With the inauguration of India’s Smart Cities vision, and INR 100,000 Crores budget (~US$15bn), by the Prime Minister in August 2014, the country’s towercos and MNOs sit with an opportunity to add a layer of smart connectivity to urban landscapes, leveraging existing and new street furniture and cell sites to create heterogeneous networks, creating a tremendous increase in demand for micro and small cell sites. TowerXchange spoke to Indus Towers’ Meenu Sharma to learn how India’s largest towerco is rising to this challenge.
TowerXchange: For readers outside India, please explain the government’s Smart Cities vision and, in particular, the potential role of towercos in fulfilling that vision.
Meenu Sharma, Indus Towers:
India is on the move! Growth focused economic reforms are fueling huge investments and creating rich opportunities for the people of India. As per recent data published by Ministry of Urban development, the fast rising Indian urban population is expected to touch 600mn and contribute 75% of GDP by 2030 driving a near fourfold increase in per capita income across the nation. India is uniquely positioned with a potential demographic dividend, with a young, rapidly growing population. For this dividend to payout, India needs thriving cities to foster smart citizens and smart nation.
Cities being engines of growth for every nation’s economy, they represent the greatest opportunities for improving human lives through better infrastructure and innovation, especially for emerging economies. It is in this context that India is fast catching up with the global concept of the Smart City to support its unprecedented growing urban population with better and smartly managed facilities.
During 2014’s Indian Independence Day’s address to the nation on the 15th of August, 2014, the Indian Prime Minister unfolded the vision of Smart Cities with an objective of creating 100 smart cities in the next five years.
The key focus of this mission is to have sustainable and comprehensive development of cities based on four pillars: institutional, physical, social and economic infrastructure, with added layers of ‘smartness’ with ‘Smart Solutions’ in every aspect of it. Central and State governments both would be allocating a whopping budget of INR 100,000 Crores in the next five years to achieve this objective with an average of 200 Crores per city per year. With this, India is set to witness the next phase of digital revolution.
A Smart City is always connected and employs information and communication technologies (ICT) including H2H, M2M and M2M2H communications to use resources efficiently and intelligently, resulting in cost and energy savings, improved quality of life, and reduced environmental footprint. So you need to leverage towers and embed smart devices like computerised sensors into the urban fabric, collect information in real time, send it for processing by intelligent analytics systems with the results being used to optimise key city services such as transport systems, energy supply and healthcare.
In a Smart City environment, a great variety of infrastructure systems, city equipment and home/building appliances such as CCTV, traffic lights, car parks, energy meters, elevators and plugs will be connected to the network in what is referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT) (although personally I prefer the term Internet of Everything). Data has to flow freely and to the right areas so it can be properly processed, analysed and acted upon. Further, development and commercial affordability of mobile handsets, broadband mobile connectivity, digital sensors and big data analytics technologies coupled with cloud computing have been big enablers for creating this ‘Smart connectivity web’.
Ensuring the circulation of data to key organs within the Smart City will be the job of carriers and mobile operators. MNOs will have an increased play in the sector for meeting rising data traffic levels, delivering significantly higher Quality of Service (QoS) and compliance to Service Level Agreements (SLAs). This will drive the evolution of mobile broadband networks to HetNets i.e. heterogeneous networks that leverage an evolved macro cell layer complemented with integrated small cells to provide seamless outdoor coverage on the streets. This will result in a tremendous increase in the demand for creating micro and small cell sites.
After the mobile transformation wave and the data and video services transformation wave, the creation of the Smart City data pipeline will be the third biggest transformation wave for Communication Service Providers (CSPs) and in this transformational journey toward Smart Cities, towercos have even larger role to play supporting CSPs’ exponential network growth requirements by providing passive network infrastructure at the RIGHT place, in the RIGHT time and at the RIGHT cost.
TowerXchange: What do you consider a microcell and a small cell, and what kinds of equipment and services can be provided from these sites?
Meenu Sharma, Indus Towers:
Small cells are an integral part of future LTE networks: these aid in providing seamless coverage by bringing the network even more close to users.
