Multi-carrier small cell network supports private LTE and MNOs
Dense Air, a subsidiary of network infrastructure vendor Airspan, recently worked with the Dublin City Council to deploy a neutral host small cell network in the city’s dockalnds area. The project, which recently won an award from the Small Cell Forum, is meant to hasten network densification in support of in-building connectivity, IoT implementations, wireless backhaul and boosting carrier services.
Dense Air controls its own mid-band spectrum in Ireland, Belgium, Portugal, New Zealand and Australia. The company provides neutral host network services “designed to improve coverage and capacity in locations that are technically difficult or commercially uneconomic to support,” according to its website.
Dense Air announced the partnership with the city and other Irish agencies in January 2018. The goal was to use this project to create a blueprint for deploying network infrastructure on city-owned assets with an eye on supporting densification efforts in the transition from LTE to 5G.
Dense Air Head of Strategy Paul Coffey, speaking during 5G World in London, discussed the Dublin project and highlighted the key role of gaining buy in from city leaders. “It’s about making them an active participant, an active stakeholder in that deployment. In today’s world and previously, they’d been very much a passive player and the mobile operators deploy as they see fit. If we can turn that model around…it facilitates a much richer model for everybody, MNOs included.”
Coffey’s comments came during a panel discussion on 5G use cases; video of that session is available here.
Jamie Cudden, Dublin’s smart city program manager, said the smart docklands project gives the city “a clear competitive advantage and we are now ideally placed to provide a perfect live 5G test environment for companies to work with us to trial services that can help us solve different challenges. Furthermore Dublin is now providing other cities globally a template for how they can realize the future 5G opportunity.”
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