This is a sad day, in the tower industry. According to reports in The Washington Post and WJLA in DC, a climber fell and died from a tower near the WSSC treatment plant in Damascus, Md.
About 3Pm on Monday, May 16th the Montgomery police responded to a call and they are treating it like a workplace death.
Once again the FCC is working to improve broadband access in the USA. For that, I say thank you. This time they had a workshop to understand what DAS is and what small cells do. Hey, the FCC is busy trying to improve this wireless world for you!
So what did we learn? We learned that this is a great way to promote your company. Sorry, but that’s what many people did However, I did learn a lot from this.
Distributed Antenna System, DAS, is mostly associate with indoor coverage. Although, there is outdoor DAS where they deploy radio heads like they would small cells.
Small cells are really small cellular BTS systems that offer a low power, small foot print unit that can be deployed indoors or outdoors.
This workshop was a showcase of studies showing how the DAS and small cell solutions can provide a multitude of solutions for public safety and carriers.
For public safety, DAS provides first responders with indoor coverage so that the communications are reliable for anyone entering a building in an emergency situation can remain in contact with their teams. In today’s world this is absolutely critical. The desired signal for first responders is above -95dB. This should allow fire rescue, police, and emergency responders to maintain RF coverage in all cases. The way this is done in today’s buildings is to put the antenna and signal boosters inside the building. Critical communications are not cheap, but they are necessary if you value life. DAS creates this reliability and level of safety.
I am shocked that most municipalities don’t have written requirement for this. When I look around some states have taken this seriously while others don’t’ want to be bothered. Even after a major incident happens, the government doesn’t seem to react soon enough. If they make the requirements then they know that building owners will put it in because an inspector, usually the local fire department, could go out and approve this. An example of the sprinkler system was brought up and how they are in every large building now. It was a great analogy.
Carrier coverage is different. We all rely on our smart phones in today world for work and convenience. However, the carriers are no longer going to pay for the indoor coverage unless they see a large payback. They will only do it for large customers. The carriers say that broadband is a utility. So the carriers should be regulated like utilities, right? Sorry, just a quick dig there.
So the carriers want to have the building owners and businesses pay for their own small cells and DAS systems. I am fine with that but they need to find a way for these units to be deployed inside building with their support, but the way it is now they want to control it. That may change soon with the deployment of LTE-U.
Qualcomm’s MulteFire was mentioned several times. It seems like this may be the way that small cell coverage for multi carrier requirements may be the wave of the near future. MulteFire is a LTE-U format where it can run LTE in unlicensed spectrum without the licensed support. Apparently many companies are relying on this to move ahead.
One more thing that was covered extensively is the stealth deployment to make the municipalities happy. For outdoor, or even indoor, antennas have to be hidden to make people feel safe and make the companies look good.
I brought up the note that broadband is becoming a utility and that people expect it. Yet it was brought up again and again how when new buildings go up, broadband is generally an afterthought, not in the original plans. I believe they should replace the telco rooms with data rooms and allow for wireless and fiber access to buildings at the same time they plan electric and water access.
This wasn’t just all about public safety and carrier class. Wi-Fi was also brought up several times. Broadband is part of our life. It is more than a convenience. If you don’t believe me, then tell me how many of you don’t have Wi-Fi in your homes? If I drive through my neighborhood I see so many Wi-Fi hotspots because everyone around me has a Wi-Fi router in their house! Do you?
I also noticed how many people talked about outdoor small cells. Stealth is a huge topic. Power access is another issue that came up again and again. These are all things that make small cells expensive to deploy.
The expense was brought up again and again. Remember that no matter what you deploy you need to worry about zoning and permitting, power, looks, and backhaul.
If this subject interests you, then look at what the FCC put together. This is a great opportunity to learn from what they did. It can be a workshop for all of us.
In my last post I spoke ofDay 1, which was the shorter day, here is day 2. Like I said, great show and I made so many connections and met so many great people.
The videos of this can be found here, this way you can see the people that I have met!
This was my opportunity to learn from the best. NYC is one of the toughest markets to do business and one that you should not tackle unless you talk to these people first. It will help you break into the other markets and learn what to do and what not to so.
I want to personally thank all the people that worked so hard at the show and thank them for having me speak. I want to thank Ilissa, Amy, Jennifer, and Nikki for working so hard to make this happen. They did an outstanding job to make this a fabulous event!
