Tower Technology

8/12/2019 Tower Technology

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Extendingintelligenceto the tower:How LTE, remote radio heads

and fiber are boosting the

capabilities of cell sites

By Dan Meyer

A U G U S T 2 0 1 3


2/14

The evolution of wireless networks has

gone hand-in-hand with the needs of

consumers and spectrum possessed by

carriers. You need both to make a net-

work work, but that evolution has begun

to accelerate as consumer needs have

pushed beyond the spectrum available to

support that need.

To combat this issue, wireless carriers

and their equipment partners have come

up with new technology for their toolbox

in order to squeeze as much capacity

from those limited spectrum holdings as

possible, with much of that technology

making its way out to the cell site. This

has included the move to IP-based LTE

technology, remote radio heads, smart

antennas and increased use of ber to

the antenna.

These technologies are working hand-

in-hand with aggressive moves by carri-

ers to secure more spectrum as well as

the continued rollout of LTE technology,

which many have noted is pushing very

close to the laws of psychics in regards to

the amount of data that can be transmit-

ted across wireless airwaves.

Cisco, which has become a regular

forecaster and oft-cited source for where

data trafc is headed, earlier this year

predicted that trafc from wireless and

mobile devices will exceed trafc from

wired devices by 2016. And that by 2017,

Wi-Fi and mobile devices will account for

55% of all IP trafc, compared with just

41% at the end of 2012. Those sorts of

forecasts are placing greater pressure on

wireless network operators to tap into as

many resources as possible in order to

meet demand.

More spectrum, more challenges

Spectrum, the lifeblood of the wireless

communications industry, is a scarce re-

source that has only increased in scar-

city in recent years as consumer de-

mand for spectrum-hungry services has

skyrocketed. To feed that need, carriers

have gone to considerable lengths in or-

der to procure spectrum from any source.

Auctions, mergers and acquisitions have

seen operators spend billions of dollars

on the rights to use specic spectrum li-

censes to support wireless services.

In addition to the traditional spec-

trum bands set aside for wireless com-

munications like the 700 MHz, 850 MHz,

1.7/2.1 GHz and 1.9 GHz bands, carriers

have aggressively targeted spectrum in

the 800 MHz, 1.6 GHz, 2 GHz, 2.3 GHz

and 2.5 GHz bands in order to gain a

competitive advantage.

The billions of dollars spent on acquir-

ing access to wireless airwaves may seem

exhorhbident to those outside the mobile

space, but carriers know that without

spectrum, there is no business.

Spectrum will always be a challenge,

explained Iain Gillott, president of wire-

less industry research rm iGR. Carri-

ers will always never have enough of it

and will always be looking for ways to

bring more to the table, regardless of

cost.

While having more spectrum is al-

ways welcome, these diverse bands have

placed a burden on networks and equip-

ment tasked with actually putting this

spectrum to use. Typically, each spec-

trum band requires its own rack of

equipment to handle the processing and

connectivity of that band. In addition

each band requires a separate antenna

designed to shoot out that specic spec

trum wavelength over a coverage area

Thus, the more spectrum a carrier has in

play, the more equipment is required to

support services.

With cell sites becoming increasingly

crowded with carriers looking to provide

sufcient macro coverage, this has led to

a challenge in nding sufcient room for

not only each carrier in a certain market

but for the various spectrum bands those

carriers are each tapping into in order to

provide coverage.

Thankfully, equipment vendors have

managed to come up with ways that al

low the support of different spectrum

bands to be supported by the same piec

es of equipment. This smart equipment

allows for, say, one radio and its corre

sponding antenna equipment to handle

so-called low-band spectrum, while

another radio and corresponding an

tenna equipment can handle spectrum

in higher bands. Low-bands are typically

those below the 1 GHz level, while high

band spectrum is seen as that nearer the

2 GHz level.

Equipment vendors have stepped up to

the plate in most instances in supporting

these different bands, noted Joe Madden

principal analyst for radio access and RF

semiconductors at Mobile Experts. They

have found ways to integrate multiple

radios into a single housing or to allow a

single antenna to support multiple spec

trum bands. These are really important

moves as the diversity of spectrum being

used is not subsiding.

F E A T U R E R E P O R T

Cover photo: Source: Siemens.


3/14

One of the companys looking to ease

the burden of blossoming spectrum us

age is Commscope, which has for years

been working on ways to use technology

to create smarter network equipment

Philip Sorrell, VP of strategic market

ing for Commscopes wireless operations

noted that the spectrum challenge has a

trickle-down effect on the entire infra

structure ecosystem.

