Ukraine’s lifecell has become the first operator to commercially deploy Huawei’s Easy Macro 2.0 technology, improving coverage and data consumption.
The Turkcell-owned operator has deployed the vendor’s PoleStar site solution in Lviv to cope with the high tourist footfall in the city.
The deployment achieved coverage improvements of nine percent in the areas where the solution was implemented, while voice traffic in the area increased by 25 percent and data traffic increased by 22 percent.
According to Huawei, it can increase deployment efficiency of a single site by 94 percent and decrease the total cost of ownership of the site by over 30 percent.
Designed to speed deployment in urban areas, Easy Macro 2.0 can be activated anywhere where there is a power pole, enabling cheaper and more flexible installation of cell sites. Lifecell has reached an agreement with a local, unnamed energy company to deploy the technology in Lviv.
It supports horizontal installation and adjustable vertical beam width, which allows optimised coverage in high-rise buildings.
Peter Zhou, CMO of Huawei Wireless Network, said: “As one of Huawei’s most innovative wireless solutions, Easy Macro 2.0 can activate existing social resources in urban areas for fast site deployment, eliminate capacity and coverage bottlenecks, and help operators to build a comprehensive leadership in technology, business, and social responsibility.”
Connecting urban areas can present a problem for operators due to planning restrictions and a lack of available power.
The number of small cells sold hit 1.7 million last year, according to figures from IHS Markit, partly driven by urban deployments.