As wireless carriers spend billions of dollars to purchase spectrum and build out vast wireless networks, several smaller companies are offering similar services but on a much, much smaller scale-out the back of a truck, to be exact.
InterWave Communications International Ltd., ADC Telecommunications Inc. and others have begun selling complete, operating wireless networks that can be packed up and moved within minutes. The offerings go beyond the standard COWs-Cellsites On Wheels-which are used to fill in network holes or provide extra coverage to heavily used areas, such as sporting events or wireless trade shows.
The new breed of COWs, or NOWs-Networks On Wheels, as the companies call them-can interconnect with existing networks and subscribers, providing seamless coverage to fledgling or overused areas. Most NOWs work on GSM networks.
“We’re the provider of a very small, scalable GSM solution,” said Mike Fitzgerald, vice president of marketing for InterWave. “In effect we’re capable of providing a network for a very small subscriber base, and then going from there.”
The uses of these small networks are varied and can be very beneficial, Fitzgerald said. Many carriers buy or lease the trucks that carry the network in order to cover high-traffic areas or patch network holes that might spring up. Businesses can also get hold of the NOWs-InterWave offers its service out of the back of a military-style Humvee-and use them to provide coverage to an office outside of carriers’ established network coverage. Even new carriers with rudimentary networks can use NOWs to create a patchwork network that they can later fill in with permanent towers.
“We actually have quite a few nationwide GSM networks up and running,” Fitzgerald said. Carriers in the Congo and China are using a patchwork NOW network to provide wireless service, Fitzgerald said.
Perhaps the most important use for NOWs is in disaster situations, allowing rescue workers to continue communicating with standard GSM phones. InterWave said its trucks became common along the poorly covered banks of the Yangtze River in China during recent flooding.
InterWave is also taking its NOW offering to the world’s air carriers and ocean cruise companies.
InterWave’s NOW service works with GSM 900, Digital Cellular System 1800 and PCS 1900 operators, and includes a base station, a switch to route traffic and a base-station controller to manage voice and data signals, the company said. Also, the system includes a proprietary interface that allows users coming from a GSM network to seamlessly connect to InterWave’s NOW system.
InterWave executives said their system is becoming more and more popular and is distributed in 33 countries with 46 different GSM service providers.
ADC’s offering is similar, consisting of a switch and a base station controller and transceiver. The company said its product allows flexible configuration options, including extensions to existing mobile switching centers or delivery as a complete GSM network, which can connect directly to the public-switched telephone network. The service supports GSM 900 and DCS 1800 technologies.
