That's right Blake, and it was way before 4G that designing for capacity came into play. Before I became a wisp in '03, I had designed and had a part in building over 1000 cell sites for 4 different carriers in 3 different countries. In the mid-90s companies were going for coverage only. They quickly learned that once digital technologies came into play, coverage meant squat in terms of how many subs you could pack on a network. Just like with us, cell sites are limited in capacity and the noisier things get with CDMA based systems, the quicker they go to crap. In urban, sub-urban morphologies, capacity rules. In rural areas though, they don't anticipate near the traffic levels, so they build taller sites that can cover more area. Along highways, they may only build 2 sector sites, at least initially, because the extra sector that doesn't carry any traffic is a waste of money. If they really are going for fixed wireless as a major play, then they may have to add sites in the rural areas. They may not realize it yet. It was tough sell to convince them the first time around. When Sprint first deployed 1x, we, the consultants told them that designing for coverage was a waste of time and money. They didn't believe us and ended up having to add 25% more sites after turning the network up.
Cameron On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 11:38 AM, Blake Bowers <bbow...@mozarks.com> wrote: > Cellular systems in urban areas are built for capacity. Thats why you have > so many low level sites, frequency reuse. Capacity rules king. > > In rural areas, coverage rules. That is why they use a lot of > intellirepeater sites, that actually work off close existing sites, with > very minimal capacity. Often limited to one outdoor cabinet and 3 panels. > (and in some cases a mag mount antenna on the cabinet for the donor site to > be able to talk to it) > > Capacity of varying sites changes also on a network. While one site may > have X capacity with X transcievers, the one 5 miles away, same network, > may > have twice that number. They may look alike from the outside, but the > equipment inside is different TOE. > > > Don't take your organs to heaven, > heaven knows we need them down here! > Be an organ donor, sign your donor card today. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Charles Wu" <c...@cticonnect.com> > To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org> > Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2011 10:31 AM > Subject: Re: [WISPA] Verizon wants a piece of our pie > > > >I have a dissenting opinion... > > > >>It all comes down to a simple economics in the end. Who can most cost > >>effectively provide broadband. > > > > A cellular network is built for coverage > > > > Additionally, large companies, from a scale and operations perspective, > > will tend to put the same equipment everywhere > > > > What that means is in order to offer the nationwide network, that the > > tower in the rural area that's required to cover that stretch of highway > > where there's only a town of 1,000 people will have the same equipment > and > > capacity as the tower in downtown Chicago that has 1,000 simultaneous > > users > > > > So in rural areas, where the costs of the tower, backhaul and base > station > > have already been amortized and paid for to fulfill their coverage > > requirements, but many of these towers are sitting at 5-10% capacity > > > > In their mind, to add another 100 or so fixed wireless users off an AP > and > > putting them in a lower QoS bucket (so the primary mobile customers > aren't > > affected when fixed customers start slamming Netflix) is "found money" -- > > self installs are quite nice when putting out +60 dBi EIRP at the tower > > with 700 MHz on licensed spectrum with zero noise floor > > > > -Charles > / > > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > WISPA Wants You! Join today! > http://signup.wispa.org/ > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org > > Subscribe/Unsubscribe: > http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless > > Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ >
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