SpiderCloud Wireless, Inc., a provider of scalable small cell enterprise radio access network (E-RAN) systems to mobile operators, has announced the results of a research study completed by Signals Research Group. The study investigated the use of licensed spectrum in indoor environments, including inside shopping malls, hotels and airports; throughout college and business campuses and in high-rise buildings.
According to the study, up to 88 percent of licensed spectrum was “was underutilized in [business] campus buildings,” while performance tests completed on a college campus revealed that only approximately 30 percent of the spectrum was utilized indoors on average. Coverage was also determined to be unreliable in both cases, with poor to non-existent coverage found in some buildings and near-perfect coverage found in others.
In contrast, the high-rise buildings surveyed were found to be exposed to “too much coverage” from a large number of “visible cell sites,” resulting in a high interference level. Researchers determined that a cell phone could be required to “hand over as many as 51 times [while on a single floor of the building], due to the constantly fluctuating signal strength between the cells.”
Researchers also determined that in all cases, building materials had an effect on indoor coverage.
“This research proves what people’s personal experience of having poor indoor coverage at work or network congestion at the shopping mall is already telling them – the user experience of in-building coverage and capacity is at best mixed and at worst practically non-existent,” Ronny Haraldsvik, CMO, SpiderCloud Wireless, said.
“When operators attempt to use the outdoor macro network to provide in-building coverage and targeted capacity to a relatively small geographic area, this research shows that [their spectrum]…is not only being under-utilized, in some indoor scenarios [it] isn’t being used at all.” Michael Thelander, CEO of Signals Research Group, said. “By shifting the in-building mobile voice and data traffic on to an in-building solution, not only is in-building coverage and capacity improved, but there is also a direct impact on the capacity of the outdoor macro network.”
