05 July 2016
CCS and Luminet and plan to rollout a small cell network across London. The partners say this will enable enterprises to receive up to 1Gbps internet access, and also provide mobile operators with readily-available wireless backhaul for their small cell deployments.
CCS (Cambridge Communication Systems) specialties in self-organising wireless backhaul for small cell, Wi-Fi, CCTV, Smart City and enterprise access applications.
Its discreet Metnet system has been designed for street installation, and is based on what’s described as a unique multipoint-to-multipoint architecture.
According to CCS, although small cells are recognised as the ideal solution for operators to cope with the increase in mobile data, deployment is often hindered by site acquisition and associated planning approvals.
The company aims to address this through its partnership with managed service provider and ISP Luminet. The latter already has more than 1,900 sites in London via its fixed wireless access infrastructure. It also has two 112MHz frequency channels in perpetuity at 28GHz for the M25 region which will be used by CCS’ Metnet system.
Luminet has integrated its 3D mapping and site database into the Metnet planning tool in an effort to simplify the design and planning stage of each London small cell deployment.
The 3D map data provided by Luminet will identify demand hotspots in the capital for on-net delivery. It is claimed to be “highly accurate”, with a resolution of less than one metre, allowing for reliable one-by-one or mass predictions without the need for physical site surveys.
“The combination of Luminet’s sites and spectrum assets with our self-organising wireless backhaul is a catalyst for improving mobile services across London,” says Steve Greaves, CEO, CCS. “Our flexible mesh architecture enables us to automatically adjust the backhaul topology and assign capacity to wherever mobile operators decide to roll out small cells using Luminet sites. This partnership will simplify and reduce the cost of operators’ small cell deployments considerably.”
CCS and Luminet says their wireless backhaul network is planned for 23 partitions and 250 polygons across 1,050 small cell sites, enabling a transit capacity of 0.012 GkM (Gbps/km2/MHz).
The Small Cell Forum anticipates a demand of 0.01 GkM for urban peak data density in London. However, according to Mobile-Experts.Net, this demand has already reached 0.015 to 0.02 GkM for some hotspots in London.