ment that facilitates wireless communication between user equipment and a network. The multiple antennas work to expand a signal’s coverage and eliminate service gaps, boosting capacity and reducing latency. DAS-based solutions tend to utilize the same carrier licensed spectrum indoors as outdoors and can involve a good deal of dedicated premises gear, remote end components and cabling. Multi-operator small cells, meanwhile, utilize a small network of cells within a building or specific area that can be used to fill in coverage gaps. In traditional mobile networks, each operator deploys its own core network infrastructure, which includes the network elements that provide services such as call routing, authentication and billing. But through virtualization of the base station and backhaul sharing, the network of small cells can support multiple operators. Each operator receives dedicated capacity and does not need to bring spectrum of its own. Similarly, multi-operator core network (MOCN) technology enables multiple mobile network operators to share a common core network infrastructure, while still maintaining their own individual radio access networks (RANs) through which they can maintain their own brand and services. Cox Private Networks, for its part, announced last year an expansion of its solution portfolio with the launch of neutral host as a service (NHaaS) built on MOCN technology. Delivered in partnership with InfiniG, the solution “provides mobile users access to stable, high-speed cellular service in hard-to-service areas such as buildings with reflective building materials, concrete walls, or locations underground,” said Cox Private Networks. It was one of the first commercially available MOCN neutral host solutions that can service subscribers from multiple carriers on the same network. According to the companies, the MOCN solution solves similar challenges addressed by the more-prevalent DAS but at reduced cost and complexity, greater flexibility and faster time to deployment, enabling it to address many previously unserved organizations, facilities and industries. For starters, Cox Private Network’s MOCN solution is based on publicly available CBRS spectrum in the 3.5 GHz band, which is considered the “happy medium” portion of the RF spectrum in terms of offering both capacity and coverage. CBRS is centrally controlled by a network of spectrum allocation servers (SAS), which ensure all radios operate optimally with respect to the radios around them and without respect to their owner/operator. “Because they use an entirely different portion of the spectrum, CBRS-based MOCN connections are not established on the basis of signal strength,” explained executives at Cox Private Networks. “The connectivity is opportunistic, based on the best available medium. As such, they can be deployed surgically and, most importantly, where customers want the coverage.” CBRS-based MOCN neutral host also can be faster to deploy compared to DAS, which tend to require engineering, input and approval from the carrier for RF coordination. And CBRS-based MOCN networks are built upon Ethernet architectures – leveraging existing LAN switching infrastructure similar to Wi-Fi access points – and route over common public Internet connections, so there’s no need for the parallel dedicated cabling and added equipment of a DAS neutral host deployment. “CBRS-based MOCN neutral host solutions are inherently and by definition multi-tenant, which enables the ability to quickly implement and operate private cellular service over the shared CBRS radio infrastructure,” explained analysts at STL Partners. As analysts at ABI Research pointed out, neutral host networks are not new and have existed for decades, “but the solutions have never generated as much attention as they do today.” Indeed, end user organizations of all sorts are accelerating digitization projects, and rapid digitization often requires reliable wireless connectivity, they continued. When budgets are tight and the appetite to manage a network in-house is low – whether due to high inflation, rising energy costs or labor shortages – the high deployment costs of a traditional, dedicated private cellular network becomes undesirable or untenable. “Neutral hosts fill a crucial role here, ‘renting out’ the telco infrastructure needed for mobile network operators (MNOs) to sell connectivity services to numerous enterprises simultaneously,” said ABI analysts. “Neutral host solutions and managed services go hand-in-hand,” they continued, “as enterprises want to avoid high upfront costs and offload network management to another entity.” o Source: STL Partners; Cox Private Networks Neutral Host in Enterprise Cellular Revenue by Enterprise Segment (World Markets: 2023 to 2030) Source: ABI Research 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 40% 36% 33% 29% 25% 22% 5% . 68% 37% 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 1.4 1.2 1.0 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0.0 Agriculture Energy Generation Financial Services Healthcare Logistics Manufacturing Retail Stadiums & Event Venues Transport (US$ Billions) U.S. Wireless Data Over a Decade Source: CTIA 2013 3T 10T 16T 37T 53T 2X 100.1T MB 2015 2017 2019 2021 2023 Data used in 2023 Increas in data use over 2021 22 CHANNELVISION | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2024
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