Comments on: How the mobile industry can support 1,000x growth in broadband traffic

By: Prakash Sangam

Prakash Sangam — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 23:55:53 +0000

Frank, I agree with you that backhaul is an important consideration for small cells. There are a number of solutions available, including wired, wireless backhaul, relays, as well as newer ways of leveraging existing backhaul. Neighborhood small cells model that we are proposing using the existing backhaul. The enhancements that we are introducing through our UltraSON techniques can even utilize customer-grade backhaul. Tune in to our upcoming webinar focused on small cells for more details – http://www.fiercewireless.com/offer/qualcommoct2012?source=qualcommgigaom

By: Frank Rayal

Frank Rayal — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 21:01:41 +0000

Small cells work well to add network capacity, but the main challenge will be to provide cost effective backhaul – otherwise, it will not be economical to deploy small cells. I ran financial models for different backhaul solutions and it’s evident to me that non-line-of-sight backhaul scales best for small cells. It will be important to assign spectrum for NLOS backhaul if small cells are to take off in the numbers forcasted by market analysts and industry pundits… For more information visit my blog at http://www.blinqnetworks.com/blog

By: David Mytton

David Mytton — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 08:57:24 +0000

I’d like to hear more about how the billing side of things will adapt with the upgrades to the network. With increasing speeds and the capacity to support them, the current tiny data caps and per MB/GB billing model simply doesn’t work.

By: micha

micha — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 03:57:06 +0000

Another interesting point of view about how to administrate the spectrum or optimize it http://logicerror.com/openSpectrum

By: Prakash Sangam

Prakash Sangam — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 00:04:26 +0000

Rich,

Clearing spectrum indeed is long and hard, and remains the main option. But there are innovative and complementary approaches like ASA (Authorized Shared Access), which I briefly discuss in the article, on the table, as well. Please visit http://www.qualcomm.com/spectrum for more details.

By: Rich

Rich — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 20:09:53 +0000

“Studies show capacity increases of…up to 1,000x with 20 percent penetration, when combined with 10x more spectrum.”

We’ll be lucky to reach double the spectrum we now have by buying it from those who currently own the rights to it. Achieving 10x more spectrum is essentially impossible, because the rights-holders will not give it up.

By: Rich

Rich — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 19:26:44 +0000

I think the concept of ”weakening mobile data demand” is absurd. The entire history of mobile phones points in the opposite direction.

By: 186k

186k — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 07:55:23 +0000

Yawn, another vendor claims we face a data tsunami!

Contrast this hyperbole with the title of industry analysts, Analysys, upcoming webinar…”Too Little Traffic: strategies for MNOs in developed economies in the face of weakening mobile data demand”

By: micha

micha — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 02:53:07 +0000

Interesting article, thanks Prakash!
Another solution using the existing networks and technologies is to multiply the density of local small cells, that’s what Open Garden app is doing without requiring any investment in hardware by turning every device: smartphone, laptop or tablet into a micro cell to redistribute the available connectivity through an overlay peer-to-peer mesh network. The network is formed seamlessly and dynamically. You can test it to do tethering or also have your Android phone access the Internet through your laptop connection. The software is available on the website http://opengarden.com Your comments are welcome :-)