Not if, when

Accelleran have a vast amount of small cell experience and have been an integral part of the 5GCity Project, which aims to build and deploy a common, multi-tenant, open platform that extends the (centralised) cloud model to the extreme edge of the network. The project, with a demonstration in three different cities (Barcelona, Bristol and Lucca), creates a ‘living lab’ for 5G technologies. Frédéric Van Durme, CEO of Accelleran, talks us through Accelleran’s history, expertise and experiences of working on this innovative project. 

TowerXchange: Please introduce yourself and your company.

I’ve been in the broadband industry for the last 15 years, coming from a background running Technicolor’s (previously Thomson and Alcatel) broadband gateway business and before that various roles in technology. Accelleran is five years old, and we created it with a team of highly skilled experts who have been working in radio access networks and small cells over the last few decades. The team don’t like me saying it, but we have around 300 years of aggregated small cell and radio access network experience in the company! 

We develop systems for network operators, infrastructure owners and the larger tier one equipment vendors out there, both the old and the new names in the market. Our mission is to bring software solutions for radio access networks in full evolution, with a single code base which can answer to any radio access network. We have a high focus on quality, coding against the highest standards such as the automotive MISRA standard, which is a unique way of developing LTE stacks, for example, and allows us to make them really productised. It takes 25% of our overall efforts to code to that kind of standard. 

As an organisation, we’re based in Belgium but have feet on the ground in the US as well as people in the UK, giving us a global reach. 

TowerXchange: Could you talk us through where you sit in the supply chain? Who do you sell your solutions to? 

Coming from our software perspective, we first integrated our carrier-grade software into small cells. We were doing it initially on 3.5GHz, that we have defined as the innovation and capacity band already years ago, then evolved to other TDD and FDD bands. In this context, we are selling our small cells to MNOs, WISPs and private LTE integrators.  Our next step is to sell the software and expertise to any type of OEM manufacturer or people who make LTE products. Our third step is specialised on virtual radio access networks, we’re a part of the leading consortia on the market. We work with MNOs, WISPs, private LTE solution providers and more and more customers; and as spectrum becomes easier to reach we see more and more solution providers who need to find their business model in a changing world. 

TowerXchange: [Outside of the 5GCity project which we’ll talk about in a moment] are you working with towercos or other neutral hosts to deploy distributed networks?

I think it’s fair to say that any sizeable towerco is looking at how to move from a colocation business model to business models around being a neutral host and network as a service. Depending on their stage of interest we’re working and/or testing with many of them. It’s been a clear trend of the last year, although maybe more accelerated in the North American market as they have a clearer view of how to get to unified spectrum. Clearly their progression depends on the towerco itself but they’re all knocking on doors and are all at different stages, from core strategies to early conversations. Beyond the 5GCity Project (which we will discuss later) there are other neutral host models we’re involved in, such as networks as a service and community networks where the neutral host is a roaming solution as well. In terms of a technical solution, we have shown a working Multi-Operator Network Slicing solution with our virtualised control plane running from a centralised neutral host data centre.  

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

This ties back to my previous answer, we’re coming from a small cell densification discussion, looking at opportunities in fixed wireless access and LTE opportunities as well. We see the increased densification bringing challenges to real estate in that there’ll be a need for neutral host solutions to solve real estate needs as the networks densify - you don’t want multiple radios on every street corner. That then becomes a de facto solution which everyone buys into. We are seeing convergence from MNOs to infra players, as they become aware that business models and cooperation models will shift. Licensing models, urban real estate and administration will have to be better tuned towards the neutral host deployments which will come. 

We don’t think from a ‘by when’ perspective, for us it’s use case-driven. For many operators there’s no reason to wait for 5G to install small cells, we start with 4G and LTE Advanced scenarios. 5GCity will make all the use cases work with low latency et cetera but there’s nothing preventing anyone from starting this in a 4G context.

Clearly, our demos at MWC this year, have caught a lot of attention from potential neutral host providers. 

TowerXchange: Accelleran has a core strength in software architecture and have focused several years of development on a scalable and fully abstracted RAN system – can you talk us through your motivators to this approach, and the capabilities and enablers of your RAN/vRAN system?

That’s our passion. We have a pragmatic view of the world which comes from the fact we believe radio access networks will dramatically change to answer all the challenges presented by 5G rollout. Everyone tends to agree that capacity will increase and densification is a must, then on the other side you have 5G use cases which will be set up with pretty monolithic forms of radio access networks. This is why we have developed a software specification which is scalable and can work in any type of architecture which a radio access network can be deployed in, be it a small cell or virtual network function which will lead to a lot of new use cases. It will separate the control plane from the user plane, and deliver quality of service for specific applications and services which aren’t possible today. 

Recent announcements at MWC are confirming this view. New consortia have been announced to work on vRAN and OpenRAN standardisation. 

TowerXchange: Accelleran have the E1000 and E4000 series solutions available to the market currently - could you please give us a high level overview of these products and their support capabilities to both operator and neutral host models?

E1000 is our product to market today. It has a focus on low power, low cost, easy install scenarios which is where disruption in densification comes, and it fits well in private LTE so you can deploy as you go. It’s also good in urban scenarios, we focussed on where we think the evolution will come. In terms of functional scope we’re a macro in a small box, a fully developed product made from high performance silicone, so able to expand to mobile edge scenarios too. E4000 is an evolution of this product which is coming to market this year but it also has a multi-carrier function which allows us more freedom in terms of what we can do with the box. 

TowerXchange: How do Accelleran view the indoor vs outdoor markets for small cells? Do you have a preference for one environment over the other, and if so why?

We have three go to market models and we’re personally focussed on outdoor and this low power, easy install capability which is our differentiator. For markets like indoor we don’t have a dedicated product. Our small form factor makes them also deployable in indoor scenarios, which already did in several projects but we are also working with other providers and solution integrators as it’s a more complex go-to-market. So we’re addressing the indoor market through our software rather than finished products. We agree the indoor market is an essential one, there is huge potential in improving indoor coverage. Our current outdoor focus is not a judgement call on the size of the indoor market.

TowerXchange: You are doing a lot of work on the Barcelona 5GCity project – could you share some of your personal insight into the project?

We like the project a lot as it’s pretty unique. It’s a real life living lab for municipalities, cities and players to deploy a 5G network in an urban environment. It’s really focussed on neutral hosts as a technology but also calls for the solutions and cooperative models which are about to be developed. It’s another way of developing and deploying networks, not driven by use cases but by the neutral host model as a platform. Cities like Bristol and Barcelona are the leaders about how to deliver models with real estate issues and radios in urban environments. It’s a good model on how to deploy in a city context.

TowerXchange: The 5GCity projects have been designed for infracos and municipalities to act as neutral hosts – with the tower community watching on with interest - do you think that this is a viable model for scaled rollout in other cities?

Absolutely, the neutral host model is the only model to deploy in the context of a smart city and beyond. In the context of 5G this is the only model for cities. How the business models will pan out is still part of the exercise, but the neutral host model will be the model used to deploy city networks. RANsharing is leading to third party infracos which see opportunities in taking over the network. There are still some steps still to take but if you look at the participants in 5GCity, it’s a long way away from an old-school monolithic approach of a complete network, but rather an agile consortium of innovative companies with a passion to re-architect the RAN in a very innovative and disruptive way. We still need to figure out the exact cooperation and business models along the way. Also the attention we received for the 5GCity Lamppost on our booth at MWC generated a lot of buzz and visitors, eager to understand the ecosystem around the ‘city neutral host model’.