@ MWC: A-Lu, Powerwave introduce new small-cell strategies

BARCELONA, Spain – Advances in small-cell technology made their way onto the show floor at Mobile World Congress, as both Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) and Powerwave Technologies Inc. (PWAV) made breakthrough announcements about radio access technology.
Powerwave introduced an LTE Powerwave Picocell that delivers up to 15 times overall capacity for a lower cost and complexity than traditional macro cells. The picocell supports LTE and Wi-Fi technologies, so operators can use the same unit to offload data traffic to Wi-Fi networks, said Khurram Sheikh, CTO of the company.
“The new picocell is a key component of Powerwave’s Inside Out Solutions topology and supports both LTE and Wi-Fi technologies,” the company stated. “This powerful all-in-one compact base station enables wireless operators to inject broadband capacity closer to where their customers need it most. This gives each user a better signal and reduces network congestion, resulting in a faster experience and longer battery life. Additional benefits include less power consumption, faster zoning approvals and simpler installation.”
The unit is 3GPP Release 8 compliant, supports all 4G frequency bands from 700 MHz to 2.7 GHz and can simulateously support 100 active users and 1,000 registered users. The design includes antennas, filters, RF, baseband and control functions, and includes Self Optimized (SON) capabilities.
“Powerwave’s new picocell offers an economical way to build out existing network infrastructure that not only immediately meets today’s mobile user needs, but also provides for the future of 4G and beyond,” said Sheikh. “This product is a cornerstone of Powerwave’s Inside Out Solutions, which dramatically boost data throughput at any time for LTE and Wi-Fi systems, both indoors and outdoors, providing an enhanced experience no matter where the user is located.”
Powerwave also introduced a remote radio head featuring 65 MHz instantaneous bandwidth, thus eliminating the need to tune the product or use multiple products to cover multiple bands so carriers can deploy one radio head that can be software configured without having to physically visit the cell site. The integrated software defined radio allows operators a seamless migration path from 3G networks to LTE.
Building on its lightRadio Cube announcement last week, Alcatel-Lucent introduced two metro cells for 3G, an enterprise cell aimed at businesses and a home cell. The company said its 9363 and 9364 Metro Cells extend 3G wireless coverage and capacity to high-traffic public spaces, indoors and outdoors. Their plug-and-play and SON capabilities make them easy to deploy, the company said. Alcatel-Lucent’s 9363 and 9364 Metro Cells easily integrate into existing 3G networks. The company said operators could reduce their total cost of ownership by as much as 50% if they use metro cells rather than macrocells.
The company also announced the second generation of its 9362 Enterprise Cell, designed for businesses, and the 9361 Home Cell X-Series devices, which can connect up to eight simultaneous mobile users and is powered by a standard USB port.
Alcatel-Lucent’s lightRadio product shrinks base station technology down to the size of a Rubik’s Cube by moving some of the intelligence from the hardware to the cloud. Freescale and Hewlett-Packard Co. support the lightRadio product. “LightRadio represents a new architecture where the base station, typically located at the base of each cell site tower, is broken into its components elements and then distributed into both the antenna and throughout a cloud-like network,” Alcatel-Lucent said. “Additionally today’s clutter of antennas serving 2G, 3G, and LTE systems are combined and shrunk into a single powerful, Bell Labs-pioneered multi frequency, multi standard Wideband Active Array Antenna that can be mounted on poles, sides of buildings or anywhere else there is power and a broadband connection.”
The company counts about 150 patents around the technology, said Rajeev Singh-Morales, president of Alcatel-Lucent Asia Pacific. The company is working on field trials today and expects to bring the product to market in 2012. LightRadio consists of a wideband active array antenna, a multiband remote radio head, a baseband unit and controller, as well as A-Lu’s 5620 SAM common management solution.