for the 'small cell network' deployments at the edge. Unlicensed spectrumis getting to the point of non usable in dense neighbor hoods. There used to be few WiFi home networks, which now have become almost the default home networks. In a community there are so many of them so close, the interference makes the home networks unreliable. Unfortunately we can not deploy ‘community WiFi controllers’ as a solution for this issue. Wireless broadband with small cell network cluster can be a solution for this scenario as well. This could be deployed in a RV community immediately.

This solution will be ubiquitous very soon.

-Narasimha Vadrevu

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