HetNet densification requires robust fiber infrastructure
LONDON – At the Small Cells World Summit, Telefonica O2 CTO Brendan O’Reilly risked offending delegates when he claimed the technology “isn’t that important.” But, O’Reilly was addressing the topic of commercializing the heterogeneous network from the consumer standpoint.
It was hardly a great reveal when he told delegates O2’s research with business and consumer users has shown consumers just wanted coverage regardless of technology, though maybe the standpoint that the first demand was for voice and not data would have come as more of a surprise.
“Voice just has to work,” O’Reilly said, adding there was very little tolerance for poor voice quality. O’Reilly also expected the same of small cell technology: “We’ve reached the stage where we just expect it to work – we are beyond trials for small cells.”
O’Reilly’s biggest technology concerns were centered on the underlying infrastructure rather than the small cells themselves.
“We have no doubt that small cells can deliver the coverage and capacity levels that consumers are demanding,” he told RCR Wireless News after the conference session. “But the backhaul challenge in outdoor urban locations is a real concern, especially here in London.”
O’Reilly explained he had recently been fact-finding globally on hetnets and networking densification strategies, including an Asia-Pacific tour that took in major markets such as China and Korea. What struck him the most in those countries was the availability of a rich market of dark fiber – something he now felt was desperately needed in his home U.K. market.
“We need a dark fiber market here in U.K.,” he said, “otherwise we’ll continue to have problems delivering the backhaul capacity that small cell networks can provide at the front end.”
O’Reilly said he felt the mobile market continued to be the most evolving industry in the world, predicting more change in the next year than had occurred in the previous decade.
In the panel discussion that followed O’Reilly’s presentation, he was joined by Ervin Kampans, CTIO of Tele2. Kampans said O’Reilly had already said much of what he wanted to contribute, but did say the small cell market was getting bigger because the macro network needed to get smaller.
That probably confirms that currently, dark-fiber notwithstanding, the force is strong in the small cell world.