Small cells are low-powered radio access nodes and capable of providing coverage within the range of around 10m to 2km. Depending on the type of small cell, typical power consumption typically varies from 10W to 1,000W. There are various types of small cells termed as Micro, Pico, Nano, Metro and Femto cells depending on the coverage range and indoor or outdoor applications. Out of these, micro cells are deployed in outdoor applications and pico, nano, metro and femto cells are deployed in indoor applications inside homes, shopping malls, offices et cetera.
Small cells are available in various configurations including a setup of small radio antennas, remote radio units mounted near antennas, baseband units and wireless or fibre based backhaul, GPS antenna and battery bank for power back-up. Advanced small cells have micro BTSs with single unit having integrated baseband, trans-receiver and antenna.
As compared to macro cells, small cell antennas take 70% to 80% less space, do not need higher elevation like 30m or 40m – and these do not have a large BTS footprint. Having said this, these small cells can be easily deployed in congested locations and busy streets either on rooftops or on the ground. Typical roof top deployments can be done on small poles or directly on building facades, where these can be readily camouflaged to gel with the building elevation. Ground based deployments include installation on street light poles, existing street furniture or any other suitable public utilities infrastructure available on the streets.
TowerXchange: What role will DAS, small cells and microcells play in network planning and in network topologies as India migrates to 4G?
Meenu Sharma, Indus Towers:
With smartphones becoming more affordable in the last one year, India has witnessed the growing popularity of social media apps, Internet of Things and associated Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications. The result is an increased drive in the consumption of mobile data and traffic congestion across the networks. This unprecedented growth momentum in data is largely driven by 3G traffic at present. On average, a 3G subscriber consumes more than three times the data compared to a 2G counterpart. The use of 3G devices capable of supporting surfing speeds of up to 21.1Mbps has increased from 25% to 50% in last two years. 4G in India is still at a nascent stage with approximately 5mn owners of devices capable of supporting 4G networks, out of which, very few are using the 4G network on their smart phones. These 4G subscribers are expected to reach to 100mn by 2020.
So, the exponentially rising data traffic growth clubbed with the government’s increasing mandate on MNOs for improving network quality and call drop minimisation, expected rounds of spectrum re-farming and auctions in next three to four years, is forcing MNOs to continually expand their mobile networks.
To meet these requirements, MNOs are facing a huge challenge of the ‘capacity and coverage crunch’ without incurring prohibitive costs. The challenge lies in providing faster wireless speeds and improved network performance to end-users and their mobile devices by bringing mobile network antennas and radios closer to mobile phones.
The challenge lies in providing faster wireless speeds and improved network performance to end-users and their mobile devices by bringing mobile network antennas and radios closer to mobile phones. To support this in the next five years the number of towers in India are expected to grow from 450,000 to 600,000 by 2020 with a contribution of around 30,000 micro cell sites
To support this in the next five years, the number of towers in India are expected to grow from 450,000 to 600,000 by 2020 with a contribution of roughly 30,000 micro cell sites. DAS, small cells and micro cells are proving to be vital elements for handling network densification and mobile bandwidth problems. MNOs can significantly increase wireless network access speeds and improve coverage through the strategic deployment of small cells as compared to using just macro cells. Small cells are efficiently able to offload 4G and 3G data, therefore, MNOs are capable of managing LTE advanced spectrum more efficiently. These cells can be deployed to enhance both capacity and coverage requirements. There are tremendous options available in small cells fitting in wide range of air interfaces including GSM, CDMA2000, TD-SCDMA, W-CDMA, LTE and WiMAX.
Within existing mobile networks, the best possible way to deploy small cells involves homing small cells back to existing macro cells, with aggregated small and macro cell traffic backhauled to the Mobile Switching Center (MSC). This results in increased capacity requirements onto existing macro backhaul links to the MSC. 4G network technologies being inherently packet-based, backhaul networks based on packet-over-optical networks allows for seamless traffic handoffs to and from data centers, where the content being accessed physically resides.
This would require upgrading current backhaul capacity to increased wireless capacity and significant improvements in the mobile backhaul technology to ensure the backhaul does not become the bottleneck in deployment of small cells.
TowerXchange: A core competency of towercos is ability to liaise with urban planners to permit and protect macro cell sites – how do the challenges of planning and permitting differ when comparing Ground Based Towers (GBTs) and street furniture?
