Digital Lifescapes

Mobile internet applications have grown exponentially over the last decade, especially within urban areas around the globe. Mobile network service providers have started to deploy small cell wireless communications technology to support the growing demand. Outdoor small cell deployments were off to a slow start, but are now showing signs that they will grow significantly over the next several years, according to the latest worldwide market study by IHS Technology . Infrastructure investment is driven mostly by the mobile network operator common need to enhance saturated macro-cellular networks, and improve the mobile broadband experience by adding capacity through dense low power node deployments. Mobile Internet Market Development IHS has forecast that the global outdoor small cell backhaul market will reach $2.2 billion in 2020, with a five-year (2016–2020) compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 80 percent. Mobile network operators are currently testing and field trialing ma...

A recent survey revealed that tier-one mobile network operators expect 22 percent of all additional data capacity added during 2014 to come from Wi-Fi offload, according to the Wireless Broadband Alliance. By 2018, Wi-Fi offload is predicted to contribute 20 percent of additional mobile data capacity -- plus a further 21 percent will come from small cells with integrated Wi-Fi. These findings demonstrate how important data offload is to mobile network operators, accounting for an average of 20 percent of data traffic, up to 80 percent in densely populated areas such as transport hubs and cafes. Within homes and businesses offload levels are 50 to 60 percent. Meanwhile, as worldwide mobile broadband traffic reaches 200 Exabytes per year, network operators deploy 4G LTE or LTE-A, plead for spectrum, and try to manage usage through policy controls and subscription pricing. The physics of mobile broadband radio do not follow Moore’s Law of digital scaling, so network operators are ...