5G Fixed Wireless Access:
Can FWA meet our cities needs?
Fixed Wireless Access is the earliest use case for 5G mmWave deployments. Most operators are planning to start their services with fixed wall mounted CPE before they start offering mobile services.
Wireless ISP’s will have access to 5G mmWave technologies in inexpensive or lightly licensed bands where they can offer services which are competitive to DOCSIS incumbents.
One of the more challenging aspects of these networks is understanding the practicality of offering Broadband access using Line of Sight (LOS) CPE locations.
Buildings, foliage heights & densities have a significant impact on coverage. Understanding the practicality of offering FWA in a city or neighborhood is important before any investment is spent on physical infrastructure.
This article summarizes a project we had undertaken to demonstrate that 6” high resolution DSM (Digital Surface Maps) & True Ortho imagery provided by Nearmap can be used to model outdoor CPE locations at city scale to support operators with their deployment decisions.
The plots below show the LOS possibilities to CPE placed 1m below roofline on the outside wall. The colors represent LOS from different sources to CPE locations 2m apart.
DSM with colors representing LOS from different sites
True-Ortho imagery with colors representing LOS from different sites
3D Visualization of possible CPE locations 1m below roofline from all nearby sites.
Having access to high resolution DSM is essential for operators planning to offer FWA. This data allows them to test out their business case in their target markets.
Modeling Outdoor CPE can easily be scaled to every building and site in a city
CPE Placements in all 3169 buildings on the map covered by ~1K Sites
In the figure shown above we modeled CPE placements in 3169 Buildings, 1m below roofline at 2m intervals. The colored lines represent LOS possibilities from 1069 lampposts locations provided by the City of Atlanta.
The data generated by the model was used to pick optimal lamppost locations for FWA deployments using the following constraints (can be modified based on local market needs).
Served Building should be within 200m from a lamppost.
Each Building will be served using only one CPE.
Select the optimal subset of sites from all 1,069 site locations for maximum coverage.
Optimal Lamppost locations for small cells & the buildings that they serve.
Summary Statistics:
Number of Sites : 182
Number of covered Buildings : 667
The table above shows a wide variance in the number of buildings supported per lamppost. It is crucial for service providers to spend their capital efficiently if they plan to compete with incumbents.
The site in pole position covers 15x as many buildings compared to an average site. This site is significantly more valuable than sites which cover 1-3 buildings. Operators need to rapidly identify critical sites before a land grab occurs.
Wireless ISP planning to offer service in 60/70GHz bands or those participating in Frontiers Auction 101/102 should consider using the techniques described in this article for their network deployment strategy.
Advantages of modeling FWA networks using High-Res DSM & Imagery
Optimal site selection for maximum coverage
Pre-qualify buildings based on Site locations.
Provide CPE location recommendations to field staff.
Assign serving sites based on traffic loading information.
Based on CPE location identify serving site & direction.
These analytical techniques can significantly reduce the amount of Truckroll for service provisioning while reducing uncertainty before offering service in a new territory.
Special thanks to Nearmap for providing the 6 inch resolution DSM & True Ortho imagery used for this analysis.