Meenu Sharma, Indus Towers:
Large scale deployment of small cells can be realised by deploying these solutions on street furniture. This kind of street deployment poses its own challenges in terms of appropriate site selection, timely site acquisition, efficient power back-up and backhaul solutions, installing the small access points, and having the right tools to analyse network traffic in order to determine where a small cell would be needed in the first place. This is all becoming more difficult, adding time and money to the network planning process as compared to macro 3G or LTE networks.
All in all, there are three main areas of consideration on which planning of small cells depend: power, backhaul, and operations, administration and maintenance (OA&M). Due to closely located small sites (typically 200m to 500m), towercos are hardly left with any options to explore multiple locations for any one site. The city infrastructure is generally built and maintained by municipal authorities and various public bodies. The ecosystem is complex, creating a need strong for strategic integration of local municipal bodies, street furniture owners, and towercos. Trying to get all of them together to create one solution that’s cheap and simple to operate in a cost-effective way is an interesting challenge to work upon.
To get the permission to build these sites, towercos are largely dependent on municipalities, which typically have a longer gestation period to arrive at a decision on site allocations. However, the a moment decision is taken there are strong possibilities of getting bulk site allocations due to the larger land holdings of the public authorities. As the concept of small street sites has just started gathering momentum in India, it will take some time for public authorities to consider this as an interesting revenue generation opportunity. Some of the early action has been generated by municipal authorities in the cities like Delhi, Ahmedabad, Nagpur and Jaipur by permitting deployment of low footprint sites on metro stations, municipal parks, institutional buildings, public parks et cetera. To successfully realise the vision of Smart Cities and provide smart connectivity, street furniture based small cells or macro sites are going to be the key catalysts. There is a strong need to drive a robust Public Private Partnership (PPP) model and sectoral reforms which will create win-win scenarios for all: government, MNOs, tower companies, backhaul providers and citizens.
To successfully realise the vision of Smart Cities and provide smart connectivity, street furniture based small cells or macro sites are going to be the key catalysts. There is a strong need to drive a robust Public Private Partnership (PPP) model and sectoral reforms which will create win-win scenarios for all
TowerXchange: How do the economics of street furniture and GBTs compare - for example, how does the capital cost compare, how do opex costs compare, and how do lease revenues compare?
Meenu Sharma, Indus Towers:
Rolling out of smart cell sites brings exciting and creative opportunity for towercos by integrating street infrastructure utilities like street light poles, traffic light signals, flyover pillars, bus stops, foot over bridges et cetera with telecom sites in an aesthetic and innovative way such that it becomes more socially acceptable and becomes integral part of any city’s infrastructure.
There are two ways to do this – either to utilise existing street furniture for deploying these sites or create new street furniture with integrated micro sites. Both the models drastically differ in terms of capex and opex modelling, with utilisation of existing street furniture definitely bringing in better cost economics than creating altogether new street furniture. While creating new street furniture, it all depends on capex and opex sharing model adopted between towerco and municipalities.
Developing countries like India need to create a lot of new street infrastructure, and towercos are uniquely placed to create this infrastructure and provide a valuable service to the government, to the public and to MNOs. So if we can create a new bus shelter and leverage those sites to provide services to MNOs for ten years, if we can create an optimal and sustainable business model, there could be a range of interesting and exciting solutions around such scenarios.
While small cells are estimated to give 40-50% cost reduction in TCO for the MNO, the costing model for the towerco is still under evolving stage and at this point it is difficult to state any figures. What we can say is that in general, if we are building standalone microsites, they can seldom accommodate more than two operators, whereas if we are adding small cells to existing macro sites, it may be possible to share with three, four or even five operators. So the entire cost dynamics varies depending on the type of small cell deployment.
TowerXchange: How do you deal with backup power solutions and with backhaul at microcell and small cell sites?
Meenu Sharma, Indus Towers:
Powering up microcell and small cell sites is a challenge which differs from site to site. DC power backup solutions required for small cell sites need to be with an aesthetic edge, compact in size, easy to deploy (for example wall or pole mountable with an ease to strap on to the street furniture), reliable, repeatable, with flexible power distribution options and remote monitoring facility. There are two options to provide DC power backup. The first option is cabinet mounted which is a mini replica of the power system provided for macro cell sites. These can be deployed on sites where the back-up requirement goes up to 4 to 6 hours. Though not so aesthetically pleasing, there can be challenges installing these systems in public areas. The second option can be with wall or pole mounted systems. This category of power systems are all-in-one systems that usually have less configuration flexibility and limited battery back-up options. However, they blend well into the background, are light, easy to install and offer a power output range up to 1KW for a variety of base station applications.