Also important to look at is what fre

quency band you are launching with,

explained Philip Sorrell, VP of strate

gic marketing for Commscopes wireless

operations. If 700 MHz is the sole fre

quency you are launching with then you

have a physical size constraint to deal

with, as the antennas and other equip

ment designed to handle that spectrum

band are bigger. The site planners and

designers need to think through a lot o

different ramications.

Remote radio heads

With carriers looking to extract as

much efciency from their spectrum

holdings as possible, engineers have

gone to new lengths in order to ensure

that the network equipment is able to

meet those efciency needs. This has led

to the rollout of LTE technology, which

posses a at, all-IP architecture de

signed to provide for the most efcient

use of wireless spectrum.

In conjunction with the rollout of LTE

carriers have also begun to re-work the

equipment end of the equation. This

has resulted in the use of remote radio

heads that when deployed can provide for

greater spectrum efciency and capacity


Source:Ericsson

Count the antennas.


4/14


some of the equipment being placed a

the base of the tower. Other operator

noted similar deployment strategies.

The experience we gained from our ear

ly work with remote radio heads shaped

key decisions in our LTE network archi

tecture, which includes placing the re

mote radio heads at the top of the tower

near the antenna, the carrier noted in a

statement. This approach is designed to

minimize power loss and translate int

faster speeds and greater reliability.

AT&T Mobility, which is in the proces

of rolling out LTE services across its net

work, has also found signicant efciency

gains by going with remote radio heads

The basics of RHHs is that they move

most of the equipment that had in the

past resided in a cabinet or enclosure

at the base of the cell site up on top of

the site as close to the antenna as pos-

sible. This allows for a short path for

traffic to travel between the antenna

and radio equipment, resulting in less

interference and signal loss and greater

capacity and coverage.

ABI Research predicted back in 2011

that the remote radio head business

would exceed $3 billion in sales by 2016,

with a newer report noting sales were set

to hit $1 billion in 2012.

Reducing operating costs is especially

important now, so the remote radio head

has become an integral part of these new

distributed base stations, noted ABI re-

search director Lance Wilson. Remote

radio heads are also very smart: almost

all are software-controlled and can be

congured remotely to handle a number

of air interface technologies within a giv-

en air interface family.

RHHs are not a new tool as carriers

have for a few years been working on

bringing the benets of this technology

to their networks. AT&T said it began in-

troducing RHHs into the equation during

the rollout of its UMTS network, although

those initial deployments still included

Sprint remote radio head deployment.


5/14


Speaking with analysts during its second

quarter conference call, AT&T Mobility

President and CEO Ralph de la Vega ex-

plained that a combination of RRHs and

ber-to-the-antenna were generating

strong improvements.

Its a very, very good architecture, de

la Vega noted. When we executed like

we are executing and it had the ten-

dency to make it more efcient in terms

of how you run the network, up to 50%

more efcient on the spectral efciency

as well, and so we feel really good about

the infrastructure cost.

RHHs are also expected to be signicant

parts of the carriers $14 billion Velocity

IP project that will see AT&T expand

LTE coverage to 300 million potential

customers, push more ber to its towers

to handle backhaul needs and deploy a

greater number of small cells to handle

capacity in dense markets.

Ten years ago we did not have this op-

tion to deploy the radio and associated

equipment near the top of the tower,

explained Florian Ion, associate VP of

new technology product development

engineering at AT&T. Now, putting the

radio equipment as close to the antenna

as possible at the top of the tower mini-

mizes loss and gains efciency.

Sprint is another carrier investing heav-

ily in RHHs, noting the equipment is be-

ing used as part of its $5 billion Network

Vision program that will see the carrier re-

congure all of its cell sites in an attempt

to gain network efciencies by moving

more equipment closer to the antenna.

Bob Azzi, SVP of networks at Sprint,

noted that the carriers move to remote

radio head antennas as part of Network

Vision was returning far better than

expected coverage results, with little

downside. Azzi did highlight one chal-

lenge for RRH deployments in that du-

rability can be compromised as equip-

ment is being moved from a relatively

safe, climate-controlled environment

inside of a shelter at the base of a cell

site to having to fend for itself at the

top of the tower. Azzi noted that there

might be a higher case of failure for

the radio equipment being now outside

on top of the antenna instead of being

tucked away in an enclosure at the bot-

tom of the site, but that the efciencies

gained from the new location made the

investment worthwhile.

