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"

Comments

Says the manufacturer of cells

[Nkwe]

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?

Re:Says the manufacturer of cells

[thasmudyan]

LTE will give 100Mb/s on the move and more if stationary ...why exactly do we need this and who is paying ?

Don't worry, if the 3G precedent holds up in 4G, the actual data rates will be MUCH lower and latency will be atrocious.

Re:Says the manufacturer of cells

[Pieroxy]

I have to say though, being french, that I'm glad that you got the Olympics games instead of Paris. By these debt-crisis times, spending as much as you do (and as much as we would have done) for such a thing is kind of silly.

Note that I'm not saying we are better in this regard. We (as a nation) wanted it, and I'm sure we would have spent as much money as you do if we would have had them. Fortunately, we suck ass at marketing, so there is no way in hell we could have beat you to it.

Good luck.

Re:Says the manufacturer of cells

[Custard Horse]

We'll need it.

I couldn't care less about the Olympics. I will happily watch it on TV wherever it might be - I just don't want to have to clear up after everybody has buggered off. I also don't want the cleaning bill. Unfortunately, the government did me over desk with that one so I'll have to live with it...

Re:P2P?

[adolf]

Because that would kill everyones battery.

Not if the P2P back-end existed only in vehicular or fixed installations, instead of on one's hip.

Re:Offload to ADSL?

[neokushan]

Because in London a lot of buildings don't have direct fibre. There is the odd spot, but the majority simply don't. Most people are connected via ADSL, syncing at the maximum possible speed (the average is something like 6mbit on an "up-to" 24mbit ADSL2+ connection) so there is no left over bandwidth.
However, BT do offer a service whereby their own home routers create a separate wireless network in which they allow other BT customers to use when they're not at home, so the idea isn't completely lost.