The first session I saw was with moderated by Berge Ayvazian of Wireless 20/20 called “Digitizing Our Arenas”. His panel included Ihab Labib of JMA Wireless, Jay Maciejewski of PC Tel, Marc Patterson of Boingo Wireless, and Matthew Thompson of Cobham Wireless. They brought up some great points and challenges of working with the larger venues. They also pointed out that you don’t just build it but it constantly needs upgrades and modifications and additional equipment, just because its built doesn’t mean that it’s final. There is so much you have to worry about, growth, improvements, new spectrum, new formats. It really is an ongoing job.
Next was “Capacity Planning, Technology Developments” moderated by Jordan Fry of Snyder and Snyder, LLP. This panel had Chris Pleibel of Perfect-10 Wireless, David Evans of AT&T and IEEE, Dean Fresonke of ClearSky Technologies, Mark Parr of Bandwidth Logic, and Russ Hamm of Rainbow Broadband. This group covered the need for more bandwidth and how many companies constantly grow and the upgrading of the systems is never-ending. Again, none of this is an easy process as you need to anticipate the growth and do the best you can. You also need to make sure that the supply chain is in place and things keep moving so that the integration of systems keeps moving.
Session 3: Fiber to the X, trends, challenges, and solutions to meet the wireless demand. This session was moderated by Stephen Banks of KMB Design Group, LLC. This roundtable had Art Malierdirk of INOC, Craig Doyle of CommScope, Ken Strandfeld of SOLiD, and Ray LaChance of ZenFi. They talked about the fiber solutions for customers and how fiber is needed as the backbone for wireless solutions. We need the backbone to be solid and reliable whether we are going to the core or connecting to another site. Reliability of the fiber is a key ingredient to making the wireless work a success.
Next there was a presentation, The Edge, Where the end-user resides, by Doug Wiest of EdgeConnex which I thought was done very well to because Doug pointed out the connection possibilities of indoor and outdoor small cells and DAS systems. Doug talked about the growth of the wireless network and what it is today in such a short period of time. From wireline to wireless to the edge. Pittsburg in 2019 will use as much as DC does today. The growth is phenomenal! Well done Doug!
Steve Yapsuga of Tessco led us into the “Integrator Solutions: How and integrator works on an End-User’s behalf. This group was done as a fireside chat and had Douglas Fishman of SQUAN, Edward Donelan of Telecom Infrastructure Corp, Raymond duTremblay of Building Technology Systems, and Tom Chamberlain of Westell had a roundtable on integration issues and ways to overcome them. I found it to be informative and based on real world experience.
Then Mike Sapien of OVUM gave a special report, “Search for a Seamless Enterprise Experience” which covered the coverage that the enterprise users expect and what they really get. It seems that they rely heavily on Wi-Fi because it’s readily available and easy to install. They want carrier coverage, but carriers won’t support them. He also brought up the public safety aspect where people rely on indoor coverage that is reliable and seamless for work and public safety.
Next, Ken Sandfeld of SOLiD talked about “The MiddlePrise: They’re not too big and not too small but aren’t just right.” He spoke of the edge and how all the services were moving there. NFV is taking over! The edge could be the tier 1 carrier or the rural end-user, especially in today’s IOT environment. He estimates this market will be over $20 Billion in the near future.
Persistent Telecom talked about how the systems of today have very different needs of the systems of years gone by. For instance, their case studies show that. Lori talked about how the network is more than a convenience but many people rely on this network to keep their businesses afloat. Everyone in that room relies on their devices to stay on top of their business. Chris has a study of a stadium where a stadium not only put DAS in but they had to continuously do upgrades to keep up with technology. He brought up the Wi-Fi systems and their upgrades. While his study was for a high-rise he said it applies to the enterprise. Robin talked more about the public safety aspect of carrier systems and how mission critical relies on their phones as much as anyone even when things go bad. They need to stay live regardless of the disaster. Scope of Work Tutorial.
Then Phil Lawson of EdgeConnex did a talk on “The Edge part 2” which covered the evolution of technology and how quickly things are progressing within the last 20 years. It’s like on steroids! Can we keep up with the demand for change? Costs are dropping and demands are rising in technology. Now Social Media is making the demands, it is no longer a convenience but a necessity.
