There are several competing standards for ubiquitous wireless connection of the Internet of Things, including two specific to LTE alone. Operators are actively deploying both on a nationwide basis. We summarise what these are, review their commercial status and consider the implications.
One of the areas of confusion and even misinformation relates to control of calls when entering and leaving a building. In the early days of 3G femtocells, hand-in wasn’t supported and hand-out was more by luck than judgment. The situation has evolved considerably by enhancement of the 3G standards and inherent features within the 4G standard. A combination of improved RF planning and SON automation provides a complementary toolkit to address the problem.
Today the MulteFire Alliance released its first formal specification Release 1.0. We spoke with Mazen Chmaytelli, President of the MulteFire Alliance, to understand the current scope, progress to date and the next steps towards commercial deployment.
While the press hype up and distract you about the long term potential of 5G, there is a quiet revolution in progress. Almost everywhere, you will find most mobile operators around the world are quietly reallocating their spectrum, upgrading from 2G to 3G and 4G. Some have switched off 2G entirely. This has implications for smartphones, small cells and infrastructure choices in the coming years ahead.
Roaming, where cellular service is provided by partner networks, has been a tremendous benefit for foreign travel – extending coverage to all corners of the globe. National roaming is used in relatively few countries to fill in isolated pockets that may be otherwise uncommercial. The success of neutral host enabled small cells will rely on successful national roaming agreements. What’s involved and how could it come to pass?
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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