Pick a niche and stick with it

The Future Network spoke with Todd Landry, Corporate Vice President of Product and Market Strategy at JMA Wireless about their unique approach to solving wireless connectivity issues with MNOs. JMA Wireless have worked on numerous projects all over the world and have amassed a formidable reputation as one of the leading solution providers in the wireless network market. Their products and solutions can be found in many large scale venues around the world, and their insights and innovations in evolving the efficacy of cellular networks is fascinating.

The Future Network: Please introduce yourself and your company.

Prior to JMA Wireless, I was the Vice President of Product Management and Marketing for NEC’s Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC&C) portfolio. I have also held senior positions in companies such as Sphere Communications, 3Com’s CommWorks Corporation, and U.S. Robotics where I led product management, marketing, business development and alliances functions. I am a member of the board of directors for the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Association and have served on multiple industry standards boards, and have multiple filed patents including two issued in communications systems and wireless data systems.

JMA Wireless is unique because we own key technologies in all the critical edge points of the network from both the design and the manufacturing sides, so we can control every aspect of the process, ensuring  the best quality design and manufacturing, and the fastest delivery to customers when they have to deliver a solution. This puts us in a good position to be able to address customer needs very succinctly and at a time in the market when the demands for performance from mobile devices is continuously increasing. The critical element of being able to deliver that is to be able to optimise how well you can deliver the radio frequency quality, because the RF quality means everything in terms of how many bits can be modulated across an area of the spectrum.

The Future Network: JMA Wireless have a number of network densification technologies available to the market currently, could you please give us a high level overview of these products and the services you offer?

Mobile networks are vast in terms of the areas that they cover, and in order to make a mobile network work effectively, you must pick the area that you want to be an expert in and stick to it. For JMA Wireless, our position is to start at the edges of the networks that end up being in highly densified areas, for example inside a wide range of buildings – hotels, hospitals, corporate offices, airports, transport hubs or on outdoor streets; therefore, our emphasis is not on the core, but at the edge of the network, and optimising that connection from the mobile devices into the network. We achieve and maintain this position using a number of different technologies, from highly optimised antennas, to DAS, and small cells, but we are also experts in some of the least obvious areas that create problems in the network. An example would be with the connectors in the back of most antennas that have to deliver RF energy over coaxial cables to an amplification device. This is one of the most obvious points of failure in the network, because the smallest amount of degradation in that connection can result in LTE connectivity not working at the level it should. We are the market leaders in patented technology in optimising that connection and reducing passive intermodulation (PIM), which is an important characteristic in maximising performance.

The Future Network: How are you working with MNOs and other network deployers currently? Have you noticed a change in focus or appetite from them recently?

We work with MNOs worldwide. On the macro side of the business we sell directly to the MNOs, and our role in working with the MNOs is not a ‘black box’ selling initiative, it’s more one of a collaborative design approach. We host our own R&D labs and work directly with the carriers to solve the problems that they are encountering, we can quickly produce prototype solutions for them to validate new thinking and innovation, which in turn helps them to create a better network.

An interesting use case was when we turned our attention to the antenna components on a tower. We went to the MNOs with a concept we call Fast Roll Off (FRO), which allows us to optimise the roll off of the energy at the edges of the antenna, between two sectors. We prepared this technology to run a series of tests to prove that performance on the macro edges could be improved, and we managed to show significant increases in performance for users between sectors.

With regards to the shifting MNO appetite, broadly speaking, we have noticed the MNOs transferring to LTE networks (from 2G and 3G) and one of their main concerns is how the network quality can be optimised to deliver increased capacity. As FRO solves cell edge performance issues, the next challenge to address is the physical space you have to deploy the network. Increasingly, we are being asked to help solve the problem of physical space constraints in order to optimise how much coverage and capacity can be delivered. For example, one of the solutions we came up with was reducing filter technology size and weight by 3-6x, so that more technology can be deployed in a specific area. Another specific example is the ability to deliver more 2×2, and now more 4×4 multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) services to users. This involves multiple data paths to your phone, and as you multiply and add these data paths together, the performance to your mobile phone significantly improves. So we’re focused on solving very specific challenges for the MNOs and at a low cost.

The Future Network: Are you working with towercos or other neutral hosts to deploy distributed networks?

We have relationships with nearly all of the large towercos, and we have trained some 20,000 experts in the industry across all the major neutral host and third party operators, integrators, and infrastructure suppliers. For us, they are our delivery channel to the network. We engage with end customers (MNOs and enterprise organisations) because it is important for us to understand their problems so that we can apply our innovation techniques, but we very rarely sell directly to this segment of the market, when we are introduced. It tends to be through our partner network.

