The 5G indoor challenge

5G will need to coexist with other RATs and drive demand for new planning tools says Ranplan whitepaper

Deployment of 5G networks across indoor and dense urban environments could fail to deliver a seamless quality user experience simply because higher frequencies are ineffective at penetrating physical walls and structures, warns Ranplan Wireless in its new whitepaper on ‘5G New Radio Network Planning’. With an estimated 80% of indoor traffic currently served by mobile networks installed in buildings, operators must find a better solution to plan and optimize their new 5G networks.

With an estimated 80 percent of data consumption taking place in built environments, ranging from Central Business Districts (CBDs), train stations and airports to shopping malls, offices and campuses, operators need to ensure they can provide ubiquitous indoor and outdoor coverage. And in order to meet 5G’s diverse requirements in terms of bandwidth, latency, mobility, connection density and data rates, 5G will need to co-exist with other radio access technologies (RATs) such as LTE-A/Pro, NB-IoT, and Wi-Fi for some time yet, says Ranplan.

“As indoor networks increase, interactions between indoor and outdoor becomes critically important. To achieve seamless service and minimize interference between external macro cells and indoor small cells and DAS, both networks need to be planned and optimized in coordination,” said Alastair Williamson, CEO at Ranplan. “To reduce the cost and implementation time of 5G NR networks, the urban environments where 5G NR will be deployed need to be modelled accurately.”

“The need of cost-effective deployment and the inter-working with existing networks based on multi-RATs, will bring the complexity of 5G NR network planning to an unprecedented level compared to previous generations of mobile networks,” adds Williamson. To fulfil what 5G promises, 5G NR needs to be empowered by key enabling technologies, including Millimetre wave (mmWave) communications, Massive MIMO and 3D beamforming, Ultra-dense small cell and heterogeneous network (HetNet) deployments, and scalable OFDM numerologies - 2N sub-carrier spacing, scalable CP, TTI, etc.

The whitepaper assesses the requirements of 5G NR network planning and presents three 5G NR planning case studies, including Fixed Wireless Access (FWA), outdoor urban HetNet deployment and stadium scenarios. To download the full whitepaper visit: https://ranplanwireless.com/wp-content/uploads/5G-NR-Planning-White-Paper-by-Ranplan-Wireless.pdf

Source: Ranplan Wireless media announcement