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Deploying and Managing Femtocells in Today's Mobile Networks
Consumers have begun to demand ubiquitous voice and broadband data connectivity from their mobile networks, from inside buildings and from the convenience of their own homes. Operators can achieve this indoor coverage by deploying more towers with large base stations coupled with paid backhaul links to each tower; however, this approach is prohibitively expensive to deploy and operate. This situation is driving operators to explore alternative, cost-effective solutions for increasing wireless coverage indoors.
One option that has been considered is leveraging WiFi access points in combination with a cellular infrastructure to enable a cost-effective offload of data and voice services. While technically feasible, this model has presented challenges to operators, such as the lack of wide availability of handsets with WiFi radios. Additionally, operators find it difficult to ensure Quality of Service (QoS) over unlicensed and interference-prone WiFi connections, keep subscribers on the service provider's network, and effectively manage subscribers in a standardized way.
An alternate solution gaining momentum among both mobile operators and their customers is femtocells. Femtocells are miniature base stations, based on WiMAX or 3G technologies that are deployed within buildings or homes. This model enables lower-power, lower-cost base station designs similar to WiFi Access Points (WAPs). Backhaul traffic from femtocells can piggyback on existing broadband connectivity to the building or home, further reducing the cost and expense of deploying a wireless infrastructure. Linking the femtocells with macrocell base stations and other wireless infrastructure promises service providers a homogenous network infrastructure that can leverage uniform management, security, QoS, provisioning, and billing. This model also eliminates the need for an additional WiFi radio in the handset.
Despite these benefits, making the femtocell vision a reality requires tackling a number of technical hurdles. It is not simply a matter of building lower cost base stations. Operators must also provide the appropriate end-to-end architecture to ensure proper coordination between femtocells and macrocells, simplified provisioning, sufficient security, seamless handovers and reasonable overall cost of deployment and operation. Operators that want to take advantage of this market opportunity must address these challenges, and integrate the right tools and network intelligence to address them.
Management and Provisioning
Rather than hundreds of base stations in a given geographic region, the femtocell model calls for hundreds of thousands of smaller, cheaper base stations in a similar footprint. This introduces challenges to the traditional models for management and control of base stations. With the residential market, for example, femtocells need to be plug-and-play devices that connect automatically to the operator's network without a lot of complicated steps and procedures. Furthermore, terminating sessions from the vast number of femtocells will require high capacity access service gateways (e.g., WiMAX ASN Gateways). These devices will need to manage and control interactions between the femtocells and the wireless network infrastructure.
Security
Deploying femtocells within buildings and homes requires additional security to ensure integrity of the traffic. Since all voice and data traffic going to femtocells travels over public networks, this traffic needs to be secured using encryption. Authentication is also important to ensure rogue femtocells are not able to join the network and subscribers are properly identified and authorized to use the service. These requirements drive the need for centralized gateways that can support encryption and authentication on a large scale.
Spectral and Mobility Management
Since femtocells use an operator's limited licensed spectrum, effective sharing of spectrum among femtocells and between femtocells and macro base stations is essential. Carriers also want to ensure proper handoffs among femtocells and between femtocells and macrocells. Mobility management in the femtocell model is more challenging than mobility management between a WiFi network and a cellular network, as in the latter case, the handset has two radios that create two independent connections to the network core before handoff. Centralized intelligence and control in access service gateways enable carriers to manage the valuable spectral resource and ensure seamless handovers for real-time services such as voice or video.
Cost Efficiencies
Another critical factor for this model to work, is achieving very low cost femtocells. Some operators have indicated that femtocells need to cost less than $100 - a far cry from typical base stations that can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Meeting this price requires highly integrated base station chipsets and the elimination of complex base-station functionality that can be more efficiently handled by a centralized gateway solution.
Standards and Interoperability
Perhaps one of the biggest challenges for femtocells is the coordination of standards and interoperability. The Femto Forum was recently created to help drive this ecosystem and promote interoperability. Vendors with diverse technologies are attempting to work together to solve a common problem; yet, each brings its legacy perspective of interfaces, making it challenging to find a single solution. In some respects, the concept of standards-based, mass-consumer femtocells is at odds with the traditionally closed architectures that large telecom vendors have built over the last few decades. WiMAX may have an edge in this area, as this technology was born out of IEEE and IETF's IP protocol, both of which have a history of open standards, interoperability, and letting the market dictate which solutions are superior. Success with femtocells will require this new type of "open market" thinking. As they say, a rising tide will float all boats.