Being deployed in open public spaces, these sites need to be ‘green’ and without DG power backup, so options like compact, high capacity li-ion batteries or integration of renewable energy sources on the street furniture in an elegant way can be interesting options for exploration.
Small cells being deployed on streets typically in congested areas or difficult locations, presence of fibre to support site deployment is a big challenge due to the limited fibre availability at present in India. At present, 25% of telecom sites are fiberised in India against developed countries where 70-80% of the sites are fiberised. Therefore, the initial leg of deployment of small cell sites is only possible with backhaul connectivity through microwave antennas to meet the current data traffic requirements. To address the social acceptability challenge of such installations in public places, radio friendly camouflaging solutions are being explored to provide better aesthetics. For example, I feel microwave dishes up to a maximum of 0.3m should be placed on small cell sites, and I’m interested in advanced technologies being tested where use of deflection may mean one may not need direct line of site between microwave backhaul antennas.
To sum up, a compact and efficient power back up, and easy to deploy backhaul solution would be the catalysts for successful deployment of small cells scattered across a city.
TowerXchange: What is the current size of the microcell and small cell market in India? What scale could it reach in the next five years?
Meenu Sharma, Indus Towers:
Though there are no firm numbers available on the current size of micro cell sites, these are only estimated to be around 4-5% of macro cell sites. With government’s upcoming drive for Smart Cities and the advent of 4G, the requirement of micro cell sites will surge drastically in next three years to come. It’s estimated that there would be essential need to create around 10-15,000 micro street sites by 2018 and 30,000 by 2020 in order to support expected exponential growth in data traffic.
TowerXchange: Finally, what is your vision for the future role of DAS, microcells and small cells in towercos’ service offering?
Meenu Sharma, Indus Towers:
There lies a great opportunity for DAS, micro and small cells becoming a way of life in providing the best network coverage to subscribers. For these deployments to become successful, there is a dire need to create innovative operating models and solutions portfolios. The telecom tower industry has definitely to play a pivotal role, bringing an orbit shift in their solution design approach from conventional micro sites to compact, aesthetically appealing, more socially acceptable, greener and sustainable micro sites. To take this forward aggressively, there is a strong need to give an architectural edge to the solutions and create sites with interesting forms and shapes which can easily gel with the location aesthetics, making them happily acceptable to public bodies, site owners and the public in general on the streets.
There is lot of movement expected in this sphere and especially in the Indian market with government being highly focused in terms of providing basic essential services like street lighting, public toilets, kiosks, tourist information centers, bus shelters, information centers et cetera as part of the Smart City drive in addition to ‘smart connectivity’. There are tremendous opportunities for towercos to intersperse DAS and micro cell site deployment with various public utilities in the form of ‘Smart Street Furniture’. In this interesting transformational journey of the nation; towercos can contribute significantly in this entire value chain and help in this nation’s drive for creating smarter citizens, smarter cities and a smart nation!
Introducing Indus Towers’ Meenu Sharma
Meenu Sharma serves as National Head – Civil & Tower in the Technology domain and is spearheading creation of innovative products and solutions portfolio in tower and construction domain for Indus Towers. A certified PMP and structural engineer by education, Meenu’s 18 years in the Indian telecom sector has taken her from the role of being a structural designer for towers and other various construction elements of cell sites for Siemens PCNL (now Nokia Networks), to site construction management and project management roles within Alcatel-Lucent, rolling out turnkey wireless networks for MTNL, Reliance and BSNL, before engaging with towercos like Bharti Infratel and Viom Networks in roles as national head for design, innovation and infrastructure planning.
In her four years with the India’s largest towerco, Indus Towers, Meenu has driven innovation for evolving next generation tower designs, foundation systems, space optimisation solutions and new construction techniques as well as maximisation of the sharing capability of existing towers contributing towards cost leadership, operational excellence and customer delight.