After that came my session, Developments in Mobile Antenna Technology, hosted by Mike Sapian of OVUM with Art King of SpiderCloud, Gregg Toback of Anritsu, Bob Langston of Advanced RF Technology, and me! We talked more about the technology of not only antennas but the system from beginning to end. Greg brought up how the testing is essential and if you miss the important steps of testing then you could have so many time-consuming problems that will eat into your bottom line. I have seen it, grounding and testing are better to be done up front! Bob brought up the amazing RF issues that you could run into and he had real live examples of the problems that you could have with the antennas and aesthetics. This is a show stopper and if you need to replace the antenna then you need a new RF design and not only that but it will eat into the budget. Then Art spoke about small cell market for the carriers which is a game changer because this product can all be Ethernet attached and the MIMO antennas connect the people in the building with low power. He spoke of what he did for Verizon Wireless and the demands that they made. He also talked about the interfacing they could do with Cisco that made installation quick and easy. I talked about deployment of course and all the potential problems you could run into. We discussed design considerations and potential problems and ways to avoid issues. We also talked about real world problems and what can be done to prevent them next time.
The final roundtable was the “Carrier Conundrum” where Joshua Broder of Tilson headed off the session of Dominick Vileco of V-Comm, LLC, Maureen Hopkins of Tilson, Steve Weiss of Verizon Wireless, and Robert Gaudioso of Snyder and Snyder spoke about the wireless right of way, ROW, and what to look for. For one, these are all very smart people with in-depth real world experience and legal expertise speaking of the ROW deployments for small cells and all the obstacles that deployments run into. The municipalities could delay things for a very long time, literally years, if you don’t do things the right way up front. If you think you can push an installation through, going around the municipality, guess again. This session covered the major issues that have prevented outdoor small cells from taking off. For one, you have no idea how much time these people have to put in to get things moving ahead. Most municipalities have no interest in letting them install nor do they care. They also spoke of utility pole installations, very interesting. They also spoke of how important the site survey was to see what is really there, this is something I always bring up and yet it’s something that the carriers often want to cut out to save cost. Do it right the first time!
The last presentation was the “Investor Insights” where we heard from Richard Lukaj from Bank Street who spoke of how the IOT would really propel the business because data distribution is becoming critical He spoke of the growth trends in the industry as we head into the 5G era where the industry will continue to grow.
Remember that they have many upcoming events, you can see them all at www.nedas.com, but to list a few, July 3rd they will be in Boston, September 21 they will be in Washington DC, and in October they will be in Toronto. Go to www.nedas.com to see them all. If you want to know more about small cells and DAS and learn from the best, I suggest attending these events!
Deploy with the Wireless Deployment Handbook eBook that covers professional carrier end to end deployment of LTE small cells, CRAN, and DAS to show you the proper way to plan for deployment then execute without the mistakes.
Hey everyone, there was another injury this week. Wally Reardon posted this on Facebook and we are trying to gather more information. On county road 170 near county road 120 in Texas there was a man who fell about 100 feet from a utility tower and is alive! From what the article says his harness did catch him. The injured man’s name has not been released but his coworkers are Tyler Chavarria and John Vincon. Chavarria was also injured on the scene but did not require hospitalization. A helicopter came to take him to the hospital. His 2 workmates called for help. The injured man was flown to Corpus Christi Hospital. Thank GOD he was conscious when he was treated at the site. For more go to http://www.alicetx.com/news/20160414/one-man-injured-while-working-on-tower
A ComEd worker fell out of a cherry picker when a crane lifting a tower section in Forest Park, Il, dropped the section and it hit the power lines and the cherry picker bouncing the ComEd worker out of the cherry picker onto the ground causing him great injury. The accident happened at 16th and Circle Ave when the workers were putting up a cell tower with the ComEd worker up about 30 feet close to the tower work. For more go here, http://wgntv.com/2016/04/14/man-injured-in-electrical-work-accident/
I attended and spoke at the NEDAS show in New York City this year. What a great show! I got to hear the experts talk about new technology and real world problems. I was there for both days, attending all the sessions. Let me tell you, if you think that new technology will solve all the problems, then wake up. What you get from this is to hear what the people out in the field are really dealing with and some ideas to avoid the mistakes and problems that they have run into.