Bringing Order to Chaos
The femto model is very compelling, but the industry will need to overcome these challenges for femtocells to become a mainstream technology. A critical component of the solution will be an access service gateway, or ASN Gateway in WiMAX networks. This is an intelligent core platform that provides centralized coordination and management of hundreds or thousands of femtocell base stations. Such a solution can help offload cost and complexity within the femtocells and ensure optimal overall network performance.
Different solutions for the enterprise and the home will likely emerge. Within enterprises or large public buildings, such as airports or shopping malls, carriers will likely deploy small intelligent access service gateways that can manage several femtocells and ensure optimal performance. These networks will involve a higher number of inter-femto handovers and increased spectral coordination between femtocells. For residential deployments, the access service gateway will likely be deployed within the carrier's network and serve several subscribers. For these deployments, handovers and coordination will be between femtocells and macrocells.
The femtocell model is an exciting vision that can enable ubiquitous broadband wireless access. Before this vision becomes a reality, however, the industry will have to tackle several issues to provide the right cost points, manageability, and performance to enable broad adoption. A critical piece of this network will be centralized, intelligent control in the form of access service gateways - a solution that enables simpler, lower-cost femtocells and provides the necessary coordination to ensure optimal end-to-end network performance.
By: Eric Andrews
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Cisco’s Navini Acquisition
Marketwire reports that Cisco Systems has completed its acquisition of Mobile WiMAX leader Navini Networks. The acquisition is representative of Cisco’s decision to expand from the WiFi industry into WiMAX and next generation products and services.
In addition to ensuring that Cisco has a hand in newer technologies, the acquisition of Navini Networks may also help Cisco further develop its international reach.
Since WiMAX is being deployed extensively in emerging countries that previously could not integrate wired connections, Cisco now has an opportunity to provide WiMAX to these areas and expand its reach.
According to the article, “Cisco plans to integrate Navini into its Wireless Technology Group, under the Access Networking and Services Group.” The completion of this acquisition puts Cisco on the map with Sprint, Motorola and Intel as one of the big supporters of WiMAX–providing further impetus for WiMAX deployment and development, and more big names behind a technology that is still building its reputation in the tech community.
Ari Zoldan
Launch 3
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802.16-2004 Certification: 2 Years Later
The first WiMAX-certified radios started appearing in Q1 2006. Two years later, what has been the impact in the market of having fully WiMAX-certified equipment? What has been the impact on volumes and equipment pricing? Has standardization kept its promises?
In a context where wave 2 of 802.16-2005 is proving difficult for multiple vendors to meet and for full testing to be accomplished on time, the importance of having certified products remains unclear. Do carriers care more about certification or product performance?
Who has certified equipment?
Judging from our regular interviews with vendors, not many agree on what to call a WiMAX radio, but there is no debate at least as far as what is a certified product. The following chart lists all the certified radios as of December 2007, as well as the dates of actual certification. Where equipment has been certified at various dates, we have indicated when it was first available.
In trying to assess the impact of certification, we have concentrated our vendor discussions on those who had certified equipment at least for a full year.
Volumes
Most vendors have reported increased volumes of certified products, starting in the second half of 2006. Between Q3 2006 and Q4 2007, the average growth of certified equipment ranges from 25% to 100% annualized. Those are quite impressive numbers, and most vendors report that 30% to 50% of RFPs now require vendors to include certified equipment. Over the same period, we see a steady decline in the sales of 3.5 GHz proprietary equipment, being replaced with standard equipment. The exception is SR Telecom, which has seen surprising growth of shipments for its proprietary Symmetry I. Serge Legris, VP Marketing, explained the phenomenon by the fact that Symmetry provides its customers very narrow channels (1 MHz) and small amount of spectrum (5 MHz or less), enabling them to serve more subscribers than with wider channels. However, SR Telecom foresees 2008 shipments to be dominated by its WiMAX-certified portfolio. Selex and Proxim also reported disappointing figures for shipments of certified equipment, which may be due partly to company and product positioning.
