Intelligent wireless routing ensures that peak demand will be met
More than 70% of mobile calls and more than 80% of mobile data usage today occurs indoors. The demand now is for reliable services and connectivity inside buildings in order to provide the same quality of experience for bandwidth-hungry applications no matter where a user is. In an ecosystem where demand for traffic capacity is extremely dynamic and where provisioned wireless capacity is static, traditional network architectures require a degree of over-provisioning to ensure that peak demand will always be met. This business model is not ideal because it implies a systematic waste of resources which makes it challenging for network operators to realize operating expense and capital expense savings.
In-building user experience and service quality are powerful differentiators in wireless services and providing reliable indoor coverage and capacity is not only expected, it’s demanded. To guarantee quality of service, network operators traditionally provide surplus capacity — up to 30% — to cover for peaks in each section of a service area, such as a building complex or a sports stadium. This means that significant amounts of valuable resources are wasted as these systematic buffers are dedicated to specific regions of the venue and cannot be shared with other zones. Allocation of resources to an area is static and cannot be changed without major overhaul of the entire infrastructure.
Several technologies exist to address the issue of indoor wireless connectivity, each with varying methodologies. For some time, distributed antenna systems and small cells have been the go-to approaches but they are not without their restrictions.
DAS provides indoor network capacity and coverage by enabling radio resources to be distributed throughout a venue. During the implementation process, network designers have to spend massive amounts of time and resources in the planning phase, taking into account a wealth of concerns including cabling requirements and support for single- or multi-carriers, to architectural and aesthetic considerations. DAS is able to accomplish what it’s originally created for and just that — to distribute wireless resources within a service area. Its static allocation of capacity between base stations and antennas, and inability to dynamically transport network resources to where and when they are needed, makes it an inflexible solution that doesn’t maximize opex and capex savings because operators are still required to over-provision for optimal QoE.
Alternatively, small cells may be simple and relatively inexpensive to implement — initially — but the technology racks up considerable opex due to the need to deploy massive quantities of those. Even with the sheer number of deployed small cells coexisting in a service area, each individual cell is unable to share network resources with one another. Although small cells have a multitude of applications — from the home, to outdoors for public users, and within an enterprise for indoor users — the associated costs of configuration and post-deployment management and maintenance deem small cells a costly, resource-intensive, and complex technology which doesn’t solve problematic over-provisioning.
Network operators require a flexible, scalable and more intelligent architecture to efficiently and effectively manage network resources, and maximize opex and capex-savings or maximize the usable resources. RF routing is an innovative architecture which creates a radio distribution network that in fact virtualizes the radio access network and ultimately puts an end to systematic over-provisioning. By virtualizing the RAN, wireless capacity from all radio access technologies, spare capacity sitting idle in one part of the service area can be dynamically routed within the system to another part that may be in need of additional capacity, such as to cover a temporary peak in use. This ensures that no usable capacity is wasted, allowing network operators to maximize QoE and QoS for every device and user on the network. Reallocating radio resources to where they are needed and when they are required removes the need to over-provision by intelligently adapting to the capacity of users in a certain region of the service area. Additionally, RF routing is fully software-configurable and software-controlled, empowering network operators to manage and maintain the networks remotely without having to deploy technicians into the field.
The demand for reliable wireless indoor services is not a passing trend. Mobile communications usage has massively shifted from outdoor to indoor environments. The ubiquitous use of bandwidth-hungry wireless devices has made in-building wireless systems essential, much like standard building utilities such as water and electricity. Rapid development of new wireless technologies and the subsequent introduction of new wireless services call for a flexible and scalable architecture that is future-proof and capable of managing the exponential growth of traffic volumes. Intelligent RF capacity routing empowers network operators to provide wireless services today and have the resources to manage the anticipated exponential increase in mobile data traffic of tomorrow. It also puts an end to over-provisioning and the systematic waste of resources while saving network operators from costs associated with network operations, ensuring that they can positively affect their bottom line.
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