Three countries worldwide are pioneering public safety solutions using LTE, all for quite different reasons and using different approaches. Other countries are looking and learning, waiting to determine their own strategy. It seems likely that in the long term, LTE will win out, but there are a few issues to be resolved.
This year’s UK event moved back to London into the massive Excel centre. The conference agenda was quite eclectic, raising questions about the WBA’s own longer-term ambitions. In addition to several conference presentations, I report on updates about CBRS, MulteFire and In-Building Managed Wireless services from Ruckus Wireless, Athonet and Boingo.
Prestigious hotel resort complexes need to deliver 21st Century wireless service. Neutral host provider ClearSky Technologies employed a novel technique to raise service levels for all guests and employees, regardless of which host network operator they subscribe to. Clearwater resort General Manager Paul Andrews shared his perspective on the project and what it means for his guests, employees and business.
We often hear how uncooperative municipal planners can be regarding approval for siting of urban small cells. Network operators have pushed hard at national levels to relax the rules, with success in many countries. One Californian city planner, speaking on a personal basis, provides an opposing view and cites examples where the rules have been abused and suggests ways to accelerate the process for the benefit of all.
Sometimes headline figures can be misleading. With both cellular and Wi-Fi claiming to have broken the Gigabit barrier, you might be surprised to learn that wired Gigabit Ethernet can still outperform. We clarify the terminology to ensure you are making a fair comparison. This is important when dimensioning Ethernet backhaul for Wi-Fi and small cells.
Paul Bruce, Director of Business Development at Node-H, argues that Enterprise small cell technology is technically mature and ready to be exploited. The much anticipated growth of this industry pivots on new business models, whether adopted by existing operators or by new market entrants seeking to address the special opportunities and requirements associated with in-building coverage.
50% of calls to complain about residential broadband relate to poor in-home Wi-Fi. The industry has responded with Wi-Fi access points that co-ordinate between themselves, wired or wirelessly, and many new products are coming to market. These dramatically improve performance towards that found from more costly Enterprise Wi-Fi solutions. How do these work, what do they cost and what are the longer term implications.
CBRS is a US scheme that dynamically allocates 3.5GHz spectrum on demand to anyone, such as a building owner, for their exclusive use. A similar scheme is being developed by ETSI for use in Europe in the 2.3 and 2.4GHz band. Both have huge potential for standalone or neutral host small cell networks, and incorporate strategies to avoid incumbent users being disadvantaged.
We often hear that video and virtual reality will drive huge growth in mobile data consumption. It’s a major theme for 5G. So last week I attended Virtual Reality World Congress to find out what all the fuss is about. It helped me clarify the differences in several immersive video technologies, realise that the majority of opportunities are business-related rather than purely for pleasure and that super low latency/super fast broadband aren't mandatory for all applications.
A significant number of users continue to report poor mobile coverage in their homes. There will always be areas which are uneconomic for mobile operator to reach. They range from rural areas
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The term Enterprise addresses any non-residential in-building including hotels, convention centres, transport hubs, offices, hospitals and retail outlets. It's not just intended for businesses to
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Urban small cells (sometimes also named metrocells) are compact and discrete mobile phone basestations, unobstrusively located in urban areas. They can be mounted on lampposts, positioned on the
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A rural small cell is a low power mobile phone base station designed to bring mobile phone service to small pockets of population in remote rural areas. These could be hamlets, small villages or
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