Redline claims it has shipped 1000 sectors since certification and over $35 million of certified products in 2007. Redline also has seen 147% growth of revenues between 2005 and 2007. Certification has resulted in cost reduction from 2 sources: higher volumes and greater efficiencies in the manufacturing process and design platforms.
Telsima is the only WiMAX-certified system vendor to sell only certified equipment. Thus shipments really started from zero, but grew impressively to more than 10,000 sectors shipped in 2007. CPE density per sector remains low, but should increase in 2008. Telsima is a good example of a vendor becoming successful in a very price-sensitive market while still differentiating on cost structure.
Aperto also indicated significant growth rates of certified equipment in the past 5 quarters, after a rather slow start Sales of rev d equipment started slowly in 2006 but picked up in the second half of the year.
Axxcelera also confirms that certification resulted in volumes increasing 25% from 2006 to 2007. Jerry Kollmann, VP sales, explained, “OFDM systems allowed coverage in areas not reached before, which is boosting demand.”
Chipset manufacturer Sequans is also bullish. Bernard Aboussouan, VP marketing, notes that shipments have tripled in 2007 compared to the previous year and that Sequans is now estimated to hold a 30% market share. Notable rev d customers include Telsima, Airspan, and Axxcelera. Aboussouan added that the increase in volumes has created manufacturing efficiencies with the involvement of ODMS in Taiwan on the CPE side, which along with standardization, allowed a 50% decrease in the bill of materials (BOM). Sequans expects shipments to increase by 5 times in 2008, most of it being 802.16e chipsets.
Interestingly, Sequans notes that no operator has deployed truly interoperable equipment in the field, that is, base station from vendor A operating with equipment from vendor B. This reality has been confirmed in our discussions with most other vendors who have certified products. Further, some vendors who interoperated 2 years ago have made software changes and upgrades that may or not allow interoperability today!
Bill of materials and pricing
The cost of a CPE is composed of various elements. Certification and standardization have had an impact on the cost of baseband and the RFICs. According to Sequans, the average cost (for large volumes) of a baseband has decreased from $35 in 2006 to less than $20 today. The cost of an RFIC was also cut in half from $20 in 2006 to less than $10 today.
Kevin Suitor at Redline added that each generation of standard brings a steady cost reduction. First came 802.16a with outdoor CPEs selling at $600, then 801.16d CPEs at $300, 802.16e CPEs at $250, and 802.16m CPEs that will sell at under $200.
From the system vendor perspective, Alvarion noted that the introduction of standard-based WiMAX chips into WiMAX CPEs (i.e., Intel Rosedale chip) provided a cost reduction of 40% on the CPE. Further cost reduction efforts allowed additional cost cutting, thus achieving an overall 55% cost reduction in 2007 compared with 2005. On the base station side, however, Alvarion failed to experience a major cost reduction because it is not WiMAX chip-based at this time. Alvarion is using high performance DSP+FPGA design.
Aperto agreed that the effects of price decline were felt deeper at the CPE level, with CPE prices roughly cut in half between Q1 2006 and Q3 2007, from $500 to $250-300 for outdoor CPEs. Price reduction is a result of greater volumes as well as ODM manufacturing improvements. Price declines in base stations were not as great, but still 10-15% per year with average price per sector in the $7,000-10,000 range for certified equipment and $9,000-12,000 for non-certified equipment.
What is next?
802.16-2004 has now a 2-year history with overall very positive effects of greater volumes and a drastic reduction of equipment cost and pricing, despite that the overall volumes are still relatively modest compared to the promise of mobile WiMAX.
The effects of 802.16-2005, despite possible delays, will certainly be more spectacular in terms of both volumes and equipment price decline, but the challenges posed by LTE or UMB will be equally great. More analysis and findings will be available in our upcoming report “WiMAX & Broadband Wireless (Sub-11GHz) Worldwide Market Trends 2008-2014 – 5th Edition.“
Happy New Year to all of you!!!
