Thought leadership – Releasing the indoor potential

Advertorial – Huawei Femtocells: Coverage, Capacity and Business Growth

We are racing into a full Mobile Broadband (MBB) society. New mobile devices are announced in the world’s consumer media daily; together with a seemingly endless treasure trove of increasingly refined MBB applications these announcements are building a tidal wave of end use interest and expectations in the convenience and availability of mobile broadband. Whether for personal or business use, subscribers no longer look at MBB as nice-to-have, they see it a most-have prerequisite of daily life.

In Huawei’s view, the era ushered in by this tsunami of global interest, will experience continuous growth. This will be accelerated by the introduction of new, more affordable, devices, as well as increased data consumption per user, where convenience will exponentially drive rates of consumption and sharing. Huawei’s solutions are designed to allow operators to cost-efficiently respond to and profitably benefit from our projection of a minimum 500 times current level increase in mobile traffic by 2015. Within this span of just five years, we expect at least four billion mobile subscribers to be surfing this massive broadband wave of data intensive use – a stunning increase over existing MBB subscribers.

Mobile Broadband therefore represents considerable opportunity for operators. But, as ever, opportunity is never without its challenges: enhanced coverage and QoS when indoors, cost-effective networks with adequate capacity, ease of introducing new services and added revenue streams, these are just a few of the questions operators would like to see answered.

Huawei has responded to operator challenges the SingleRAN@Broad solution. Announced at MobileWorld Congress in February of this year, the first entire value chain solution for our fast emerging broadband world has the potential to make tremendous traffic both possible and profitable.
By affording enhanced coverage, expanded delivery capacity and added service delivery to residences and enterprises, Femtocells play a key role in this integrated solution. As a result, Femtocells offer operators the opportunity or growth and added competitiveness. In SingleRAN@Broad, this is represented by an end-to-end uBro solution encompassing a Home Femtocell as well as a Pico Femtocell serviced by its uBro Network and connected in turn to a mobile operator’s Core Network.

Why Femtocells?
Offering Coverage
It is well known that, principally due to the restraints of in-building penetration, high traffic bandwidth has been conventionally difficult to provide from Outdoor Macro. Considering MBB is mainly consumed indoors, operators need a cost-effective solution to cover those indoor areas which do not currently inhibit or even prohibit consistent user friendly MBB experiences.

Femtocells are the ideal tool for expediting a solution; providing 100% continuous coverage and full bit-rate. As an example of Huawei’s many commercial deployments, a profiled operator has managed to overcome building challenges while improving user experience thanks to a 25dB increase in signal level.

Delivering Capacity
For continuity of existing mobile networks and reuse of legacy networks, a traditional operator approach to sustaining MBB services is through standard Macro Deployment. In this manner, capacity is added by: improving technologies, e.g. HSPA+/LTE, adding new or refarming existing spectrum, 2.6GHz/900, or introducing new sites. The later creates almost insurmountable difficulties when attempted in dense urban areas.

Taking into account the indoor venues for the potential 500 times traffic increase in just five years, Huawei has introduced a multi cloud layer as part of the SingleRAN@Broad solution. In this scenario Femtocells are used to offload Macro networks, ensuring an enhanced MBB experience while making it expanded coverage affordable and ultimately, profitable.

The ease of Huawei Femtocells installation combined with a fully proven commercial  Plug & Play self-configuring solution; adapted portfolio; differentiated Home and Pico offerings supported through a shared infrastructure, together with a reduction of OPEX, energy and transport in particular, are now key drivers for Femtocells – affording operators considerable cost advantage when compared with traditional Macro Network solutions.

This cost advantage increases exponentially with the amount of data to be carried. According to Huawei’s calculations, Femtocells can offer at least a 50% reduction in the cost per Mb. Actual benefit will vary according to traffic, penetration and macro network status. Huawei has developed an in-house business case tool specifically to assist operators in understanding Femto benefits.

Enabling Growth
With localized coverage reinforced by Femtocell locking features as well as Femtocell integration into Home/Enterprise network, it is now possible to enable growth by introducing news services through Femtocells such as automatic content synchronization, mobile advertisement based on location, mobile monitoring,  PBX or VPN features,…

Why Huawei?
Complete Solution
Huawei’s end-to-end uBro solution has been custom designed to serve Home Zones as well as Pico Zones through its uBro Network.

Thanks to Huawei’s Femtocell portfolio, operators have the choice to select the best product for both
Home Zone and Enterprise Zone according to varying specific environment requirements. Selection is made according to:

Home AP                              Pico AP
UAP2105                              ePico3801
Service           Coverage                       ~30m                                     ~100m
Service           Users                               4                                            16
Features         Full Mobility                    Yes                                         Yes
Features         Plug & Play                    Yes                                          Yes
Operation        Performance               Simplified                            Powerful Monitoring
Operation        Configuration              Automatic                    Automatic and Manual(Offline)

Several other product mixes can be offered based on these basic components in order to simplify Femtocell installation and integration in different deployment environments.

Ready to Market
There are still many operators, analysis and other industry stakeholders who have doubts or questions regarding Femtocell technology and business case readiness. Technical issues, such as interference with existing Macro Network, management interfaces, or Femto standard readiness; and business concerns, such as value with regards to WiFi, and overall costs, are among the top concerns.

From a technical point of view, Huawei’s uBro solution is completely ready for commercial deployment today. We have developed several proven effective tools and strategies to effectively resolve any potential Macro Network interference. These include Femto Pilot Power Auto-Management, Mobility Management, and UE Transmission Power Management. As demonstrated by our participation in the Femto Forum PlugFest, Huawei’s uBro system is ready for 3GPP Iuh standards.  Last but not least, in order to make sure that management interfaces are open and easily integrated with existing Back Office Support Systems (BOSS), Huawei’s uBro management solution supports open protocols such as TR069 or SOAP.

From a business point of view, Huawei is ready today to help operators better understand target market segments and Femtocell cost savings as highlighted previously in this article. In our view and with particular relevance for smartphones, since Femtocells support all 3G devices and simplify their utilization, Femtocells will coexist with WiFi and will target different utilization patterns.

In Summary
At the start of this new decade, after several years of study and technical development, Femtocells are finally becoming main stream. As of the date of this article, the industry has seen no less than ten commercial Femtocell services deployed, three of which have been expedited by Huawei.  While mainly employed for coverage, Femtos also have the potential to become excellent tools for capacity absorption and enablers of new services and added revenue streams. With proven Fentocell solutions well in-hand, Huawei is completely ready to help operators expand mobile broadband coverage and enhance capacity growth.