The cellular industry is buzzing with small-cell fever. Within the general thrust of implementing small-cell outdoor cellular networks, backhaul is seen as one of the technical and economic barriers to deployment. Wireless backhaul technologies seemingly have the capabilities to cost-effectively overcome this barrier.
Small cells are not a new phenomenon. In 1991, analog advanced mobile phone service (AMPS) operators (1G operators) in North America successfully deployed small cells to combat debilitating congestion that was averaging 15% and severely testing customer loyalty.
In those early days, voice capacity demand—although tiny according to today’s standards—was already outstripping supply. Traditional capacity enhancement methods were either simply not available (more spectrum and carriers) or already taken to their interference limits (macro cell densification, cell splitting).
The solution that did work was to provide blanket coverage at all corners of nearly all major streets in the grid in dense urban areas, using 200-m spacing between microcells and a 100-m microcell radius. The 1G AMPS small cells were rather costly, yet the solution paid off by improving customer satisfaction and reducing churn.