Its too early to tell the exact sort of

failures we may see, but we have seen

a few, Azzi admitted. But, it has been

worth it considering the performance we

are seeing.

Making room

Another challenge with RHHs is in

finding the room necessary to house

all of the equipment. What had tradi-

tionally been just an antenna and some

copper cables at the top of a cell site

has grown to include having to support

radio equipment.

Its denitely one thing to be the per-

son in the board room ordering the de-

ployment of equipment at the top of the

tower, but another thing to actually be

the person out in the eld that has to

make sure all of this equipment will t,

Madden said.

This issue can become more severe in

challenging environments, where ice

buildup or wind loads can exert greater

forces on towers.

A big issue is we have this big antenna

and carriers are looking to mount the ra

dios behind the antennas, usually in a

stack of three or four, explained Stephen

King, applications engineer for 3Ms

wireless market. The whole idea there is

to minimize wind loading because, keep

in mind that one of the biggest problems

for the towers is not necessarily the ag

gregate weight, its the wind load.

3M has been working on meeting this

challenge, having recently released its

Tower Dome Terminals to handle ca

ble management for RHHs, including

Stephen King, applications

engineer for 3Ms wireless

market


6/14


7/14


8/14


trunked ber cables, power cables and

hybrid cables.

The key is to aggregate all these

structured cables together, minimizing

the structural loading that would be

present on the tower and then bringing

that up to a terminal at or near the radi-

os, King said. We have seen the desire

to keep the form and size of those ter-

minals as small as possible and also an

increasing concern over elements like

wind load and how much extra stress

its going to put on the tower. If you

compare our dual technology with the

traditional rectangular box, we are see-

ing much less wind load because of all of

the rounded edges and the fact that its

conical shaped, so no matter what way

the wind is blowing it will always have

the same wind footprint.

Deploying this technology to a cell site

is also looked at as a potential challenge

as what had traditionally been done at

the base of a tower using one skill set,

will now require a new skill set if an

installer will now be required to climb

that tower.

This is pretty advanced equipment

and you will need people in the eld

that can handle the installation require-

ments, Gillott added. It will no longer

just be people going out to a cabinet at

the base of the tower, it will be people

having to climb the tower to install or

work on equipment. That crosses a lot

of different skill categories for those out

in the eld, and will be a challenge that

needs to be addressed.

Commscopes Sorrell did touch on that

topic, noting that the company has a

qualications process in place for equip

ment installers to ensure that they are

able to handle the challenges of install

ing this new equipment out in the eld.

If you talk to mobile operators to

day they will tell you they have a lot of

things to worry about and the availabil

ity of trained installers is near the top of

the list, Sorrell added.

Fiber-rich diet

One way in which carriers are nding

more room to work with at sites is by the

growing use of ber to those sites in or

der to support mobile services. The old

days of running multiple copper lines up

a cell site to connect base station equip

ment to an antenna are being replaced

with more streamlined, higher capacity

and lighter ber optic lines. This move

has freed up precious real estate on sites

to allow for more tenants to put in equip

ment as well as literally lightening the

load being placed on physical towers.

The ability for carriers to lighten

the load on towers is very important

now with the move to positioning more

equipment on top of the towers, noted

Johnny Hill, COO of ber solutions pro

vider Cleareld. That ability to both

free up more room for equipment and

soften the impact of backhaul equip

ment on top of a tower two trends we

are seeing a lot of now.

Source:3M

3Ms Tower Dome is designed to cut down on tower equipment wind loads.


9/14


10/14

to divide each cell into three sectors,

with each sector covered by one antenna

spread across 120-degrees of coverage.

However, with consumers increasing

demand for data services placing a strain

on this model, infrastructure providers

have begun moving toward six-sector

equipment that allows each sector to

focus on just 60-degrees of coverage,

thus effectively doubling capacity for

the site.

Nokia Solutions and Networks notes

that its six-sector TD-LTE solution pro-

vides up to 80% more capacity and 40%

more coverage than a three-sector solu-

tion. The NSN product also allows three-

sectors to be covered by a single RHH.

The single best investment an opera-

tor can make today in terms of capacity

efciency is to make the sectors that face

their heaviest loaded sectors and just

split the sector from a three-sector site to

a six-sector site, said Commscopes Sor-

rell. That historically has been a well-

known tool that has not been done in a

lot of cases because the toolkits of how

to do it has been, in my view, incomplete.

