Operators could waste $500 million – around 10% of their total WCDMA base station capex – in 2011 by inaccurately siting base stations, according to network optimisation player Arieso.
Mike Flanagan, CTO of Arieso, told Mobile Europe that by using more subscriber-based information, rather than drive and walk tests, operators could site their base stations more efficiently. At the moment, he said, incomplete information means that operators risk not extracting the optimum possible performance from their network assets.
Using data extracted from its own operator customers, Arieso estimates up to 10% of that investment could be under-utilised through less than optimum positioning.
Although Flanagan estimates only 1% of base stations are flat out located in the wrong place, he said that there are more subtle variations that can lead to a loss of performance from even base stations that are in the “correct” location. These include the impact of the exact location and timing of traffic density, and the way cells are sited relative to each other.
“The placement of micro, pico, in-building cells is a big ticket item,” Flanagan said. “The limited range of these new networks makes it mandatory to get them in the right spot.”
“Network operators are doing the best they can with the tools they have available, but they need more efficient tools that show them the actual customer experience as the subscriber views it, and the impact of that upon the network,” Flanagan said.
Arieso markets network optimization and monitoring software that uses actual customer usage data to monitor the real-world impact of different handsets in precise locations, and determine their effects on network performance.
Arieso’s calculation uses data from ABI Research that anticipate operators globally will deploy nearly 80,000 W-CDMA base stations in 2011 – a predicted total base station investment of US$5.6bn in 2011.