This was my opportunity to learn from the best. NYC is one of the toughest markets to do business and one that you should not tackle unless you talk to these people first. It will help you break into the other markets and learn what to do and what not to so.
I want to personally thank all the people that worked so hard at the show and thank them for having me speak. I want to thank Ilissa, Amy, Jennifer, and Nikki for working so hard to make this happen. They did an outstanding job to make this a fabulous event!
I got to attend the first day, April 5th, sessions that covered some great stuff. To me, a deployment guy hat installs DAS and small cell systems, I learned that a lot of people deal with the problems that I have seen. First off, shortcuts are great if they don’t cause you more problems. For instance, don’t forget to do the site survey of every floor when doing indoor DAS systems. Ed Donelan of Telecom Infrastructure Corp talked about how the site survey needs to be done properly and that you can’t take the word of the maintenance guy for what each floor is like. He mentioned how when one guy did a survey the landlord said all the floors were like the first one they looked at. What the landlord meant was the size and space. What the survey guy thought he meant was that there was a lowered ceiling on every floor. Needless to say, the ceilings on all the other floors were not lowered and it took the carrier years to properly run DAS through all of the floors because they had to find alternative routes. This was a real show stopper that took, the installation from taking months to taking years. A great lesson learned and the one thing that we need to so is plan ahead, measure twice cut once, however you want to look at it, the survey matters, a detailed survey. This is true in any aspect of wireless work.
Another talk was given by Tom Chamberlain of Westell. He brought up a real problem with indoor DAS called Near-Far. This problem arises when you have the outdoor signal bleeding into the indoor system and the device tries to lock onto it, making the device work harder and causing problems. This degrades performance and kills the battery. He showed real life examples of the problem and how Westell has a solution. It was a great representation of how to deal with problems that may be completely out of your control.
One of my favorite presentations was by Gerrard Carroll of Empirix, because they had the most amazing example of analytics that you could possibly use on any wireless systems. What it would do is take a sample of the system holistically. Why does this matter? If you have ever had to troubleshoot system problems, then you wouldn’t ask that question. There is no easy way to break it apart normally but now you can look at each segment of the network to identity a bottleneck or failure. What do you look for? Better question, what are you looking for? This package captures everything and you need to break out what you need to troubleshoot problems. that depends on what you want to see. The value this adds is immense because you can tell exactly where the problems could be in the system. If you have a throughput issue you can quickly determine whether it is on the backhaul, fronthaul, or over the air to the device. Don’t forget that some devices perform much better than others. We could learn if the DAS system is performing as it should be or if there is an issue elsewhere. It was a big data solution that will allow you to specify the specific analytics that you need, but it has the capability to collect everything, literally, on the system. I think this would be useful for any wireless system and I see great value in adding this. In fact, I spoke to people that want to investigate this solution. All I can say is, WOW!
Finally, for all of you fans of connecting through satellite, we a solution that Robin Gamble of Persistent Telecom had where he would be able to take the LTE system and cram it into one small box to avoid the problems you would have getting back to the core. This is an independent system that you could run a micro system in case you lose the connection to the core. He also had a satellite provider there to speak of how the satellite industry is putting amazing new birds into space with new antenna technology that will blow open the bandwidth that goes through them. It looks great and it is here now. They already can support LTE. They are also working with LEO satellite, not just the geo stationary birds to improve latency. It will be a game changer! I believe this may really help FirstNet and all remote providers here in North America, but they can cover the world! Really amazing stuff!
To get the picture you really had to be there, I recommend spending an extra day at these events where it is very intimate, you can talk to any of these people and get advice and guidance of how to move ahead through these common problems. Like when you readers asked me to write the Wireless Deployment Handbook for Small Cells, CRAN, and DAS, it was all about helping you avoid the mistakes that I have already made. Trust me, I made plenty.
Remember that they have many upcoming events, you can see them all at www.nedas.com, but to list a few, July 3rd they will be in Boston, September 21 they will be in Washington DC, and in October they will be in Toronto. Go to www.nedas.com to see them all. If you want to know more about small cells and DAS and learn from the best, I suggest attending these events!
Deploy with the Wireless Deployment Handbook eBook that covers professional carrier end to end deployment of LTE small cells, CRAN, and DAS to show you the proper way to plan for deployment then execute without the mistakes.