In the old days if you wanted to split a

sector from a 65 degree to a 33 degree

you basically took down one 65-degree

antenna and put up two 33-degree an-

tennas. Taking down one and adding two

is hardly a popular move.

Sorrell noted that new technology

has allowed antenna makers to sup-

port two separate beams coming from

one unit, thus eliminating the need for

the two antennas.

That technology really makes a cost

efcient and commercially and technically

viable option for a carrier looking to split

a hot sector, Sorrell explained. If you

can split a hot sector, our data shows

that fundamentally doubles the capacity

in the sector. If you can split that sector

and put off having to add these small

cells, or whatever that means, for some

time, that is a sound nancial decision.

There are still a lot of unknowns about

small cells, about how all that will come

together. But, if you can split a sector

and maximize capacity of your existing

infrastructure, you can put off that

decision on small cells until you have to

and that can add a lot of value.

Can going small wait?

Another advancement that has not

quite caught on as quick as many thought

are small cells. These units are typically

seen as micro macro sites, providing

coverage and capacity closer to the end

uses, and encompass anything smaller

than a traditional macro site. This in-

cludes distributed antenna systems,

metrocells, microcells, picocells and Wi-

Fi nodes used for data ofoad.

While small cells have done a pretty

good job in garnering attention, real-

world deployments remain scarce. Sure,

every analyst rm has forecast that by

sometime between tomorrow and the end

of the world there will be a small cell oc-

cupying every conceivable open space we

currently enjoy, but that tomorrow con-

tinues to never come.

Carriers have talked at length about

the benets they can see from moving to-

wards a smaller cell to improve capacity

in high-use areas, but in reality most op-

erators are hesitant to go down that path

yet due to numerous challenges. Some

have started to work down that path us

ing Wi-Fi ofoad strategies, but for the

most part those are still somewhat lim

ited and held at arms length.

Youve heard me talk before about Wi

Fi networks are not secure in the public


Nokia Solutions and Networks six-sector solution.


11/14

domain, Verizon Communications

CFO Fran Shammo recently noted.

They have a purpose for us in certain

instances around major sporting events

and so forth, but our customers are

very concerned about their privacy and

security. That is why they ride the LTE

network as much as they do. But we do

want ofoad in certain circumstances

and so that does relieve some of the

spectrum. We obviously from just a

utilization standpoint for people that

are in their homes, its not good if they

are inefcient to run off of the LTE

network. They should shift over to their

Wi-Fi network in their house. So we do

encourage that, but again not major

massive public Wi-Fi is interesting for

our customers at least in this point in

time from a security standpoint.

There are denitely still concerns

with small cell deployments for carri-

ers, but its a direction they are going to

have to move towards in order to meet

the demands of consumers, said Jag-

dish Rebello, director for consumer and

communications at IHS. Bolstering

macro sites is helping the situation, but

small cells are going to be needed to ll

in those coverage gaps.

Equipment makers, outside of those

actually producing small cells, note that

while the deployment of small cells has

yet to hit the curve in the hockey stick,

the use of small cells is a focal point of

future coverage.

I think all of us in the wireless in-

dustry are watching small cells with

a lot of interest, noted Commscopes

Sorrells. There is a lot of talk about

small cells, and I think we define small

cells different than other people. We

see small cells as any solution that ad

dresses the core issue of how you get

coverage and capacity due to hard to

cover areas. We think that most defini

tions are too narrow. My point of view

with small cells is that we shouldnt

just be thinking about the answer, we

should think about the question. The

question is how to get coverage and ca

pacity in hard to predict, hard to cover

hard to scale areas. Then combat the

problem with a lot of difference solu

tions. More cells mean more nodes

more nodes mean more complexity

This brings potential power or commu

nication issues.

Gillott noted that one way carriers

are tackling this increased level of

complexity is through the use of self

optimized network, or SON, which

brings further technology into the net

work by allowing it to handle basic se

up and maintenance.

The beauty of something like SON is

that it allows carriers to pull together al

of these advances coming to their net

works into a simpler model, Gillott ex

plained. All of this technology is great

but the added complexity also makes it

more trouble than its worth. SON can

help with that issue.

With a litany of options at their dispos

al, wireless carriers do indeed have a tool

box full of potential technology enhance

ments to help fortify their networks in

order to keep up with consumer demand

for mobile services. The trick, of course

is to nd the right balance of impact and

cost in order to pick the right tool or tools

in order to accomplish that job.

Source:Alcatel-Lucent

Small cells remain a work-in-progress.



12/14

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