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London Needs 70,000 Cells For 4G
judgecorp writes "How many cells does it take to cover a city? In London's case, it will take 70,000 cells by 2015 for the next-generation LTE network needed for 4G mobile broadband, according to a calculation from PicoChip. A shame that's too late for 2012, when Mayor Boris Johnson warns that mobile data demands during the Olympics may overload the current 3G network"
FTA: "Femtocell maker Picochip says London needs large numbers of micro cell towers by 2015" and "Dr Pulley’s report also stated that there needs to be in excess of ten million small cells worldwide by end of 2015". Now why would a maker of small cells say that?
The gear exists to create a femto-cell in your home where you reroute your phone over your ADSL/cable. I often wondered, why don't they allow strangers to jump on the unused bandwith? Say I have a 10 MBit subscription, but my modem can handle 20. Why doesn't the telco open the remaining 10 for anybody comming by? Specially in downtown Londo where a lot of buildings must have direct fiber... Anybody can answer this?
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
Not if the P2P back-end existed only in vehicular or fixed installations, instead of on one's hip.
Kid-proof tablet..
Agreed. Sort out the crap HSDPA data provision I get in central London before adding another underperforming network.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
Plus the fact that the frequencies won't be allocated until 2013, after a long and elaborate auction process
London is MASSIVE. Seriously, look at it on a satellite photo.
I suspect the area where the Olympics are going to be could be covered with a lot less than 70,000 cells. Anything else is just whining.
No sig today...
The calculation is probably correct assuming the whole city needs to be covered by small (femto/pico) cells, which is of course something that small cell vendor would like very much. In reality, many areas with relatively low population/phone density can probably be covered by a macro network and high density areas - shopping malls, apartment buildings, university campuses will need to be covered by femto or pico cells.
Yep, the area where the Olympics is going to be held is actually much greater than the area of Greater London, where most of the games will be played, and those that are within Greater London will be spread out across the city...
The football games will be played at various stadia up and down the country. Glasgow, Cardiff, Coventry, Newcastle and Manchester. And of course, the sailing will be down in Dorset, slalom canoeing in the Lee Valley in Herts., sprint canoeing and rowing at Dorney Lake nr. Windsor, paralympic cycling at Brands Hatch and mountain-biking at Hadleigh Farm nr. Southend.
In reality, many areas with relatively low population/phone density can probably be covered by a macro network and high density areas - shopping malls, apartment buildings, university campuses will need to be covered by femto or pico cells.
Sure - there'll always be a mix of small and large cells. But most of London is "high density areas". And it can be very difficult/expensive to find good sites to put full sized cell towers. If you can put many smaller cells inside buildings etc, just like WiFi stations, then it'll probably save the carriers a lot of money.
Or just try to get from where I am in London to the Olympic area. I can get to France quicker. Yes, Greater London is over 600 square miles, about twice the area of New York City.
Greater London may be 600 square miles (New York is actually 482 sq miles, if you include the water, which you should, since you have to go over it to get from one part of the city to another) but Greater New York is 11,842 sq miles.
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
Also, we can't even begin the 4G roll-out until the analogue TV signals are switched off, and that happens in London in April 2012.
Or just try to get from where I am in London to the Olympic area. I can get to France quicker. Yes, Greater London is over 600 square miles, about twice the area of New York City.
Greater London may be 600 square miles (New York is actually 482 sq miles, if you include the water, which you should, since you have to go over it to get from one part of the city to another) but Greater New York is 11,842 sq miles.
The UK equivalent to Greater New York would either be "London and the Home Counties" or "The Thames Valley" (more likely the former), not "Greater London". Greater London is used for disambiguation from the "City of London" which is just over one square mile and is the financial district of Greater London. The City of London is to Greater London as Wall Street is to New York City. It's a (typically British?) quirk that we have to call what everybody thinks of as the city of London by another name because we're already using the term "the City of London" for something else.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
The powers that be don't want us to have mesh networking devices because that is the technology that will let us route around them. Not the first devices, of course, but if you have a bunch of mesh networking devices running around carrying IP traffic on some other network the logical thing to do is to eliminate the other layer and run an IP network. This is the same reason for the unnecessary resistance to IPv6 (as opposed to the necessary resistance from the incompetent.) The last thing these corporations want is for us to all end up on some kind of network where we don't need them.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
London calling to the faraway towns
Now there's too much traffic and network goes down
London calling to old CGI Perl,
Come texting the shortcodes, all you boys and girls
London calling, now don't look at us
But that silly iPhone mania has bitten the dust
London calling, see we ain't got no bling
'Cept for the ringtone that sounds like swing.
The tech age is coming, the screen is zooming in
Engines stop running and the bandwidth growing thin
A critical error, but I have no fear
London is lagging and I've spilled all my beer.
I am officially gone from
In the United States, national carriers tend to have between 30,000 and 54,000 cell sites. While this document (http://www.sprint.com/whitepapers/dbdownload/HeavyReading_Assessment_of_Sprint_s_Network_Vision_Initiative_Dec2010.pdf?table=whp_item_file&blob=item_file&keyname=item_id&keyvalue='25625ay') is mostly about Sprint's network vision, but it also has estimates (page 13) of cell sites for all the national carriers ranging from 30,000 on the low end for Sprint's iDEN network to 54,000 on the high end for AT&T's network. Given that all of the national carriers tend to cover many major cities, it seems unlikely that London would need 70,000 cell sites for 4G.
This is an article from the point of view of a company that sells small cell sites. Putting 70,000 cells in London would mean putting 115.3 cells in every sq mi. That's one cell every 5.5 acres.
In Kansas City (US), I am one of the few people who actually get 4G at home with Sprint. If I'm in a moving car and I need to use the internet, I just turn off the 4G and use 3G because that's the only way to avoid apps saying "data connection lost". So I don't know if we need 70,000 cell towers but I do think what we have now is inadequate.
Oddly enough, Sprint still seems to be the best option because dropping down to 3G is better than being cut off altogether by a bandwidth cap. And keep in mind, this is the United States so when I do bandwidth tests on 4G, I'm getting around 1.9 megabits/second. As soon as I read somebody saying LTE is faster than home broadband, I knew that person was in another country.