What is a femtocell? A guide to improving coverage
Building structures, obstacles, and geography can impact the range, strength, and reliability of cellular coverage in buildings and offices. This interference can make it hard for employees to talk and connect using phones, laptops, or tablets. As a solution to this problem, femtocells provide dependable and reliable indoor coverage in environments where physical barriers make it difficult to send and receive signals from a nearby cell tower.
What is a femtocell?
A femtocell is a small, low-power cellular base station designed to enhance network coverage and improve signal quality in areas with weak cellular signals. Much like a hotspot, a femtocell transmits and receives cellular signals to and from mobile devices that are then transported via the service provider to broader network infrastructure.
How femtocells improve signal strength and coverage
To understand how femtocells work and improve cellular connectivity, it's important to understand the difference between coverage and capacity.
Coverage is how far a signal can travel from a cellular base station to a mobile device. An adequate signal enables users to make and receive calls, send texts, and browse the internet. But the further you get from the base station the weaker that signal becomes, which is common in rural areas where towers are fewer in number. Cellular signals also grow weaker with each object they pass through. Some materials like concrete and tempered glass-even geographical features like hills and canyons-may stop signals completely.
Then there's capacity. Capacity refers to how much data can travel over a network at one time. A network with many users sending and receiving data at the same time may experience a slower connection or none at all. If your device has ever shown full bars but you were unable to send a text, make a call, or load a web page, then it's likely the network was at maximum capacity even though your phone said you had coverage.
Femtocells boost cellular strength and coverage in indoor areas where cellular connectivity is spotty or nonexistent, providing access where employees or customers might not otherwise have it. They're also LTE/5G capable, offering greater capacity and lower latency than previous cellular technology.
Advantages of Femtocell
*Secure, reliable coverage
*Greater voice quality
*Increased battery life for mobile devices
*IoT and 5G/LTE capable
1.Introduction
The Modle: BTH-10 5G Femto(integrated small base station) is a base station equipment developed based on FPGA and software defined radio (SDR) platform, which complies with 3GPP standards and supports Ethernet and SFP optical port backhaul. This equipment can be used for both operator networks and various private network scenarios.
2.Features
*Based on the 3GPP 5G-NR Rel-15 standard.
*Supports N28/N41/N48/N77/N78/N79 frequency bands, with a maximum operating bandwidth of 100MHz.
*Web-based management for convenient and intuitive operation.
*Network management functions for system administration, monitoring, and maintenance.
*Supports 1Gbps RJ-45 and 2.5Gbps SFP interfaces for data backhaul.
*Supports the following modulation schemes for downlink and uplink:
QPSK, 16QAM, 64QAM, 256QAM.
*Supports GNSS synchronization and IEEE 1588v2 synchronization.
*Supports 32 RRC active users, 64 RRC connected users, and 16 VoNR users.
*Currently supports 2 transmitter channels and 2 receiver channels. (expandable to 8T8R)
*Achieve DL 800Mbps and UL 230Mbps throughput.
(The frame structure is DDDDD DDSUU)
*The whole device power consumption less than 35W.
*The heat dissipation method adopt natural heat dissipation and silent operation.
3.Application scenarios
5G Femto has a small size and flexible deployment, without being limited to the location of macro base stations. They can be flexibly deployed in densely populated areas, targeting to complement the weak coverage areas and coverage blind spots of macro base stations and ensure signal quality. In hotspots, due to their low power, small base stations can reuse frequencies within a smaller range, increasing capacity and helping to divert traffic from macro base stations.
Relevant statistics show that 80% of mobile services occur in indoor scenarios, while many 5G service scenarios involve indoor applications.
5G Femto can solve the following problems in application scenarios:
*Overall capacity and coverage issues
For small bus stations, small supermarkets, and small office buildings with no more than 5 floors, 5G Femto can meet the overall capacity and coverage requirements in scenarios with a medium building area.
*Local area hotspots issues
For high-traffic areas, such as universities and sports venues, 5G Femto can address local area hotspots and alleviate network congestion.
*Penetration coverage issues
For some areas of isolated buildings, which have relatively independent coverage targets and are separated from other areas within the building by walls with high penetration loss, 5G Femto effectively solve signal coverage problems.
*Deep coverage issues
For some buildings with large indoor areas on each floor and many internal partitions, outdoor coverage can result in high operating costs and prone to co-channel interference. 5G Femto can provide in-depth signal coverage for such areas.
*Low latency and high speed issues
With the gradual widespread adoption of applications such as ultra-high-definition livestreaming, video conferencing, online education, cloud gaming, and even virtual reality, the demand for networks with high data rates, low latency, and extensive capacity has become an essential requirement. 5G Femto are capable of meeting these needs.
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