Wireless WANs soon to be "macrocell-ed" out

Picocells to start creating extra capacity for 4G networks in 2011

Industry analysis by expert Joanie Wexler, plus links to the day's wireless news headlines

We all know that wireless WAN capacity is a huge concern as smartphones and tablets continue to arrive. The 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2011 is coming up in early January, for example, where it's rumored that an avalanche of shiny new tablets – even perhaps one based on Windows 8 (yes "8") –  will be trying to kick the Apple iPad's tookis.

How can the carriers keep up with the wireless network capacity that multimedia, content-rich mobile devices demand? Picocells – compact cellular base stations used alongside or instead of macro cell towers – might be the answer, starting this year.

So-called 4G services available from Clearwire, Verizon and MetroPCS – and coming from AT&T in 2011 – use technology that helps squeeze more capacity out of the spectrum. More spectrum is coming from white space and reallocated broadcast airwaves. And AT&T was just able to purchase significant 700MHz spectrum from Qualcomm, which has abandoned its FLO TV service that used some of those airwaves.

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We all know that wireless WAN capacity is a huge concern as smartphones and tablets continue to arrive. The 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2011 is coming up in early January, for example, where it's rumored that an avalanche of shiny new tablets – even perhaps one based on Windows 8 (yes "8") –  will be trying to kick the Apple iPad's tookis.

How can the carriers keep up with the wireless network capacity that multimedia, content-rich mobile devices demand? Picocells – compact cellular base stations used alongside or instead of macro cell towers – might be the answer, starting this year.

So-called 4G services available from Clearwire, Verizon and MetroPCS – and coming from AT&T in 2011 – use technology that helps squeeze more capacity out of the spectrum. More spectrum is coming from white space and reallocated broadcast airwaves. And AT&T was just able to purchase significant 700MHz spectrum from Qualcomm, which has abandoned its FLO TV service that used some of those airwaves.

Then what?

Soon, the macro cellular network will follow in the architectural footsteps of Wi-Fi and new enterprise radio-access network (E-RAN) models to reuse spectrum, predicts Amir Makleff, president and CEO of BridgeWave Communications.

Bridgewave makes 4G microwave backhaul products for service providers and also sells gigabit-speed wireless bridges to enterprises for metro-area connections.

"Spectrum doesn't grow on trees," points out Makleff.  "We're not going to find two to three times more spectrum than is currently available," which is what's needed. "So the FCC's repurposing [of airwaves from other uses] alone isn't enough."

Likely, the mobile operators will turn to deploying much smaller base stations, called picocells, on light poles and low-rise buildings in dense deployments so that spectrum can be reused frequently to deliver more capacity, he predicts.

This is the approach now taken by wireless LANs (the more capacity you need, the denser and more Wi-Fi access points you install). And it's also the concept behind the E-RAN, an emerging in-building cellular solution that, instead of simply distributing cellular capacity throughout buildings from one big internal base station source, creates many small cells using "cellular access points" that reuse spectrum to increase capacity.

Makleff says his company is working with one operator that is investigating the picocell approach for 2011. He anticipates the picocell designs to "start in 2011, not in huge numbers. But it will be the first year that 4G http://www.networkworld.com/topics/3g-4g.html carriers will put small cells on light poles and on low buildings."

Indeed, ABI Research predicted in a second-quarter 2010 report that chip technology advances enabling multi-mode compact base stations such as picocells "will kick start this transition around 2011 to 2012."  While operators will likely use picocells as fill-ins at first, "they will quickly transition to being deployed as a fundamental part of the network rollout," according to the report.

Read more about wireless & mobile in Network World's Wireless & Mobile section.

Joanie Wexler is an independent networking technology writer/editor in Silicon Valley.