I am so excited that the FCC will be releasing more spectrum for the rest of us. The Citizens Broadband Radio Service, (CBRS) here in the USA. I am not talking about the Billions of dollars that the US carriers need to spend to get LTE spectrum. I am talking about the spectrum that you can get just but filing and spending slightly less than a billion dollars. That’s right, the FCC will soon be releasing 150 MHz of 3.5GHz spectrum in the 3550 to 3700 MHz range. Oh boy, more spectrum that we can put LTE on, I mean you, the people that need it the most to create smaller wireless networks and possibly a carrier neutral system where they could roam onto. It would be LTE so the problems roaming from Wi-Fi to LTE would be resolved, can you believe it?
I know that some OEMs, like Ruckus, Nokia, and ip.access are pretty excited to sell some product in this area. I want to deploy in this area. Now all we need are UE devices with the spectrum in it. I am not too worried because that small company out of San Diego, Ca, is supporting it. You may know them as Qualcomm, I know them as one of my former employers. Not to mention Intel and Google love it! I see something big coming together. If the cable companies were smart, they would jump on the bandwagon now! There is also Federated Wireless who is planning to release something for this band.
However, let me explain some more detail.
It’s in the 3550 to 3700MHz range.
150 MHz of spectrum.
It is called Authorized Shared Access, (ASA) here in the USA and in Europe they are doing something similar called Licensed Shared Access, (LSA).
It is supported by Ruckus (recently bought by Brocade), ip.access, Google, Nokia, Qualcomm, and Intel.
Ruckus and ip.access already have products available.
It looks like a good model for neutral host solutions indoors.
Spectrum would be openly available with federal government getting first dibs and authorized access to the spectrum first.
Remember that the government has priority so if they use it then your listen before talk could shut you down.
3 tiered structure that has;
Tier 1 = Incumbents – the government who is already using it. Military radar on ships and ground. Fixed earth station receivers, and a few that already have broadband licenses. The broadband licensed people will be transitioned to Tier 2 and 3 in about 5 years.
Tier 2 = Priority access licenses – Licensed by auction for a 3-year term, 10MHz channel, in the 3550 to 3650MHz spectrum, could be used for offload, PTP, PMP, utility, enterprise broadband. (I see the carriers sucking this up, but who knows. I would say Google, but seriously, what have they paid for so far?)
Tier 3 = Generalized authorized access – new users with no interference protection. Minimum of 80MHz and maximum of 150MHz, 3550MHz to 3700MHz, licensed by rule, could be used for small cell, campus systems, offload, wireless broadband, or backhaul. (Get creative here. This is where we could make a small cell system, small companies that can’t afford to contribute billions to the FCC, you know, the small businesses who once could afford to get licenses and build wireless systems.)
So what is going on now? The FCC is working with a group to get input on SAS and ESC. What is that? Read below.
SAS = Spectrum Access System, they are looking at administrators and how it will be handled. SAS interface is still being worked out.
ESC = Environmental Sensing Capabilities, looking for operator applications.
YouTube athttps://youtu.be/Ypd9-IWg5hM which gives you an idea of what is going on. It is 68 minutes long, just a heads up. Meeting was on February 16th.
Purpose of the meeting was to review how to move ahead, even though it seems the standards are not finished.
Hosted by the Wireless Telecommunication Bureau (WTB) and Office of Engineering and Technology (OET) of the FCC.
At the meeting were players from Verizon, AT&T, Amdocs, Federated Wireless, CTIA, Google, Wireless Innovation Forum, Keybridge, ASRC Federal, Comsearch, and a few more. If Nokia was there, I didn’t hear them.
This may help decide who will be the SAS administrator and how it will be monitored. It will also help us understand how it will be coordinated and monitored. Remember that this has to be fair and balanced. (can it be with Google, AT&T, Verizon, and CTIA there, not sure that will happen.
So could this be the neutral host system that we’ve been waiting for? It’s licensed and we won’t have to worry about interference in the unlicensed band. Of course, there is the worry of government ships coming close to shore and the listen before talk causing problems.
If you build a system in this band then you, in theory, would not need to be anchored to a licensed band. You could build your own system on this, once there are devices for this band.
