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The Altobridge Remote Community Solution – A viable and cost effective solution for MNOs.
A perfect acquisition that will benefit remote communities in need of cost-effective, intelligent mobile communications, took place on the very last day of 2009, when Altobridge acquired the Mobile Network Solutions division of ADC. There is a natural synergy between the two, with world-leading software solutions from Altobridge and a groundbreaking base station and switching product portfolio from the ADC division. This means a coming together of two pioneering entities resulting in a company of almost unrivalled experience in delivering viable, intelligent mobile communications solutions into emerging market remote regions.
The Key Challenge up to now…
Expensive satellite transmission used for backhauling calls, that’s the major barrier still facing Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) the world over when considering mobile service roll-outs to remote user groups – but not anymore.
Solving the challenges of transmission – and many others besides – is the Remote Community Solution from Altobridge, which delivers a more ‘Intelligent’ Base Transceiver Station (BTS) site to the MNO than any other solution. And it’s now a total solution of Altobridge software integrated with the hardware of its new BTS Pod enclosure.
As a result of what Altobridge CEO, Mike Fitzgerald, calls a “perfect acquisition”, Altobridge can now offer customers a broader portfolio of products and services resulting in even greater cost savings than their previously separate systems. These new offerings include both a complete end-to-end network solution and network extensions by interfacing with existing networks, both are available with Fully Managed Services.
Mike Fitzgerald said,
“When we acquired the Mobile Network Solutions division of ADC, along with its full hardware portfolio, we acquired the perfect hardware solution with which to integrate our software technology. By doing so, we can now offer MNOs the most intelligent, turnkey system for delivering lower transmission costs, lower power consumption and optimum returns from the delivery of mobile services to remote communities.”
Green Peas in a Pod
Just like green peas in a pod, the new Altobridge BTS Pod enclosure at the heart of the Remote Community Solution differentiates the system from others by delivering a series of intelligent ‘green’ functions’ to the installation: Intelligent Transmission Management, Intelligent Power Management, an Intelligent Data-at-the-Edge™-of-the-network capability, and efficient handling of the BTS radio resource. All of these functions enable a compelling and unbeatable ‘green’ business case for a more cost-efficient, intelligent and profitable BTS site.
The intelligence designed into the Altobridge technology that manages and restricts the use of expensive transmission bandwidth comes from two of the company’s patented technology platforms. First is the Altobridge Split Architecture™, which ensures an ‘on-demand’ use of the satellite link when only revenue-generating traffic is occurring, and uses the lowest level of bandwidth in the industry at 5-8kbps per call. This system not only cuts transmission costs, it also cuts power consumption, which is further reduced with a ‘night mode’.
The second is the Altobridge Local Connectivity™ Platform, which enables the intelligent switching of all local calls locally at the base station or handover between base station clusters. This eliminates unnecessary transmission costs, double satellite hops and improves network quality and longer call holding times resulting in increased call revenues. As up to 70% of calls can be local, significant opportunities exist to reduce transmission costs in all areas of the network.
The systems based on these platforms have proven to significantly cut backhaul and power costs and have been successfully deployed on wireless telecoms networks, aircraft and ocean-going vessels around the world. The benefits of these two technologies combined in the Remote Community Solution with the additional intelligence embedded in the BTS Pod and including a Fully Managed Service offering and VSAT bundling, make this the most cost-effective solution for rural communities on the market. Leading mobile operators in the Far East, including Maxis in Malaysia and MobiCom in Mongolia, have been using Altobridge Remote Community solution technologies since 2007.
Green Power
One of the strengths of the Altobridge Remote Community solution is that it has one of the lowest power consumption figures on the market, but it takes intelligent power optimisation to reduce power consumption. For solar installations, the solution has an intelligent ‘Night Mode’ reducing power use at night during low traffic periods. The intelligent control of the BTS can be used to vary services and coverage at night or during periods of low power availability, with further power savings achieved through intelligent management of the power amplifier.
Altobridge Technology in Operation
Several leading MNOs in Africa, Asia, and Latin America are overcoming the challenges outlined above with the deployment of the Remote Community Solution and its technologies.
In a recent deployment, the Local Connectivity element of Altobridge’s Remote Community Solution has been put through its paces in the desert regions of Northern Africa, where the developing telecoms market is focused largely on mobile. One of the country’s three MNOs wanted to reduce satellite bandwidth use in backhaul scenarios, thereby reducing its OPEX, and has rolled out Altobridge’s Local Connectivity technology to do just that. The installation has now been in operation since the first half of 2009 and from its early deployment covering small user groups has now been expanded to cover multiple clustered sites serving, in total, some 10,000 remote-location users.
The MNO has already reported per-site savings of 20%, equating to $11,200 per E1 link over satellite, representing savings in the region of US$600 per site per month. In addition, the QoS improvements experienced by users making local calls have had a significant impact by increasing call holding times for these calls, on average, by over 100%. So, while transmission savings for the MNO are easy to prove, call revenues are also increasing without affecting the satellite backhaul OPEX.
As a result of this deployment, this Northern African MNO has seen a doubling of call holding times for local calls, resulting in increased revenues and a ‘win-win’ scenario for both the MNO and the customers.
In a further recent African implementation, the Altobridge Remote Community Solution has been deployed in the western part of the continent, close to the Sahara, where there are hundreds of remote villages with hundreds to thousands of potential users in each, as well as a growing number of Remote Enterprise campuses.
One of the main operators was looking for a low-CAPEX solution to provide exceptional service quality and generate profits and was attracted to the Altobridge Remote Community Solution for its combination of easily (and therefore cheaply) deployed BTS, with low OPEX through its ‘on-demand’ use of expensive satellite bandwidth. The solution’s low power consumption also factored into the low-OPEX equation and its Local Connectivity function, switching all local calls intelligently at the campus or village BTS, was a further important factor.
The first deployment with this MNO is an enterprise deployment of the Remote Community Solution and has been running since late 2009, providing services to an average of 250 individual users registered each day since deployment. The MNO reported that Quality of Service (QoS) has been very good with the solution’s Split Architecture ensuring that location updates and other signalling is unaffected by any satellite delay. In particular, local calls enjoy superior quality as they are not sent back and forth over the satellite link as a result of Altobridge’s Local Connectivity technology.
The second deployment with this MNO has been located in a village. This population is primarily an agricultural community. On a typical day, the average number of registered users is 80-100. On market days, user numbers increase to 120-140. ARPU for the users on this site has reached double the network average and SMS usage per user is four times the network average. (These statistics are in line with Altobridge’s experience with customers in Asia including MNOs, Maxis and MobiCom).