Telefónica O2 UK has been one of Europe’s most active operators when it comes to the fledgling market for outdoor small cells, and it now aims to expand its footprint beyond London and into new “key cities and key areas” in the UK, to support 4G densification and, in time, 5G.
Pete Hollebon, who heads up small cell and microcell activities at the operator, said London now had a network of over 1,100 small cells, which was a “pioneering” deployment in Europe – a fair statement, given that the region has lagged well behind North America and parts of Asia in densifying public networks. This has been partly down to complicated and inconsistent rules about access to outdoor sites such as roofs and lamp-posts, and partly because many European MNOs still have sufficient spare 4G or 5G spectrum to be able to boost capacity in their existing macro site grid, often adding higher-grade MIMO antenna arrays to improve range.
This has been the main strategy of BT/EE, for instance, but Hollebon said, on a recent webinar about smart cities hosted by towerco Cellnex, that the market was at a “changing point”. He said: “In London, we’ve delivered a lot in comparison maybe to other European cities but we want to carry on that deployment. Whilst we’ve delivered a lot in London that’s not by any means us saying that we’ve delivered enough in London.”
He discussed the importance of finding common ground with local authorities, which may welcome improved mobile broadband quality of service, but may also be concerned about the impact on city landscapes, especially in historic districts, as well as some citizens’ concerns about supposed 5G health risks. “We need to be sympathetic to local authorities in terms of making sure that the aesthetics of those lighting columns, those structures, those assets what we would like to deploy is in keeping, is discreet,” Hollebon said.
He said that the small cell deployment would remain primarily focused on 4G capacity in busy areas for now. “The purpose of the small cell is to offload the traffic from the surrounding macrocell, which then yields greater customer benefits and customer experience”, he said, calling 4G cells the “baseline for our network”. 5G small cells will “come in time”, he added.
So far, O2 UK has used Nokia small cells in London, deploying many on street infrastructure managed by Cellnex (courtesy of its acquisition of Arqiva’s wireless sites). The roll-out started in 2017 when the operator won a long term agreement with the City of London to deploy a cellular network in the City’s Square Mile. At that time, its infrastructure partner was its own joint venture with Vodafone, Cornerstone.
Cisco has acted as system integrator on some O2 roll-outs and some wireless mesh backhaul technology came from Cambridge Communications Systems. Cableco Virgin Media provided fiber backhaul and this partnership could deepen when its merger with O2 UK is completed later this year. Karl Liriano, one of the architects of O2’s small cell strategy according to Telefónicawatch, is now leading integration planning for the planned joint venture.