I really hope this succeeds, and I will tell you why. If we can get this going and growing then it should open up the doors to newer spectrum, more spectrum, then people like me could build a system that enterprise users could use. A way for the carriers to roam into a new area without licensed free, but with LTE in a lightly licensed solution that could let the device stay in LTE mode, just a different band. We may even be able to aggregate it someday.
Think of how many small cells that we could sell in this band! How much more we could expand systems? The WISPs and cable companies could build out the system in an area quickly. All we need are devices. This is something that they could really offer to the carriers for offloading, much better than Wi-Fi in my opinion because it would be lightly licensed.
Unfortunately, it may all rely on the carriers asking the device makers to add it to the devices. I believe that Qualcomm and Intel will make sure the chips have it and it gets in devices, but they will need the carriers buy in. We all know that the carriers are bullies when it comes to things like this. So if they say no, then what?
I see this as another stepping stone for 5G and densification. It will be another tool in the toolbox that we can use to improve coverage in a very clean way.
I am still trying to figure all of this out. I hope this band becomes the indoor standard or at least plays an integral part in the broadband ecosystem because it should mean more business for most of us. I hope it’s not another carrier dominated band that once again makes it harder for the smaller providers break into the market. I get it, Wi-Fi has potential, but wouldn’t it be nice if we could spend some money on spectrum to avoid 5 other hotspots stepping on us? Will the FCC allow it? Probably not if the largest carriers have their ears, which they seem to most of the time. Whether you love or hate T-Mobile, they seem to keep AT&T and Verizon Wireless in line. I don’t see T-Mobile making a play here, which is strange because they could use the spectrum. Not sure why they are conspicuously absent.
Be smart, be safe, and pay attention!
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Deploy with the Wireless Deployment Handbook eBook that covers professional carrier end to end deployment of LTE small cells, CRAN, and DAS to show you the proper way to plan for deployment then execute without the mistakes.
The sessions at IWCE show were really great and I did go to many of them but I also moderated this session. I thought it would be good for you to see what is available for your site needs, especially if you are working mission critical operations. This is where the FirstNet system may or may not be up to par. I often wondered if FirstNet thought through their approach. Well, that’s another story, isn’t it?
Bob Selby-Wood, our favorite Australian, is the CEO and Founder of Sentor Control Systems, Inc, USA. He talked about monitoring the site for all the problems that they may see. He has had great success with the City of LA who rely heavily on his system to keep an eye on all problems in real-time. He covered how he would monitor the power before and after the filter because most customers don’t realize that they need to keep an eye on all aspects of their system. This was the one thing that most customers don’t monitor. The reason that is so important, filters won’t let you know if there is an antenna problem. By monitoring the forward and reflected power on both sides of the filter, in and out, you can see what is really happening on the antenna, if reflected rises, then you know you have a problem. If power drops on the outside of the filter, you may have a problems with the filter. You need to know what is really happening in your system.
Deploy with the Wireless Deployment Handbook eBook that covers professional carrier end to end deployment of LTE small cells, CRAN, and DAS to show you the proper way to plan for deployment then execute without the mistakes.
Rick Schmidtis the COO of Dantherm, Inc, of South Carolina. They make DC air conditioning units for sites. Rick covered how efficient the DC units can be for more reasons than just efficiency. He pointed out that the savings is really in how the unit can run steady at a lower speed for the compressor and the fans. This method saves so much energy by maintaining a constant speed versus the on-off-on-off scenario that pulls so much energy from normal cooling units. He also mentioned that the biggest mistake that most customers make is they try to cool the entire shelter more than necessary. You see, today’s equipment is hardened and can handle a higher temperature that you may believe. I know that cell site routers can handle more heat now than they could 3 years ago. Why not take advantage of that by saving on cooling costs and only cool what you need, like the cabinet, not the entire shelter. Just some suggestions. By the way, Rick is a really smart guy that has 2 patents, (he knows his stuff!)
John Potocki of PEPRO LLC covered the shelter design. He went over many different hardened sites and showed examples of different sites in extreme environments. They looked pretty wild, especially the Alaska site covered in snow, deep snow! When he was asked what the one over sight most customers make is, the answer was size! He talked about how most customers only look at the racks but they often overlook the filters, which usually are very large, but most customers don’t take that into consideration. This is a problem because a shelter is what it is, you can’t expand it mainly because it is hardened concrete. So what do you do? You plan ahead, look at all the equipment you will put in, and make sure that you plan for growth so you only put in one shelter, not 3 because you were too cheap up front to spring for a growth site. Most locations add equipment, very few remove equipment.