The Future Network: Could you please talk us through the value / supply chain from your point of view? Are there any examples of particularly innovative partnerships you can share with us?

The bulk of what we deliver into the end solution is developed in-house, but there are scenarios where the equipment needed is not part of our core business. However, it is still important for the solution; therefore, we will facilitate technology partnerships to develop some of those. For example, in the world of delivering venue solutions, the ability to deliver digital electricity is an important piece. We partnered with third parties who have delivered some very interesting technology in this area.  We then streamlined their product to fit with our delivery partners and made sure it could be deployed within a network. We packaged it into a solution, simplified the connectivity and rebranded it.

The Future Network: Are there any recent projects that you are particularly proud of and that you are able to talk us through?

For the upcoming Superbowl (US Bank Stadium) we worked with a major U.S. cellular operator to create the first stadium ever to be driven utilising digital electricity, which optimised the cost and ability to deploy,  reduced powering requirements across the entire stadium and provided a centralised backup power system for the entire cellular infrastructure, in a very large stadium.

In Asia we installed the cellular network on the Singapore Mass Rapid Transit system (SMRT). This was a system that brought enhanced mobile communications to commuters waiting on underground platforms as well as while traveling on the train through tunnels and other types of topography. The solution we opted for in this instance was a DAS system. The system had to be robust enough to provide cellular communication in 18 underground railway stations and miles of tunnels connecting them. These stations and tunnels are constructed of concrete and steel, two materials that naturally hinder RF signal. The system also had to be flexible enough to support multiple carriers, and numerous bands. And finally, since the transit system runs around the clock, the on-site team had very little time to install the network.

We also worked in the Golden1 stadium in Sacramento, which is a multi-use venue, and one of the most technically advanced in the US. The owner and chairman of the stadium and his team of technology experts designed the Golden 1 Center to be the world’s most connected indoor sports and entertainment venue.  To deliver the best fan experience possible, the team wanted to ensure fans had uninterrupted access to the internet, and to each other, at speeds faster than the average household connection. In order to support this unprecedented level of mobile connectivity, the system integrator, chose our multi-band, multi-carrier DAS. One of the unique things we incorporated into this project was to camouflage the remote radio units as stones outside the venue.

The Future Network: We have seen a lot of recent network planning projects incorporating centralised systems or other approaches to optimize deployments, are you offering any solutions in this space? Can you talk us through these and explain some of the benefits to operators?

Our software defined remote unit (SDRU) is an element of our DAS product. The reason we moved towards a software defined remote unit (as opposed to a hardware defined one) is that the market has evolved to a point where different MNOs are attaching to different venues at different points in time. As a result of this you don’t need all of the frequency bands, and all of the power levels in place from day one. Some other vendors have worked on producing a modular system, so you can deploy all of the remotes and then revisit later and put additional modules in the remote locations to add the new frequency bands. Many people like this approach, but when we studied it, our competitors used a physical module approach to modularity, which means that you have to employ a lot of manpower because as soon as you add the second operator you have to go out and physically touch every node. There may be 50-300 node locations on any given site, and some will be in areas which require special equipment in order to access them. So with our solution, we designed it so that the first time you deploy it you can set only the bands and power levels that you need for that operator, and then when you’re ready to add another band (for another operator), you just turn them on via software. This approach has proven very popular and the opex savings with this model are significant.

The Future Network: You are doing a lot of work in providing smart city solutions at the moment, most recently announcing Smart Cell, which is an innovative step in providing smart city infrastructure, could you please explain your role within smart city projects?

We work a lot with partner, city authorities and those who run the infrastructure within cities. We’ve done a lot of work to help them understand how to maximise the capability of the city. There are many technologies that we are trying to prepare the cities and campuses for, so that they have an easy way to deploy these new technologies as we head towards 5G.

The Future Network: Geographically, where do you see the most interest in your services currently? 

We work worldwide and have initiatives going on around the globe. There is a lot going on in continental Europe, we have projects in key areas in the Middle East and in targeted areas in Asia. Obviously, the US is a massive market, so we spend a lot of time there, but in terms of where we focus, we go to where the growth of the networks are.

The Future Network: And finally, how do you see the future of cellular networks evolving?

I think the future of cellular networks are going to include many new technologies that are utilised together to increase the performance for mobile users. We will also see a significant increase in the types of devices that are connected on the cellular infrastructure. Also, we will see more intelligence that is embedded in the cellular infrastructure move towards the edge of the network, and as a result of that, we will see some of the new intelligence emerge as new service capabilities for day to day business operations.