For more information you can contact the author. afellah@maravedis-bwa.com
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WiBro subscriber numbers: Korea Telecom (KT) far ahead of SK Telecom
Korea Telecom (KT) and SK Telecom launched WiBro services back in June of 2006. While SK Telecom has been very slow in its progress related to WiBro service rollout, KT has moved far ahead. Despite that both companies used a Korean variant of mobile WiMAX that lacks the MIMO, beamforming, and frequency flexibility of mobile WiMAX (802.16e-2005), the reality so far is not as bright as was expected by SK Telecom.
SK Telecom has failed to lure as many customers as expected for its WiBro offering. That is partly because WiBro has taken a backseat at SK Telecom. The operator is currently focusing more on High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) technology.
SK Telecom is unenthusiastic about continuing with its WiBro offering using the currently available technology. The operator has decided not to deploy Wave 1 in any major way. SK Telecom expects the WiBro market in Korea to gain momentum once the products with Wave 2 functionality are deployed, and the company is now focused on Wave 2. It is expected that the real Wave 2 deployments will not happen until Q1 2008 for SK Telecom.
SK Telecom has selected Samsung as its equipment provider for Wave 2 deployments. The two companies are working very closely on all base station deployments. SK Telecom is also working with some of the terminal vendors. These include data card and handset vendors. The investments are considerable. SK Telecom is also making investments in developing a technology that provides a fairly smooth handover between a 3G cellular network and a WiBro network. There is a lot of effort being put into MIH (Media Independent Handover). IEEE 802.21 is referred to as the Multimedia Independent Handover or Media Independent Handover (MIH) standard. That is the kind of model that the company foresees. This will be one of the big differentiators for SK Telecom.
SK Telecom is focusing WiBro towards universities and colleges. The operator expects WiBro deployments to happen more in strategic Hot Zones in Korea and is now working towards increasing the number of Hot Zones. But the competition is already mounting from KT, which has WiBro deployments in the Seoul metropolitan region and 17 universities. Moreover, the operator is expanding beyond Seoul. There are some 80 cities that are expected to be covered by 2008.
These include Ulsan, Busan, Daegu, Incheon, Daeieo, and Gwangju. KT expects to have nationwide deployments by mid-2009. As of Q3 2007, KT had 64,361 WiBro subscribers, whereas SK Telecom had 1,000. As of November 2007, KT had more than 90,000 WiBro subscribers. The operator is targeting to reach 100,000 WiBro subscribers by year-end 2007, 350,000 by year-end 2008, 1.2 million by 2009, and 4 million by 2012. So far, 600 base stations have been deployed by Samsung with KT, which represents a density of 167 subscribers per base station. Half of the subscribers use Samsung devices, while the rest use LG equipment.
KT has an aggressive WiBro marketing campaign in place and has created a Mobile 2.0 cultural space called "W Style Shop," where visitors can experience, share, and recreate various mobile cultures as well as getting a firsthand experience of WiBro. KT is investing to improve network coverage, primarily in-building coverage in Seoul and key metropolitan regions. The operator is also investing to diversify usage of the USB modem, the primary terminal form factor for WiBro service.
The WiBro subscriber base that uses USB modems stands at just over 70,000 for KT. There are also some investments in launching budget laptops and embedded chips in diverse digital devices to make WiBro even more attractive. KT is promoting WiBro phones, which currently have 12,600 subscribers. The operator has introduced a service named “KT WiBro + Nespot POP”. The service enables people to use Nespot POP wireless LAN service as well as WiBro service. The tariff for using Nespot POP service is 15,000 KRW per month. WiBro subscribers can get a 43 percent discount. KT has introduced an improved tariff structure and is also introducing promotional rates for WiBro. The WiBro tariff is far more attractive than the HSDPA tariff. The table below shows the comparison.
Korea Telecom Tariff Comparison: WiBro vs HSDPA
It is expected that Wave 2 technology is going to be the major driver for WiBro in the coming years in Korea. SK Telecom has decided to deploy Wave 2 to lure customers. But the operator still needs to focus more on marketing its service. The operator also needs to make the WiBro tariff attractive as compared to the HSDPA tariff. That could go a long way in increasing its WiBro subscriber base. It is further expected that KT might upgrade its network to Wave 2.