Nam Paik is the VP of Sales for TSi Power Corporation. He was there to speak of UPS systems and battery power. He gave a detailed presentation of how the systems work and what you need to look for when designing the system for appropriate backup power. I asked him what the one mistake most customers make, and he said that they often design systems for the max power needed, not the real world power draw. For example, if a unit is on 110VAC and has a 5A fuse or breaker, then you would know that the worst case power draw is 550 watts. The reality is that if you took an amp meter then you would see that the real draw is 1A. So at 110VAC at 1A the draw is 110W. So why buy a system that is 5 times bigger than you need? This is a common mistake that most people make and it adds unnecessary costs to your system. You may not think it’s a big deal, but 5 time the power means a bigger system and bigger batteries. If you have 100 sites, then it’s a real cost factor. By the way, Nam was nice enough to fill in at the last-minute, thank you Nam!
Site issues are often something that the site design team has to deal with. As you can see if you don’t do it right then you should expect problems from that site that will mean unnecessary site visits and probably outages. All because you didn’t plan properly up front. These are all critical issues, power, cooling, shelter, and monitoring it to know what is going on. Think about it!
I was in another session which was great if you work in public safety. It was session N259 – Pick Me, Pick Me! Choosing the Right Technology for Your System which was moderated by Steve Macke, a great moderator. He knew about all of these technologies, mostly because he consulted for people who needed help with almost all of them. Just a really smart guy in all things wireless.
I have to say, I was surrounded by greatness in this session. All of the speakers knew more about the evolution of communications that almost anyone I talked to. These guys certainly have seen it all. They knew about the progression of DMX, TETRA, P25, and all things 2 way all the way up to hardened communication systems to LTE. When you talk about LTE you understand that is has a long way to go make it reliable enough for public safety. I understand that but let’s face it, that is the end goal. It may be 5 to 10 years from now, but it is the future as I see it. While 5G is new and exciting, it will be built on and around LTE.
Deploy with the Wireless Deployment Handbook eBook that covers professional carrier end to end deployment of LTE small cells, CRAN, and DAS to show you the proper way to plan for deployment then execute without the mistakes.
So with all of that said, we need the PTT, (push to talk) systems as they are now. They are needed in public safety. They are normally in hardened sites. We really need to get LTE to that point. One thing that came up is that LTE is nowhere near the hardened requirements that public safety will need. In fact, the way FirstNet is building it out, it doesn’t look like it will be there for years to come, my opinion of course, but if they have a carrier build it, they will get a carrier class system, which is awesome. But, will it work after a hurricane or a tornado or a bombing? Ask yourself that. Now, let’s move on.
Doug Chapmanof Etherstack, representing PTIG in this session, talked about how P25 systems fit the current mission critical voice communications. Here is a smart guy that really understood what mission critical means and what they need to keep working.
Bill Frederickson of LMR Systems, Selex, representing DMRa, spoke of DMR systems being used as a cost-effective solution for voice communications.
Rodney Grim, National Technical Sales Manager of ICOM America, spoke about the use of NXDN and the service for real-time voice in critical communication. It is a very cost-effective voice solution for mission critical systems that has been around for year and is very reliable. It is commonly used in the USA.
John Monto, Director of Radio Technology Systems for Rockwell Collins/ARINC, spoke about TETRA systems being used not only worldwide, but here in the states today.
Dan O’Malley is a Sr Product Manager of Cisco, for the Internet of Things, gave a really interesting talk of a Cisco system that could work in mission critical systems that rely on the IP Network and the PTT system. He had examples of how the system could switch over from one call center to another in a mission critical situation.
Scott Peabody is a senior consultant for ADCOMM Engineering Company, gave a very technical and interesting talk of how 5G will be the critical infrastructure for the future. He demonstrated how the use of Wi-Fi in today’s world can solve some connectivity issues seen in our industry. He had an example of how he could connect a hip using Wi-Fi to provide them with over 100Mbps of data. Pretty cool stuff!
