Warning – typical London-centric media post coming up, although there may be some relevance to other cities with equally decrepit underground infrastructures. Like…er. Oh fair enough. One typical London-centric media post coming up.
The topic of London Underground equipping its underground stations and tunnels with mobile coverage raised its head this week, with news that the operators have been talking to Transport for London about looking again at how it could be done.
You may hate the thought of mobile coverage on the London Underground, but mobile coverage specialist ADC certainly does not. This is because covering the London Underground infrastructure with mobile coverage could be good business for ADC, which is proposing its DAS (Distributed Antenna Systems) products as a good solution for providing underground coverage.
John Spindler, VP of product management, said, “Using technology like DAS is ideal for providing coverage in hard to reach areas like underground tunnels, without adversely affecting services or infrastructure. A DAS main hub and expansion hubs are relatively easy to install while discreet remote antennas can be fitted into existing wall cavities and utility areas. These systems are highly scalable meaning that cost and complexity of the project can be mitigated by effectively splitting it in two – the stations and the tunnels. In addition, this scalability will allow DAS systems to run LTE once the UK begins to roll out 4G services.”
It occurs to me that one thing people do when they’re sitting in a train carriage and have 10 minutes to kill is “do data” of some kind. They might watch a quick bit of video, catch up to email, or get online to Facebook and look at some photos of their younger selves. Some will inevitably also want to make a call to confirm their ensuing lateness at a coming meeting, or similar.
Although DAS is an excellent coverage solution, I asked it it could also provide the capacity required to provide a full service environment to moving trains of entertainment-hungry commuters?
Spindler said yes.
“DAS can meet any capacity requirement and does it more cost-effectively than small cells because all of the capacity can be placed in one central location (a basestation “hotel”) and backhauled from there, rather than having to place femtocells, picocells or microcells all over the space and having to backhaul each one,” he said. “In addition, because a DAS simulcasts all available radio channels (from the centralised basestation) to every antenna, DAS is actually more effective in delivering capacity when and where it is needed. And when more capacity is required in the future, the operator can simply add additional radio resources at the central location and that capacity is automatically distributed over the DAS. In addition to these benefits, subway deployments also benefit specifically from a DAS because the system requires virtually no maintenance once installed, and all of the management can be done remotely, saving the time and hassle of going to individual radio units to maintain them.”
So, if the Underground does get the nod to go mobile – it could be that DAS is the way to do it.