Korea has a fairly established broadcasting network called Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB). The DMB service is available via satellite (S-DMB) or terrestrial (T-DMB) transmission. Multimedia broadcasting is not expected to be deployed over the WiBro network. Services such as VoIP, multi-user gaming, and HIS (High-Speed Internet) are going to be the real drivers for WiBro in Korea. It is further expected that the demand will be more for the consumer applications than the enterprise applications.
For more information you can contact the author. Basharat@maravedis-bwa.com
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WiMAX and LTE comparison
Got LTE success story? - As all who read my blogs know-I'm a WiMAX evangelist. That disclaimer given, let me rip into all the LTE-friendly press we've been seeing lately. First let me open up the recent Verizon LTE announcement with my Cutco filleting knife. While that was a very nice press release, there exist a number of requirements for investors to "suspend disbelief" over Verizon's announcement:
1. For a roll-out to be something other than a Buck Rogers, pie-in-the-sky, press release for stock price speculation, Verizon will have to budget billions of dollars for timely network wide deployments of LTE base station radios. Given LTE technology will be in the hands of only a handful of vendors, that will require huge outlays of CAPEX ("billions and billions" of dollars in Carl Sagan terms) in order to be credible.
2. The average Verizon base station, like the rest of cellular base stations might have something in the neighborhood of 4 T1s feeding them for a total of about 6 Mbps of aggregate bandwidth in and out of the base station. Please enlighten us, VZ, on what the advantage of a 100 Mbps fixed connection subscriber to base station or a 50 Mbps mobile connection might be when the maximum connection beyond the base station is a mere 6 Mbps? The question for Wall Street analysts should be "How is VZ going to get each base station up to gigabit per second speeds?"
3. Got VoIP? While no marble tablets state this explicitly, 4G voice is VoIP. Almost all cellular voice today leverages existing circuit switching from aging Lucent and Nortel switching technologies of the 1980s. The last raft of circuit switches were sold in 1998. While the press reports dwell on base station to subscriber speeds, no mention was made of an accompanying announcement on shifting away from the MSC/TDM/teclo central office core technology and integrating IMS core technology. That is, having fast wireless technology is nice but if there is no investment of a few billion dollars more in updating to a 4G core, then there is the potential for significant stumbles on the horizon.
4. Got video? Being able to offer 50 Mbps speeds to subscribers going 70 MPH should generate discussions on a 4G or IPTV for mobile TV discussion. The press is sadly lacking on that note
5. Perhaps the announcement of LTE was well-timed maneuver aimed at a garnering some positive publicity at a pregnant moment over the Sprint Nextel Clearwire news?
Frank Ohrtman
WMX Systems
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WiMAX Progress, With a Spotlight on Motorola
A Motorola press release published today highlights some noteworthy WiMAX stats with a view to the progress made in 2007. WiMAX contracts, engagements and the number of countries involved have all increased, with active trials continuing around the world. Chipsets are continually be tested and developed.
Motorola also highlights its role in building networks in France, Germany and Pakistan. The company’s active involvement in WiMAX has earned it significant recognition, including a couple of “Best of WiMAX World” awards.
Statistics aside, Senior Vice President, WiMAX and Cellular Networks, Motorola Home & Networks Mobility, Fred Wright is quoted rather idealistically:
“With the recent and impeding launches of commercial service by major broadband wireless operators worldwide, WiMAX is set to become a mainstream broadband wireless technology at least two years ahead of other alternative technologies.
While we spend the majority of 2007 proving the commerical viability of WiMAX technology, we will see the commercial launch of dozens of WiMAX systems in 2008 with a wide variety of customer premises equipment, PC cards, mobile devices, and innovative applications.”
If indeed this year was a time for proving the viability of WiMAX services, next year is truly the year to look forward to with respect to increases in WiMAX’s users as well as its acceptability to mainstream tech users.
Of note too: as a nod to Sprint, Motorola’s press release describes Sprint’s Xohm rollout as being “on track.”
Ari Zoldan
Launch 3
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WiMAX Market Penetration Strategies
Given the low cost and adaptability of WiMAX a series of market verticals enable service providers to line up anchor tenants from which larger networks are grown.
