20 WEDNESDAY 14th NOVEMBER 2012 FEATURE | CommScope


AS THE AFRICAN TELECOMS MARKET CONTINUES DOWN A PATH TOWARDS NEXT-GENERATION TECHNOLOGIES, OPERATORS MUST INTRODUCE THE RIGHT TECHNOLOGIES TO BENEFIT BOTH SUBSCRIBERS AND THE BOTTOM LINE. FROM SEAMLESS IN-BUILDING WIRELESS CONNECTIVITY, TO RAPIDLY DOUBLING CAPACITY THROUGH ACTIVE ANTENNAS, DEPLOYING THE RIGHT SOLUTIONS WILL BE CRITICAL.


By Vick Mamlouk, Vice President – Middle-East and Africa at CommScope, outlines why deploying new technologies that meet both coverage and capacity demands will be the main objective for African mobile operators in the coming year.


Coverage and capacity: from the top of the tower to the bottom line


UBIQUITOUS COVERAGE From public transport networks to large public structures like stadiums, office buildings and residential blocks, the need for ubiquitous mobile coverage is a pressing issue. Subscribers now consider mobile connectivity an indispensable utility and demand instant access to a range of services. If such services are not available, operators not only miss out on revenue opportunities, but their customers may become frustrated by the lack of connectiv- ity and potentially look elsewhere. With approximately 75 percent of mobile


calls originating or terminating inside buildings, effective in-building wireless coverage is essential. Unfortunately, the priorities for building developers are clearly aesthetics, efficiency and comfort and these same features are often the enemy of wire- less technology, resulting in poor coverage due to the heavy use of thick concrete and steel during construction. This issue will


Vick Mamlouk


used in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, and it proved to be a highly effec- tive and efficient way to eliminate wireless ‘dead zones’ and meet capacity demands. In public transport systems, the lack of connectivity can be overcome by fitting in- train repeaters, which transmit and receive wireless signals to passenger’s handheld devices recovering the high penetration loss caused by the carriage’s metalised structure to the signal coming from outside.


Join our workshops!


Give us 30 minutes and we’ll give you a new perspective on your RF path and show you how easy it is to gain a competitive edge with DAS technology


Best practices for implementation of new cell site technology Philip Sorrells – VP Site Solutions 11am – 3pm


stand MR8


Overcoming Coverage and Capacity Challenges Associated with In Building and High Density locations Rafael Marques – Manager, Engineering Projects, Sub-Saharan Africa 12pm – 2pm


stand MR8


become paramount as the African market moves to LTE, since - while its higher frequency (2.6GHz) offers more bandwidth - it penetrates structures less effectively. Similarly, for public transport systems the pure velocity of trains, their metalised win- dows or track running through tunnels can dramatically reduce wireless signal penetra- tion, resulting in spotty coverage. The most effective way to ensure in-


building coverage is through a Distrib- uted Antenna System (DAS), where radio frequency (RF) signals are routed through fibre or copper cabling from a single base station to multiple antennas located throughout the building. CommScope installed such a solution in all ten venues


Instead of waiting for capacity and cover-


age issues to present themselves at the most inconvenient and costly time, building owners, developers and transport managers must choose to safeguard their investment and provide the infrastructure necessary to solve the wireless problems of tomorrow, today. By engaging early, CommScope can significantly reduce the time and expense of deploying and managing a wireless DAS, thus simplifying and streamlining the user experience and ensuring minimal network disruption and maximum revenue.


UBIQUITOUS CAPACITY While in-building coverage is a challenge, it is essentially the extension of one which


has faced operators worldwide for decades: the race to make coverage universal. But Af- rican mobile networks are evolving to also require greater capacity. With every passing year networks must support a growing vol- ume of data traffic thanks to increasingly sophisticated mobile devices and the arrival of LTE. Smartphone penetration rates in Africa now stand at around 18 percent and LTE is quickly gaining momentum with 11 million customers predicted by 2015, surg- ing to approximately 40 million by 2017. The increasing popularity of mobile data


services is putting immense pressure on operators to physically expand networks to support more data traffic, either through the construction of new base stations or by adding additional antennas to existing towers, raising their total cost of owner- ship. But a new generation of evolved and highly-integrated “active antennas” may hold the key for operators looking to migrate to new technologies and increase capacity – all while reducing their overall cost of ownership. Active Antenna Systems (AAS) provide


operators with a means to support larger volumes of subscribers (and thus gener- ate more revenue) by providing the ability to sectorise coverage areas vertically. Most sectorisation is currently performed in the horizontal plane of the coverage area, but this opens up another avenue for capac- ity efficiency. Currently, if an operator has a sector at maximum capacity the only option is to deploy additional antennas or build another cell site. With active antenna technology, operators can take that sector, split it again vertically and come close to doubling its capacity – improving the service for subscribers and generating more revenue. Capacity of existing sites can also be


increased by reconfiguring the antenna beam based on predictable customer traf- fic load. Due to this unique capability of remote radio heads to provide adaptive coverage, flexible interference mitigation, and advanced load balancing, network capacity can be effectively doubled without a single new tower being built or antenna added. CapEx can also be slashed by half and OpEx can be significantly re- duced in the long-term due to lower costs for tower leasing.


SUPPORTING THE PAST AND FUTURE Coverage and capacity challenges are key for African operators as they deploy new technologies like LTE and WiMAX, but they also face a long list of legacy technologies that their networks must continue to sup- port well into the future. Introducing new technology into an


existing network requires careful plan- ning and excellent execution in order to protect the current network whilst rapidly deploying new capabilities. Often times, considerations for migrating the RF Path to compliment new and existing technologies are under planned or not considered at all. This can lead to substandard performance, schedule delays and major cost overruns. Supporting a variety of technologies


across multiple frequency bands - while continuing to meet customer expectations for quality, speed and coverage - creates sig- nificant challenges due to a more crowded RF path. As more carriers look to migrate to higher capacity LTE technologies, AAS once again has a crucial role to play. Active antennas enable operators to consolidate their physical footprint on the tower while providing greater control, pattern qual- ity, and operational efficiency to ensure that the crowded spectrum does not cause interference. Going forward, this trend towards mul-


tiple bands and new air interface standards will no doubt continue. Likewise, the AAS architecture is designed to evolve as well, advancing from single-band active arrays to active-passive antenna arrays in which the active array deploys new services and legacy standards are managed through the passive array.


CONCLUSION African operators are now at a critical juncture. It will be those who squeeze the highest level of performance from their networks that will thrive well into the fu- ture. This is especially critical in countries where ARPUs tend to be lower, and the price for making the wrong choice can he high indeed.


AFRICACOM DAILY 2012 I http://africa.comworldseries.com/


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