AT&T explained a method for evaluating potential small cell deployment sites on a recent RCR Wireless News webinar. Paula Doublin, the carrier’s well-known assistant VP for antenna solutions, said the picture above “started as a doodle,” and evolved into a framework for comparing city street locations.
Doublin described three types of locations that are available in a typical city block. Street corners with existing infrastructure, such as utility poles, are “pure gold,” she said, because small cells on street corners can typically transmit in all directions. Mid-block locations are “silver,” and deployments that combine existing structures with new construction are “bronze.”
“In a gold, there are eight potential densification locations that you would have to organize around,” Doublin said in describing her example. “Then you move into a silver [and] that number jumps up to potentially 25. Then of course in the bronze it comes down to 19 probable sites, including the four corner and some of the mid-blocks. Sometimes you’ve got existing structures, sometimes you’ve got new.”
More than half the outdoor small cells AT&T has deployed to date have been on new structures, Doublin said, noting the carrier has built a relatively small number of sites so far. AT&T backed off a 2012 plan to deploy 40,000 small cells, but activity picked up again this year. During the RCR Wireless News webinar, Doublin shared pictures of recent deployments as well as photo simulations of the small cells AT&T hopes to deploy.
“There are going to be a lot of small cells,” Doublin said. “The way that we’re going to engineer as we build out deeply dense networks has got to change. … It’s got to become much faster.”
Carriers are hoping the federal government will step in to help expedite small cell deployments. When it comes to building in the public right of way or attaching to existing structures, multiple local authorities often have jurisdiction over different parts of the process. Carriers are hoping federal guidelines will help these jurisdictions move faster.
In rural areas, the challenges are different. There may be fewer permits to pull, but connecting to fiber backhaul may be impossible. Doublin said her background in agriculture has made her particularly sensitive to the connectivity needs of rural America, and that personally she hopes AT&T’s AirGig solution could help connect farms to the carrier’s network.
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