The PSTN as we know it, was built on a one-size-fits-all plan and, given the relative high cost of building out such networks, they had to be done on an economy of scale that in turn, led to a "well regulated monopoly" with government mandated "universal service" (ie the service provider must service everyone). WiMAX is the inverse. The relative low cost of WiMAX (including licensed spectrum) compared to building out a copper wire and big phone switch PSTN when coupled with the high ARPU through offering a series of services enables service providers to roll out services quickly and inexpensively.
One strategy for WiMAX service providers is to line up an enterprise tenant with multiple locations across a given market, a petroleum company with 100 gas stations across Los Angeles for example. In the initial roll-out, the base stations provide service to the gas stations in their zone of coverage. The subscription fees from the big petroleum retailer offer a reasonable return on investment. Fortunately, the gas stations take up only a small portion of the capacity of the base stations (think 500 simultaneous sessions). This enables a service provider to fill up the capacities on those base stations with other enterprise or even residential subscribers. Its all gravy from there.
The enterprise anchor tenant(s) could be a range of industries. Transportation, think delivery services like FEDEX) could always use more intelligence in their services. Imagine the beer or Coke distributor knowing exactly which retail outlets and vending machines need stocking. How many man hours and gallons of diesel fule would that save every day in any given city?
Memo to WiMAX business world: define an industry, get an anchor tenant in that industry, build out the network for the anchor tenant and then pile on the other subs for fun and profit!
Frank Ohrtman
WMX Systems
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WiMAX CPE Costs - A nice discussion on WiMAX360
The cost of WiMAX CPE's is a critical factor in the ROI of any large WiMAX or Wireless Broadband Development. We have a very good discussion on WiMAX360.com detailing what some of the costs are from a variety of WiMAX equipment companies.
Question posted:
Does anybody have an idea on costs of wimax customer premises equipments and wimax handsets also will WiMAX use simm cards?
Best Answer:
Hi!
It greatly depends on the type of CPE: from PCMCIA to Outdoor CPE and modem CPE, the price will vary coz their performances vary accordingly. For instance, modem CPE will likely have 2 or 3 antenna (eg Motorla and Navini respectively) when PCMCIA have only 1.
Also, it's likely that until mid-2008, the vendors will on 1 hand advertise their IOT and ability to support other vendors' BS and CPE. On the other hand, advice their customers to rather use their own CPE as the performance will (indeed) be better.
In 2007, it's likely that the price for modem CPE will stay around 200-300 and outdoor CPE above 400 USD.
To view the discussion please click here: http://www.wimax360.com/forum/topic/show?id=610217%3ATopic%3A17095
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Envisioning 4G: WiMAX Gets Some Positive Buzz December 13
The Chicago Tribune features an article that imagines the future of 4G in America; a world in which video conferences can be accessed via mobile devices and cameras and iPods can be used to share images and music with others in real time.
WiMAX is included among these idyllic images of America’s technological future. LTE and WiMAX were naturally expounded upon as the two great 4G contenders. According to the article, WiMAX is seen as having a greater presence simply because it is being developed sooner than LTE. Sprint, Verizon, Motorola and Samsung are all mentioned, with a particular focus on Motorola, who is “conducting 40 WiMax demonstration trials worldwide and has signed 13 contracts for commercial service.” To see an article in a mainstream paper highlighting WiMAX as an up and coming technology is a great sign for the industry and great for inspiring interest in a technology that remains somewhat unknown among the average American tech user.
Technorati Tags: WiMAX, 4G, LTE, Motorola, Ari Zoldan
Ari Zoldan
Launch 3 Communications
Xohm soft launch of WiMAX services
Chicago, Baltimore and Washington DC will be the first cities for the soft launch
Just heard from a trusted source at Sprint that
the Xohm soft launch will be deployed
in multiple stages over the next few months. The stage one soft launch initiates
later this month with employees in Chicago, Baltimore and Washington DC; stage
two soft launch will be broadened during the first quarter to include partners
and friendly customers.
The network will continue to be optimized for the customer network experience
with preparations for start of commercial service in the second quarter. Beta
users will gain experience with network access options and also the Xohm portal
and various applications.
Mike Wolleben
WiMAX.com