I spoke about using LTE in mission critical systems, well, really I laid out the pros and cons, because LTE isn’t there yet.
I will be on a round table talking about indoor antenna design at the Northeast DAS and Small Cell 2016 Spring In Building Summitin New York City on April 6th, 2016. It is being put together by NEDAS. I am looking at it from a deployment perspective. Remember that in building installations have to be quick, efficient, and look really nice. The antenna has to work properly so that your design matches your test.
On the round table I will be joined by Anritsu and Spidercloud. We will all be talking about Developments in Mobile Antenna Technology. Mike Sapien of Ovum will be the moderator.
The team that is pulling this together is doing a great job and I would like to thank them for inviting me to go.
Just wanted to let you all know that the summit is happening next week. I have been so busy I didn’t get to talk about it much.
This is a great opportunity to learn more about DAS and small cell design for in building. Think of the growth that we expect to see. Between DAS and small cells we will really be taking off to densify the coverage in building and outside.
Deploy with the Wireless Deployment Handbook eBook that covers professional carrier end to end deployment of LTE small cells, CRAN, and DAS to show you the proper way to plan for deployment then execute without the mistakes.
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I got back from IWCE 2016 exhausted. There was so much going on at that show that I can’t begin to tell you everything. So what I will go over is what I was able to attend.
Mary Walshof LBC Consultants and Services moderated the session and did a great job of introducing us all and moderating.
I was on the stage withWim Brouwer of Nokia who spoke of Wi-Fi and how it could be leveraged to maximize LTE coverage. Wim spoke of how Wi-Fi can be used to extend the connection of your device back into the core. How now Wi-Fi does not have to have a specific SSID to connect to the core, but the device would connect through the Wi-Fi to the core. The way I understood it was that the Wi-Fi was merely a pipe to the internet that could connect to the core.
Patrik Ringqvist, the VP and CTO of Industry and Society for Ericsson spoke about LTE and the progression into 5G. His presentation spoke of the roadmap of VoLTE being ready for services and 5G will use LTE as the foundation to build the newer 5G network.
Dan O’Malleya senior product manager of Cisco gave his talk on what is broadband. While he gave a strong Cisco position it was very interesting. He was able to show us the LTE options and how the broadband system was not only the RAN, but the applications all the way to the core. It was really quite interesting.
Sami Honkaniemi, the managing director or the Mentura Group, gave a great talk on how hybrid systems of the current PTT and LTE systems can co-exist and work together now. This was showing how for mission critical system the LTE would have to have solutions to bridge the open gap between your data on LTE and your mission critical voice on your PTT system which could be DMX, TETRA, P25, or anything else. It looked really cool!
Deploy with the Wireless Deployment Handbook eBook that covers professional carrier end to end deployment of LTE small cells, CRAN, and DAS to show you the proper way to plan for deployment then execute without the mistakes.
Mohan Tammisetti, the CTO and Co-Founder of Virtualcomm, and Gary Monetti, founder and managing director of Monetti and Associates, talked about how the LTE systems can be expanded by using a small interface and a LTE hotspot for emergency situations. This small LTE system extender was really a hit and something that people are interested in because you can expand the network in a crisis situation with little effort! (If the FAA would allow it, which by todays rules, they don’t.) Then you could launch a drone with the hotspot and connect back to the mini core with either Wi-Fi or a back channel, and use that for the first responders on site. If only the FAA could clear up the drone rules for business and emergency use.
Mohan Tammisettiwas planning to do a demo later that evening. I would have loved to have seen the demo but I could not make it. They were going to show the connectivity of the LTE through their tiny core and the hotspot. It was a proof of concept.
I went over the actual LTE Wireless deployment. This was the session that I thought would really highlight what the deployment teams do for LTE. Remember, without the deployment teams, RF Design, installers, tower climbers, optimization teams, site acquisition teams, and all the people that put the system out there, not of the above systems will work. They mean nothing if you keep them in a lab, when they are deployed, that is when they make money!
I was able to absorb quite a bit of information, don’t be afraid to click here to see all of my IWCE 2016 sessions.
I hope that sums it up for you!
Remember, be smart, be safe, and pay attention!
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toughest markets to do business and one that you should not tackle unless you talk to these people first. It will help you break into the other markets and learn what to do and what not to so.
